Baloo and the Big Blue

Baloo needs help migrating to the Arctic Ocean! Enjoy a roguelike flappy-bird style game that lets you grow more powerful as you progress through your journey!  

This was a labor of love and even if you don't want to play the game, enjoy the world's worst trailer over there to the right --->

Game Mechanics! The Juicy Stuff

Utilizing a gravity system much like the real ocean, when in shallow waters (towards the top of the screen above the indicator to the left of Baloo) the ocean will buoy him upwards! But as he dives down into the deeps (alongside the depth indicator to the left of Baloo) the ocean pulls. him. down. to. his. doom. No just kidding! Don't worry, he's a whale, he can just swim upwards! Crisis averted.

There are no penalties for hitting the top or bottom of the screen, only for booping his snoot on the pillars! Stop that, he really doesn't like it.

Running on an energy system, Baloo gets stronger the closer to the Arctic that he gets! He also is able to find a new musical theme and a second map to swim in once he makes it far enough.

Options, Even ones you didn't know you wanted

Game too hard for you? Don't worry, there's an option for that.

Game too easy for you? Don't worry there's an option for that.

Don't want to grind? Want all upgrades now? Don't worry there's also an option for that.

Oh and the one everyone wants? You can turn off the dual gravity system to make it so the ocean ONLY lifts Baloo. No more dragging him down to his doom. Yea yea video games shouldn't mimic real life, so here we go, magic floating whales!  (This makes the game MUCH easier and I like this just as much as the dual-gravity option)

There's yet another option, this one to remove the upgrades for a challenge (but not your total meters swum), one to unlock the map early and also to read a message from the developer.  Since you're probably like me and don't read all the popups, I added the game winning message to the options so you don't have to feel like you missed it by spam pressing A.  

Controls

This game was designed for the crank, but can be played using the d-pad up and down buttons.  Pause at anytime using A or B!  This game is simple to learn, hard to master.

Miscellaneous (Yea I can spell big words)

This was made entirely within Pulp, and I will admit, I ran into some MAJOR difficulties in getting the game into a good playable state. I spent a weekend crashing my Playdate over and over so you don't have to!

Pulp has some real difficulties with loading lots of tiles overall and it really didn't like dynamic backgrounds to go with the dynamic pillars (sorry, I tried, the game just lags down to 1-4 fps and no one enjoys that, even watching grass grow is better)

This is my second game as an indie developer and if anyone wants to drop a comment and give feedback, I'd be happy to address it in this game or a future one.  I got help composing the music in the game from Krazion, and Krazion composed the main theme of the game.  I got some help on that front since the music from my first game wasn't great...some even called it "maddening".....but it was, so that's totally fair! Haha!

Don't buy this game, just make the world a little better, pay it forward sometime and if you really wanna do something with your money, give your money to Save the Whales.

Update 1.01

This fixed a typographic error for the game winning message and future messages when you have helped him finish his migration. Cheers!

Update 1.02

This fixed the total meters swum being double counted. Gotta watch those if then statements >:)