Fractal Sailor
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Fractal Sailor is an experimental, atmospheric horror tech demo where you take the role of a lone sailor navigating a hovercraft through a dark and mystic fractal environment. Your objective is to refuel and reactivate abandoned stations that have collected rare resources from these fractals.
However, you are not alone...
Survive for as long as possible and immerse yourself in this chilling experience!
The demo showcases the technical capabilities
of the Raymarcher Renderer.
Take a look at the performance benchmarking here.
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Very cool tech demo despite my atrocious abilities at piloting the ship XD. I only wish I could've ran the game with higher settings, because it looks awesome, and seeing the environment shift as you explore it was wild. I unfortunately did not escape, my bad piloting skills made getting away from the creature very difficult. Can't wait to see where this demo leads, definitely will be keeping an eye out for future updates.
This game has rekindled my love for gaming. reminding me of why I fell in love with it in the first place.
I appreciate the accessibility options in this game. allowing players of all abilities to enjoy the experience.
Un Entorno Fractal Oscuro y MÃstico
Great as a visual tech demo.
However, as the mechanics currently stand, it's hard to enjoy the visuals while trying to play the game. Having the light on is basically a death sentence, and without it all you see are dark undulating shapes. I'd recommend changing up how the monster works, maybe significantly reducing its sight radius. It also often tracks you whether you have the light on or not.
Finally, are you expected to actually get out at the end? I kept going for a while after refueling all stations and eventually just got bored.
I almost made it... I refueled all 4 stations but that goddamn monkey squid grabbed med JUST when I was done.
Good game btw;)
Unfortunately there are no English subtitles for my video, but you can just enjoy these scared screams :)
Si disfrutas con los videojuegos de terror en primera persona y además de manera intensa, con nuestro GAMEPLAY te enseñamos por qué con este FRACTAL SAILOR pasarás MUCHO MIEDO. Con este Short Horror Game by Matej Vanco, asumes el papel de un marinero solitario que navega en un aerodeslizador a través de un entorno fractal oscuro y mÃstico. Tu objetivo es repostar y reactivar estaciones abandonadas que han recolectado recursos raros de estos fractales. Sin embargo, no estás solo... ¡Sobrevive el mayor tiempo posible y sumérgete en esta escalofriante experiencia! Añade este Videojuego a tu WishList y Apoya a los Desarrolladores aquà | https://propagant.itch.io/fractal-sailor #fractalsailor #matejvanco #itchio
Keep getting tracked down by the creature even when I navigate solely by radar. Practically impossible. Fun concept otherwise.
Picking up the torch left by YEDOMA GLOBULA?
They sure feel similar. Though YG looked better, it didn't have much gameplay yet and then development was disrupted by the war in Ukrain...
Curious to see whether this works with UEVR, VR was never an option for YG's custom engine.
Well, the game design is totally broken in this tech demo, I couldn't complete the last station because the so called creature was camping it all the time and it was tracking me despite my light was turned off, it was just patrolling with much faster speed than my ship could go. And after I was finally able to power the station, I was greeted with a text telling me to find the exit, completely hiding the view as the game was continuing in the background and the creature detector was signaling that it's close to me. After the screen was gone I wasn't able to control anything because the creature was already damaging my ship and this was my last life. So I was killed by a cutscene, that's just bad.
The contributing to SDF and raymarching graphics is great anyway, but the developer should consider to pay more attention to the game design if he wishes to include such punishing mechanics in tech demos.
Awesome! <3 <3 This was so cool I couldn't find the exit in the end (⇀‸↼‶) but it was so fun!
It's oddly hypnotic, and weirdly comforting. There's something cushiony and womb-like about it. Ever seen the crochet art installations of Toshiko Horiuchi-MacAdam? Haha
will this have a multiplayer? i would love to sail with buddies the the fractal seas getting scared shitless
It's a horror game.
Why does everything need to be multiplayer?
"Environmental Horror"
The environment would be ruined if it sounded like a COD lobby, lol.
I feel like you're missing a lot of nuance if the only states you have experienced are "single player" and "COD lobby" with nothing inbetween
Very cool, though I was a bit disappointed there is no collision with the fractal geometry, would make navigating the world more interesting by having to deal with random changes to the layout. It would also require tighter ship controls.
The game is strangely beautiful and has an interesting atmosphere. It looks very promising.
I think this is the closest thing to going into the warp in 40K
this looks so sick man
The mouse controls are upside-down. Can you please fix them?
Great work so far! It's like if H.R Giger and H.P Lovecraft teamed up. I had trouble figuring out how to refeul. Perhaps adding that to the tutorial? Overall, I enjoyed this a lot. Can't wait for the full release.
looks cool but theres no real reason for me to be doing anything
man stfu
😂
So how do you pick the ship parts?
It was fun, I enjoyed playing it but it seemed the enemy agro was a bit off, even when hearing the creature and making visual contact from a ways off I had my light turned off and it still got me, I'm not sure what I was going wrong but I hope that this was just a fluke and that the final version is a lot better
Very atmospheric! Gives me the best kind of Subnautica/Dark Bramble flashbacks.
Testing it in VR and while the Unity version doesn't support any generic VR Injectors, ReShade+Deph3D can read the depth buffer just fine and runs okay at max settings, but the buffer only contains the ship/enemy/stations.
Would it be possible to have the raymarcher/shaders store the ray depth?
Was awesome experience! Atmosphere felt thalassophobic at times when it would open up and felt like I was in a abysss. Couldn't figure out where to go after I refueled all the stations but I just picked a corner and went outwards and spent probably 30 mins just looking at the pretty patterns and lighting on them as they turned to thin hair like strands stretching out in waves. Very beautiful :D
The demo is promising but as it stands it's just impossible. The maneuverability of the boat is a bit frustrating at first but it's possible to be used to it. But "this motherf#cking squid bastard" (as we're gonna name it) is just omniscient. I mean after being attacked it seems like he knows exactly where you are and it just come near you position "as an hasard". So it was just impossible for me just to do more than one of the stations because of the monster.
PS : yes my light were off
This looks and feels really similar to Yedoma Globula.
I cant see this comment on the comment section for the game
Game looks great, graphics look good! Some geometry gets a little thin when inspected closely and causes pixel flickering, the game itself feels a bit strange as the monster kindof just magnetizes to you even if you have your light off, not much ability to escape as far as I could tell. The turning of the ship also was disorienting because the tilt was very aggressive, and bouncing off the station was annoying.
wow! reminds me of another really similar project called Yedoma Globula
Played the game all the way up to finding a way out, not sure what to do from that point on, radar seemed to show nothing. After 10 minutes of nothing happening apart from one attack, I gave up and closed the game.
The idea is pretty cool, while it is only a demo, some things to consider.
The Creature: I'm not really sure how to hide from it other than having my light off, but I have it off most of the time, realized it was easier to find the stations with it off. I did go higher or lower, seeing that was more effective than staying where I was with the light off, but apart from that, it was difficult to "avoid it" once it found you. Additionally, It would be nice if there was more interaction with the creature, like a flare gun or something you could shoot to distract it, or a way to free yourself when it grabs your ship, a small window of opportunity.
The Light: As I mentioned before, it's easier to find stations with it off, there really isn't a need to have it on, the only time being when I was refueling to better see where the position of the station. If there was a mechanic that encouraged the player to need to have it on for most of the time, that would be interesting, like a sanity bar(?), or whatever best fits that environment. If it goes down too low, you start seeing phantom stations? Go crazy? Die? Not sure, but you get the idea.
The Helm: As it is now, when you press "E", you stop moving wherever you're standing, after which you control the ship. Would be nice if the player moved to a specific position when pressing "E".
The Ship: This ties back to The Creature, but having a small boost to leave an area quickly would be cool, or something that lets you move a little faster, there are a lot of empty space with not much happening when going from one station to another as well. Lastly, the steering is a bit clunky, one thing I would like to see it to be able to turn the ship without it having to move forward.
Good job on this demo, hope this helped. I understand it is a demo and some things will need ironing/tweaking. I really enjoyed the concept, looking forward to see what this turns into.
Cheers, Pixel
I don't disagree with your points, but it looks like you're coming at this like it's an actual demo for an actual game, but it's not an actual demo for a game, it's a tech demo, i.e. a sort of playable "toy" meant to demonstrate engine capabilities and featuring something vaguely put together which may at some point turn into an actual game. It's meant to show off the engine's realtime fractal geometry and general ambience; the pseudo-objective and monster is just bonus.
Jesus Vhrist the ambiance is horifying and the eviroment is trippy af
this is horrifying. When I saw the world change i almost got dizzy, and I never get dizzy from playing videogames. What the hell
How can I escape from this place after refueling? I've tried many times, but I can't find my way
Looks just like Yedoma Globula from Bananaft here on Itch.
oh yeah I knew I remembered this from somewhere !
Absolutely amazing design, I really love the graphics and same goes for the gameplay (though the AI does seem to catch me with no reason).
No notes other than that.
This was really interesting looking game and weird same time steering the boat was difficult in my opinion anyway very good demo game I want to see more where this full version going to be when is release well done and always keep it up!