Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
20% off the Digital Deluxe version of Ship Of Fools in Games From Quebec event!
Attention Fools!
Ship Of Fools is currently featured in the Games From Quebec event on Steam! That means you can grab the Digital Deluxe version of Ship Of Fools which includes the game and the game's soundtrack right now with a 20% discount! Our lovely developers, Fika Productions are based in Quebec if you didn't know!
Already got the game? No worries, you will still get the discounted price on completing the bundle with the OST! 🎶
The Games from Quebec Steam Sale is an annual event that celebrates the local video game industry in Quebec— this year, it will run from February 2 to 6, 2023. The sale supports the efforts of both AAA and independent developers, who are working year-round to bring their colourful visions to life and publish games full of rich, powerful experiences for the player.
Don't be a Fool and miss out on this excellent opportunity! 🙏🏼
Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
Team17 Livestream Ship Of Fools
Join our friends at Team17 as they sail away with our Fools to face the Aquapocalypse on Stream today! 🚢
They'll be trying out the new 1.0.2 update for Ship Of Fools and saving the Archipelago, or becoming fish food in the process! 😅
Hey Fools! Developer Daniel here to bring you good news and a new update for Ship of Fools on Steam!
First of all, in the name of the whole Fika team, we want to thank each and every one of you for the amazing response we received since the release of the game. This is our first project and we are amazed to see how much you guys are enjoying what we’ve made and how Ship of Fools impacted people’s lives. We took the time to gather your thoughts and feedback to bring you a first balance and bug-fixing update that increases the quality of life and the overall stability of the game.
This update does not bring any new content, but know that we are well aware that you guys want more of Ship of Fools and that it needs a few more challenges. Stay tuned with us to see what lurks beneath the Everlasting Storm’s thick clouds…
Bug Fixing:
Fixed issue causing some achievements to never unlock
Fixed enemy kills achievements meter on steam not displaying player progress
Fixed inflated Puffy dealing no damage when exploding
Fixed the issue causing The Dark Storm curse to not update the storm counter for the guest in an online game
Fixed issue disabling Betty’s rage mode ability in an online game
Fixed trinkets shown in both inventories when players equip them at the same time in an online game
Fixed issue causing Eye of the Storm to never reappear after vanishing thus soft-locking the players
Fixed issue causing Eye of the Storm to sometimes place curses on previously placed ones
Fixed credits volume not affected by sound preferences
Fixed issue where game state could not be saved when buying upgrades (Thanks to discord user @Maximilien(Gringan) for reporting it)
Fixed warrior statuette item could reload disabled cannons by The Dark Cannon curse (Thanks to discord user @HappyReaper for reporting it)
Quality of life:
Access options from Pause menu
Unlock the sentry cannon in the armoury when Rust is saved making it upgradable in the early game
Multiple tutorial improvements making it easier for new players to pick up the game
Exploit removed:
Removed player ability to keep an item in their hands while travelling to a new destination
Removed player's ability to overcharge the Grapeshot or the Powershot cannon in an online game
Fixed reflected harpoons being able to unsocket artifacts without disabling their abilities making it possible to apply the same artifact ability multiple times (Thanks to discord user @RealGoose for reporting it)
Balancing:
Increase Lotte ammo regeneration time
Decrease Shellbie bonus stats given to loaded mags
Reduce Assault, Grapeshot, Powershot and Double Barrel cannon fire rate
Increased Sentry cannon fire rate
Increased chance of multiple flyers initiating an attack at the same time when playing coop
Reduce Buzzers, Floaters and Beakaneers attack delay
Reduce minimum spider enemy jump delay
Reduce Seablade damage
Reduce Maracas Duet damage
Reduce Phasing Clarinet damage
Reduce Resonating harp damage
Reduce The Pearls capacity bonus
Reduce The Shell damage bonus
Light Purse now gives up to 10 bonus damage
Reduce Light Spring fire rate and magazine capacity bonus
Reduce Light Powder damage and projectile speed bonus
Increase Crystal Ball magazine capacity
Increase Rage mode active time
Reduce cash point multiplier given at the end of a run
Reduce fire spreading time on deck when playing coop
Increase Heads total HP
Increase Heads damage needed to submerge its body parts
Increase Eye of the Storm HP
Now that the Stormstrider is ready to sail into the Forgotten Waters make sure that you...
Join the official Ship of Fools Discord to chat with your fellow fools and discuss all things about the game! 💬
Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
I'm Étienne! I co-founded Fika with my friends and I'm the animator and VFX artist on Ship of Fools.
Let's talk about animation! Just like Ariane said in the last dev-blog post, a lot of work and iteration needs to be done before you can find the right art direction for a game, and that counts for animation as well! Let me show you the (many) steps we took to find the right way to make things move in our game.
I focused on traditional 2D animation at university, so instinctively I decided to use that method during the very early stages of conceptualization. Taking inspiration from XCOM’s developers and how they created an all-animated "fake" gameplay video to pitch their game, we created this little 17 seconds clip called a previs (pre-visualization). Everything is animated frame-by-frame.
Some good ideas, some bad ones, funky little Fool designs and an isometric boat! This previs video, while being a very useful clip early on, took SO much time to create. It became clear to us that using traditional animation for our main characters wasn't the brightest idea for our first game. But that’s why we try things!
Here is the same Todd design you saw in the previs, but this time Todd is a puppet rigged in a software called Toon Boom Harmony. I was still trying to use the tools I was accustomed to and Harmony is what I learned to animate with originally. It looks fine, we even re-did the puppets in the same software after Ariane redesigned the Fools.
As the art direction for the game was getting clearer, we realized that Harmony wasn't offering us enough liberty to obtain the render style our artists were giving their illustrations. We wanted more details, more textures. Hence came Spine!
Spine is a wonderful software that allowed us to easily rig high-res illustrations to keep the level of visual polish our characters needed to fit their environment. Todd and Hink were fully animated in Spine, as were some enemies. But following some development shenanigans and technical tests, we decided to move again. We took our Todd and our Hink, our animations and our designs, and we moved to the 3D realm of Autodesk Maya...!
😯
Yes! Everything in Ship of Fools is animated in a 3D environment. Marc-André, our lovely Tech Artist, joined us during production and his skills with rigging in Maya were too valuable to ignore. Integration in Unity was also a lot smoother and we had access to all the data from the rigs, textures and materials. We finally found our animation home!
A lot more could be said about the animations in Ship of Fools, but that's it for now! I've rambled long enough. Hope you liked this little sneak peak at us learning to make games. And we are not done learning! Thank you all so much for the love and support, that's why we do it ♥️
Happy holidays, enjoy a complimentary clip of me doing refs for the paddle attack as a gift
Now that the Stormstrider is ready to sail into the Forgotten Waters make sure that you...
Join the official Ship of Fools Discord to chat with your fellow fools and discuss all things about the game! 💬
Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
I'm Ariane, 2D artist and co-art director on Ship of Fools. 🌊
When making a game, the team spends almost more time in conception than actual production. A LOT of content is created to find the right direction, so we want to show you a little bit of what goes on behind the scenes.
Designing the boat was a particularly hard task to tackle. There were a lot of aspects to keep in mind. 🤯 - It's an incredibly small surface to hold all of the game’s combat mechanics and there are A LOT of player actions happening at once! It was a bit of a puzzle to place each component. We had to keep everything readable and make sure player movement between the cannons and pedestals was fluid. - The boat needs to be the right size, so the player doesn't feel claustrophobic, all the while leaving enough screen space for enemies. - It needs to look good! It's something you always have right in your face (literally always in the center of the screen), so it must be nice to look at but not too distracting.
Boat 1: The isometric rust boat 🚤
The first prototype of the game was in an isometric view. We were still exploring in what kind of universe the fools were living so the vibe of the boat was very different. The ship was old and patched with scraps. It was steampunk inspired with a post-apocalypse vibe. It’s pretty surprising looking back that the base was there even in the very first pass: Todd & Hink, cannons, holes to repair, pedestals, and ammo boxes (that became bomb boxes).
Boat 2: The cute square boat ⛵
We changed the game view to top-down for various reasons, and so the square boat appeared. I still think this version is cute and whimsical. It fits with the Fools' design… who are, well, not the most threatening sailors. We kept the colour palette but went back to the drawing board because the growing game design needed a bigger boat.
Boat 3: Baby Stormstrider appears! 🌪️
We wanted to add a bit of space for some paddle action fighting crawling mobs on the deck. At the same time, the story behind Ship of Fools was becoming more apparent, and we needed a more magical-looking boat that looked capable of navigating through a demonic storm. At this stage, it was quite clear what we wanted, so we made small variations of the same design to really nail the final Stormstrider.
Boat 4: Stormstrider_final_finalfinal
VOILÀ! Here's the boat as you know it. We worked real hard at making sure our 3D boat didn’t clash too much with the 2D look of the game, and we’re quite happy with the finished product. We still have some ideas in store to improve it even more, but therein lies the beauty and the curse of designing a game... it's never really finished!
I hope you liked reading the first concept art dive-in! Let us know what you would like to learn about in the next one. ♥
Now that the Stormstrider is ready to sail into the Forgotten Waters make sure that you...
Join the official Ship of Fools Discord to chat with your fellow fools and discuss all things about the game! 💬
Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
Make the most of that fresh sea air of the Archipelago and get those lungs ready for a good old-fashioned Sea Shanty, Ship Of Fools style in this Ship Of Fools Singalong with our launch trailer performed originally by The Longest Johns!
We'd love to see your duets with out sea shanty so make sure to share them with us!
Now that the Stormstrider is ready to sail into the Forgotten Waters make sure that you...
Join the official Ship of Fools Discord to chat with your fellow fools and discuss all things about the game! 💬
Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
We need your help! The Steam Awards 2022 are rapidly approaching, much like the Aquapocalypse approaching the Great Lighthouse!
You can help us greatly by nominating Ship Of Fools for the Better With Friends award today, and make your favourite set of Fools become award-winning Fools! 🏆 Imagine how good the Stormstrider would look with a trophy on it! 🤔
Now that the Stormstrider is ready to sail into the Forgotten Waters make sure that you...
Join the official Ship of Fools Discord to chat with your fellow fools and discuss all things about the game! 💬
Played the game? Make sure you've left us a review! Let us know your feedback and thoughts via the Steam Review system! We really appreciate each review we receive!
