Up Boat

Main Menu
Level 1
Collect Items and Craft
Level 2

Inspiration

I live near the holy river of Ganga, where one can see thousands of trash items like plastic bottle, ice cream cups, chips packet etc. floating towards the ocean. And whenever I see these items, I always imagine some poor marine animal eating them accidentally and choking on them, or getting tangled in them. And they live way down in the seas and the oceans where no human can ever come across them to free them. This has always made me wonder "Why do we allow trash to be thrown in the rivers in the first place ?", and the answer to that is un-awareness. People don't think their small actions can cause a big impact, both negatively and positively. "It's just a small bottle, it makes no difference !" is what I hear people say when confronted. So if we can subtly suggest and inculcate these things, instead of boldly confronting their wrong doings, soon good habits will get entrenched and world can move towards a better place. So my idea with this game was the same, if I can make a whole storyline around this job of a marine scavenger where the player picks up trash which can include both valuable and non-valuable items, I can point people towards a better future where everything is recycled and we have cleaner oceans.

What it does

This concept game tells the story of a marine scavenger, who's ordinary life takes a twist when mysterious floating letters are found asking for help. The scavenger decides to investigate further into this mystery and deeper into the waters. The player has to collect floating items around in the ocean, which contains both valuable and non-valuable items, bring them to the Redpod at the end of the level and sell them. The player can also craft new useful items such as scuba suits, fins etc. from using the items collected. The player must avoid sharks, poisonous fishes, crabs and jelly fishes in their quest. Press W A S D or Arrow Keys to move around and collect all items by swimming to it. The bag in the top right corner is your inventory. It will glow red if it is full, then either use the items in the inventory, craft a new item or go to the Redpod and sell items. Finish the map with highest possible money in least possible time.

How I built it

I built it using Flutter's library Flame.

Challenges I ran into

Biggest challenge I ran into was art. I am a programmer by trade and I have dabbled into music in the past, but I have never worked in game arts or animation. So learning how to make art and animation, then incorporating them into this game was a pretty big challenge. And learning Flame was also a big part on this experience. But little by little over the last 2 months I have managed to build a functioning game.

Accomplishments that I am proud of

I built my first game ! :D Ever since I started programming in C, 8 years back in high school I have always dreamed about making my own video game, but never had the patience or courage to do so, but now here I am with a fully functioning game !

What I learned

A lot. Mostly how to make a game, and inner workings of game, how to make 2D game art, animations, Tiling, pixel art, vector calculations, the list goes on !