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[Ishi]

This looks really fun and cute! I love the FLUDD-esque water shooting mechanic. It also reminds me of firing the machine gun downwards in Cave Story to fly.

Does the water cannon have limited ammo?

[Kyle O]

Love getting input and attention from a fellow island boy!

As mentioned this game is very honestly and openly ripping off Sunshine. The Cave Story machine gun comparison is also slightly intentional—the reason being that when I started adding the boost I was directly copying how it worked in Sunshine. I realize this translated really badly—mainly the fact that you need to be in the air for FLUDD to actually work—if you play Sunshine and press the hover nozzle while on the ground you only go up the tiniest bit. This didn't feel natural in a 2D game so I did think about Cave Story when trying to remedy this. The difference between this game and Cave Story is that you don't endlessly boost until you run out of Ammo. There is a certain amount of water "pressure" that determines how long you can shoot the cannon. That is different from your Ammo which runs out significantly slower than pressure. Pressure returns every time you are on the ground and not shooting.

Your water runs out about as fast as it does in Sunshine—so you are usually good and don't have to worry about this unless there is a level or area designed with limited refilling spots. Refilling just requires to jump into a puddle or water. I have a GIF here that shows the whole screen my little temp ammo gauge in the right corner—notice how it refills when you jump into the water—

[Ishi]

Any game with 'island' in the title immediately makes me feel happy

As mentioned this game is very honestly and openly ripping off Sunshine. The Cave Story machine gun comparison is also slightly intentional—the reason being that when I started adding the boost I was directly copying how it worked in Sunshine. I realize this translated really badly—mainly the fact that you need to be in the air for FLUDD to actually work—if you play Sunshine and press the hover nozzle while on the ground you only go up the tiniest bit. This didn't feel natural in a 2D game so I did think about Cave Story when trying to remedy this. The difference between this game and Cave Story is that you don't endlessly boost until you run out of Ammo. There is a certain amount of water "pressure" that determines how long you can shoot the cannon. That is different from your Ammo which runs out significantly slower than pressure. Pressure returns every time you are on the ground and not shooting.

The water mechanics all sound good! A sensible mix of the two inspirations. I also like that it's a gun and hover nozzle in one without having to switch between two modes.

[Kyle O]

It was a very iterative / derivative process getting to where I am with this game play mechanic. First I was making a geometry wars like twin stick shooter, but then I played Liblade, which is essentially a side-scrolling twin stick hack n' slash.

Really fun—I highly recommend checking out the demo. The secret to having a platformer with right stick analog control is having the R1 button be the jump. Ape Escape did the same thing. So I tried turning my project into a side-scrolling twin stick shooter.

Finally, one day, on a whim, I randomly added gravity to the bullets. Shooting the bullets and watching them fall in an arc reminded me of water—so I turned the bullets into water and realized how much like Sunshine it ended up—one of my favorite games—so obviously you gotta add a boost—which of course leads to a much more intuitive and simple, but also very powerful control scheme. I am really pleased with it.

[oahda]

This is so good! FLUDD is such a great mechanic that definitely needs to be explored more outside of Super Mario Sunshine.

[fall_ark]

It's not very similar, but if you haven't played Wuppo, I think it might provide some interesting ideas on how to utilize a spray cannon in both combat and platform/puzzle settings. 

[rav10li]

Love the subtle distortion effects around the water splashes, makes everything a bit jiggly