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What is Skyland Online?

Skyland Online is a massively multiplayer online competitive sandbox. Grow crops, harvest crystal, and steal stone from other players to build up your island! Take on other players to become the sky's most feared pirate, all while fending off goblin attackers!

100% built, coded, and illustrated by Team Hot Nenjine in 48 Hours

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Resources
Crops : Crops can be used to build more farms, or to make turrets to increase your firepower.

Stone : Stone is what makes up the body of your island. Attack other players to get more, and build up your island's terrain!

Mana : Harvest mana crystals scattered around the world to build up your shield. Watch out, because missing this might be fatal!

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Upgrades

Farms : Farms grow crops, the lifeblood and engine of your production line. Cost: 5 Crops Turrets : Turrets are your main means of attack against the many other denizens of Skylands. Cost: 3 Crops Tower : The tower is like your island's control center. If the tower gets wiped out, then you're done for! However, you can upgrade your tower to increase how many of each resource you can hold. Cost: ??? Stone

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Controls

WASD / Arrow Keys : Movement

Mouse : Shoot / Build island

Enter : Toggle Fullscreen

Scroll Wheel / QE : Zoom in/out

Note: Press C at any time in game to view these controls.

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  • Riuku
    Lv. 19

    How awesome to make an mmo for a jam game! Ambitious for sure but you pulled it off, so great job you all!

    There were a few things I think could be improved about the UI. It's not very clear what the bottom left number means (I did figure it out though) and I would've liked to see the costs of each buildable thing in game. And it felt a bit confusing to join the game because I had no way of knowing if there were any other people online - maybe a list of active players would be useful or maybe even show arrows on the sides of the screen that point towards other players?

    It was fun playing with everyone during Peter's stream. Despite the connectivity hickups it was all fun in its chaos :)

    Jam Royale
    Submitted

    Jam Royale

  • SpritePainter
    Lv. 21

    This is a very ambitious project to take on, and the execution was really well done. The animations and feel of the weapons were really satisfying. It would be cool to have more things to interact with in the world, but what you were able to get done is super impressive. Great work!

  • A-DSL
    Lv. 2

    Whew, I had a feeling I visited this game past the time where everyone was playing it :( it was a little sad for me, especially since I was having fun with the terraforming! It didn't feel very intuitive due to the lack of tutorialization* or logic (although let's be honest, having a tractor dig up the ground from the bottom of your island is also fun in its own way), but it also had a fun sense of freedom to it that games with more 'logical' rules don't tend to have. If I want to make my island shaped like a helicopter landing pad, put 10 cannons on the surface and have a sail around? I can go right ahead and do that! Was a nice little bit of fun. Shame I couldn't fight anyone else though :(

    *And to be fair, completing a game with fully-functioning online in a gamejam timeframe? That's a crazy feat in of itself!

    • Hessery
      Lv. 10
      Hessery Coder of Skyland Online

      2yrs ago

      Hey, thanks!

      The bots were meant to be fully operational before the end of the jam for something to fight if there was no one online, but it didnt make it in, in time.

  • Tydecon Games
    Patron

    image
    Aaaaaaahhhhhh!

    It took me a lot longer than it should to realise that you can remove your island ground to get some rock, especially because there was nobody online at the time of me playing so it seemed to be no other way to get this - I think some hover over instructions for things like costs and what they produce, and more ways to gather rock, would make a world of difference here.

    But, nitty gritty aside, on a positive note, it is massivley ambitious to do an online game and I am so impressed that you've accomplished that. The graphics and design all work well together and are charming. The gameplay itself is unique and interesting and it's really well executed. I think a lot of the enjoyment of this game just tends to hang in the balance of if you have other people online to join you - incredible feat which is a lot to teeter on a small audience for sure, but really well made all the same :) good job!

    • dreamcastgh0st
      Lv. 2

      Thank you for your feedback!

      Yeah, tooltips would probably have been a big help, or at the very least, a more detailed instructions screen. It's good to hear you liked the game, though-- and like we've been saying to other people, if you want a chance to play it with some other actual players, just contact us! Hit me up on discord, Cy#4862, or just leave a reply letting us know when you'll be on. But be warned-- I don't hold back on anyone >:D

  • baku
    Patron

    Always impressive whenever someone makes games with onilne features, and especially so when it's a literal mmo!

    I had some trouble getting the game playable. It seems to absolutely hate my internet connection. The game lags a ton and often loses connection constantly. My internet is extremely slow, mind you, 20 down and 2 up, but other online games run just fine. Is this game sending huge amounts of data constantly or something? xD After bashing my head at it for a while, I tried doing network tethering off my phone, whose connection is like 10 times my PC's wired connection. Finally the game ran smoothly.

    It took me a bit to figure out how to play the game. I didn't know I should use the bulldozer option on the dirt tiles of my island until I randomly noticed a differently shaped island in a screenshot. I never met any other players online, only bots, so I couldn't gather more stone than what spawned on my island..

    I played for a while a few days ago and just tried again, to see if the connection was better and if I could find some other players but no :( I'm sure it's a lot of fun under the right conditions, it definitely feels like the foundation is there for that!

    • Brian LaClair
      Patron
      Brian LaClair Developer of Skyland Online

      2yrs ago

      So glad you got to try it, Baku! So sorry about the data issue... Yup, it's sending way too much. I coded the server and had some other folks plug in the destructible terrain code and we were just rushing around from then until the end - never enough time for me to go "wait a minute.... why are we sending this every frame?!" https://i.imgur.com/rigHgoA.png

      I've been really surprised at how well most connections here seem to be handling it, so that's good!

      Feel free to send me an email at brianlaclair@gmail.com and I'll at least jump on and play with you at a reasonable time! We're also gonna jump on during Peter's stream next Sunday if you wanna join then :)

  • Kyon
    Lv. 25

    Really nice! I liked the artstyle and the smooth zooming in/out. I did get a couple of connection errors, and when I got reconnected my island looked different with holes in them. I did come across a player I think but they were a lot faster than me and I don't know how or why. Maybe I had too many cannons? Does that influence your speed? I'm also not sure what the bots do, they didn't give me any stone or anything.

    Super fun concept! Would really like to see this more fleshed out/polished one day. Well done!

    I.S.Land
    Submitted

    I.S.Land

    • Hessery
      Lv. 10
      Hessery Coder of Skyland Online

      2yrs ago

      Hey, were glad you played our game!

      Due to some poor networking choices (mostly ones of my own ha ha), every frame you send and receive the island data of every player online, and although it is an easy fix, it couldn't be added in on time.

  • Hokori
    Lv. 12

    I had played this earlier in the week with one of my teammates but decided to get a small group of four together to play it and see how it went. The online was seemless and incredibly impressive for a 48 hour jam. As we were playing, I was building up a super island and my friends were noticing that for some reason I was moving faster than them. We did all sorts of experimenting with FPS, monitor refresh rates and it seemed to make a difference. I was using 144hz and had high client fps, and once they increased their refresh rate we seemed to be moving at the same speed. One of my friends limited their fps and their island was moving extremely slowly. Not sure on the details of all that but thought it was interesting.

    As for the gameplay itself - I think the base idea of building your island, adding more cannons and hunting down other islands to be a pretty fun loop. Sometimes I did feel like people were being a bit spawn camped and occasionally had someone respawn next to me a few times which lead to their instant death. I tried building the crops a few times but I felt like I was better off just building a super island of cannons and bricks roaming around like a death machine. I had a lot of fun playing it online with my friends, not something I can typically say about gm48 games! The game also had a very clean look that I felt fit the gameplay really well.

    Overall, extremely impressive that you managed to implement something like this in 48 hours. Great job!

    • dreamcastgh0st
      Lv. 2

      Thanks for the feedback! Interesting that you didn't get a lot of use out of the crops, for me they were almost necessary. I'm glad to see that you got a different playstyle out of the game than I did, it's always cool to see how people take what you make and bring it in different directions!

      The respawning thing is definitely something that could be improved on. I've heard similar stories from a lot of people, and had it happen to me a few times-- it's easy to quickly take someone new out with your firepower advantage.

      As for the fps stuff, I guess we never really decoupled time-based things (like movement speed) from the framerate. Hindsight 20/20, but I hope it isn't too big of a drag. I am, however, really happy to hear about all the experimenting you did in game with your friends to find that out! Like I said earlier, always super cool when someone has fun with something you made in an unexpected way. Thank you!

      • Hokori
        Lv. 12

        I never noticed the FPS issue until my friends were posting out how much quicker I was than them. I didn't think it was a drag or anything like that, more just a funny observation that was made and something that we started experimenting with. We had a lot of fun messing with the game and trying stuff out, so I would say that we had a good experience!

        • Brian LaClair
          Patron
          Brian LaClair Developer of Skyland Online

          2yrs ago

          As the person who wrote the netcode... this is fascinating, haha.

          I took a quick look and can't figure out why it would be doing that but I love / hate it.

          So glad you enjoyed the game!!

  • Ethan Wake
    Lv. 10

    This looks great and I'd love to play, but immediately after typing my username, I am met with "Could not connect to server... retrying connection" and it just hangs there forever. I've restarted the game several times, but no luck. Any suggestions?

    EDIT: It works now! Real feedback below. :)

    • Brian LaClair
      Patron
      Brian LaClair Developer of Skyland Online

      2yrs ago

      Hey Ethan, so sorry about that! Looks like our server software didn't correctly reserve the port when it last started after a crash (who would have thought that I wouldn't have coded a case for that in during a 48 hour time limit, haha). It should be back up now!

      • Ethan Wake
        Lv. 10

        Yes! It works now, thank you! At first I just floated around shooting bots (do they give you supplies? I killed several but didn't seem to gain anything), but then someone else popped into the game and we battled a few times, which was a lot of fun. Rebuilding your broken island in the heat of battle, adding a cannon or two, and earning a comeback victory is so satisfying.

        The island physics made it feel appropriately floaty, yet also so huge that it can't move too quickly. I love the art style, and the switch from gentle ambient music to fast-paced battle music is a nice touch. Not to mention the fact that it's a freaking MMORPG made in 48hrs (I still haven't even figured out how to code online multiplayer in my spare time haha). Very impressive work!

        • dreamcastgh0st
          Lv. 2

          Glad that you liked it! Yeah, the bots were sort of a last-minute addition. The plan was for them to give you stone when there were no other players to fight online for it. Glad it didn't effect your experience and that you had a good time!

          And yeah, that music is from Brian. He really is some kind of wizard...

  • CrashB1111
    Lv. 17

    Interesting game with a significant amount of content made for the 48 hours! Well done!

  • Chris
    Patron

    This was really cool, I liked zooming in close on the island

  • Happysquared
    Lv. 15

    Brilliantly done. Can't believe a game with online multiplayer like this can be done in 48 hours! That's incredible.

    I love the idea of growing an island and battling it out. Super fun concept. Harvesting resources... blasting people... such good fun.

    It was a little difficult to understand at first. The cannons firing while you're trying to do econ tasks and build is a little distracting. Wish the tile placement was a little easier to do.

    Took awhile to understand the crystals recharged your shield. I was shooting at them the first time I spawned in and wondering why they weren't "breaking". Some player feedback for your actions would be nice there.

    Cannons were very satisfying to use. The land management of figuring out where to put your cannons and grow farms was fun. That being said, I wish there was more econ stuff to do. There were instances were crops didn't feel like they were harvesting and the bots didn't feel like they were dropping stone. Would love to see more of the econ side of things built out. I didn't see a lot of benefit to building crops out more vs. just cannon-ing it up.

    Honestly super super impressive to get all this done. I had so much fun blasting my teammate and playing against each other. So many gm48 jam games I've played I've thought: Oh this would be fun in multiplayer. I can't believe there is one that has actually done it!

    Also wonderful take on the theme. When I think of "Island" I definitely think a little on resource management and gunning it up for tower defense. This combined it so wonderfully with a multiplayer I enjoy an will definitely be getting back in to play more!

    (Had a minor connection issue where the server was not reconnecting me but I restarted the game and managed to get in.)

    • Brian LaClair
      Patron
      Brian LaClair Developer of Skyland Online

      2yrs ago

      Hey there! So glad you got to try it - I actually played with you for a little bit ( and probably caused the connection issue by checking on my server too much, to be honest haha )

      There are certainly a lot of things that we were hoping / and or trying to get to that are half-built in the game (and some that are disappeared in the game code but were being worked on). The first GM48 game that Hessery and I did together was a strategy tower defense-esque game, and that's where we were really hoping this would go... but there's a TON to this whole concept and I'm proud of what we were able to do in 48 hours!

      Thank you for all of the thoughtful feedback... we'll certainly be coming back to this one to touch a lot of things up and get it out the door somewhere for real :)

      • Happysquared
        Lv. 15

        Haha yeah I wondered if that was a dev I was playing against! I asked my teammate to jump on the same time I did and went double teaming stuff for a bit though hoping to get more of us on at some point to duke it out. Once again, nice job!

  • 2102
    Patron

    This is a really impressive feat for just 48 hours. All in all, the game wasn't the most fun since I just got destroyed immediately by another player each time, but I'm sure he was having fun so that's not really the game's fault. Having a few more options and making the cannons not disappear when shooting down on your own island would be nice. Definitely a runner-up for most impressive!

    • Kyle Landon
      Lv. 11
      Kyle Landon Artist of Skyland Online

      2yrs ago

      Yikes! Sorry that was your experience jumping in but thanks for the feedback. We noticed that we stood a better chance if we started our islands at the same time and competed to build up and fight. (Or, if you have a friend to join, make an alliance and take down the biggest player on the server.) What kind of options do you think could have helped? Like everyone else, I can imagine, we wanted to add 100 more things to our game but ran out of time; upgraded cannons, pulse shields, and more effects just to name a few. Thanks again for playing!

      • 2102
        Patron

        I was thinking maybe a way for the cannons to keep shooting automatically at other islands while you built resources on the island. They just kinda shot wherever I was clicking to build, and it made me defenseless against the other players. At least having one weapon type that did that would be nice. Other than that, just more types of weapons, upgrades, and resources would be cool.

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    2yrs ago

    Not much direction given to new players in-game. If you were to polish some things up this would be a good online browser game.

  • Reposer
    Lv. 1

    Hey there!

    Fun little concept, well put together given the time worked on it. With that in mind, some thoughts on what I'd consider to be improved (I don't expect you're planning to work on this more, but maybe can help in the future?)

    1. Controls are generally fine, though I feel if you could select your 'Item' with numbers, it would flow a lot better. Say you hit 1, you can place crops, 2 cannons, 3 blocks and so on. Would also be handy if you could place blocks continuously, maybe as a swap to build mode vs attack mode, or similar. Either one would be handy to help allow building quickly, which is definitely a must for a game like this.

    2. I feel like death comes way too easily - the idea is to make the island bigger, but doing so in a traditional manner means very little. You can have 100 cannons, and the biggest island on the map - but one guy with a cannon above you can wipe you out in seconds, with no way to retaliate.

    3. Along those last lines, it would be nice if there was some way to attack from below that was consistent. As it is now, it seems like whoever is above the other automatically wins - cannons can't shoot very high, you can't catch up to an opponent going up as they're the same speed, and you can't escape for the same reason. The game is very much based on pure positional luck, as opposed to outmanuervering your opponent, or even simply having more resources gained. Perhaps smaller islands move faster, thus rewarding 'riskier' play? But of course, that change would mean a bigger island would still need some way to actually fight back, so maybe a different cannon type that hits high - unsure, just some thoughts!

    4. Only other major thing I noticed is that magic is simply unfun to collect - and because of the way combat ends up working here, doesn't feel very rewarding most of the time. If they bounced a lower distance away, or simply didn't at all, that would likely be preferable. Maybe making mana easier to collect, but in lower amounts more spread across the map could help. It can take a while at times to find any.

    Again - GREAT stuff, really fun concept and don't expect more from it given the time constraints, nor expecting an 'update' of any sort. Just thought I'd give my 2 cents on what I noticed while playing.

    Great work guys!

    • dreamcastgh0st
      Lv. 2

      Great feedback! As you might have suspected, getting this game working at all was a mini miracle in of itself, so we didn’t have a lot of time to iterate on the original build for balance. These are all pretty accurate from my experience playing, and the in depth analysis of where it falls short is a lot of help. Thank you!

  • AlexInCube
    Lv. 3

    you use GmNETengine?