The Sea of Glomp as well as my songs, such as they are, have been copyrighted with the Library of Congress.

If you would like to hire me for a project, please visit my portfolio site and click the message bottle

My Portfolio Site
www.paulkramm.com

Credits
All me baby :)
Artwork: Illustrator and Photoshop using Wacom tablet.
Flash: All custom code; nothing borrowed. I like to know I can do it myself.
Music: Written and performed by me. Mostly my Yamaha Pacific guitar and some old Casio.

Game Updates

08/30/07
08/29/07
08/19/07
08/16/07
08/14/07
08/13/07
08/07/07

Download Game Music MP3s, Complete song versions
The game music is actually instrumental excerpts from some songs I wrote and recorded at home on a crappy 4 track. I'm obviously not very good with the instruments I used (I'm only trained to play alto sax), but I think you can get a sense of what the songs could sound like if properly recorded. There are still 2 more songs I need to record to make the album complete in my mind, but I'm not good enough on guitar to play one of them yet. Someday.... anyway, you know the deal: right click/save as on PC or option-click on Mac.

KURAMU

1. Kitchen People
2. Grass
3. Circus Clown Cats & Dogs
4. Line Through the Wall
5. Call Me Back
6. You & I
7. Cephalopod

About The Sea of Glomp
I made The Sea of Glomp in my spare time over the period of around 3 years. I basically wanted to create an homage to "Adventure" (the Atari 2600 classic and a personal favorite) as a way to push my Flash skills further. It's been a good time; designing a game is actually more fun than playing one, especially when the things you want to make the game do are presently out of your skill range, forcing you to learn something new.

For those who don't know, Adventure was a game in which you could hold only one item at a time, which forced you to choose what item was most important to have at the time. This is the source of much of the game's tension, since in order to make a long journey with a desired key, you had to abandon your sword and make a mad dash to the corresponding castle, hoping not to encounter one of the 3 dragons.

Fans of Adventure will be pleased to know i did not abandon this idea. In fact, though The Sea of Glomp is not a remake of that game, I held on to many of the game's concepts.

Another fun frustration was that damned bat which kept moving stuff around. Luckily you could hide things in a castle and lock the bat out.

In The Sea of Glomp, the concept is similar, though instead of locking items away, leaving the key vulnerable, I simply made certain places unknown to the bat (and the dragons for that matter) I'm not telling you where those places might be. Instead of a true randomizer for the initial placement of the items, I have a few (4 at launch) pre-defined item location sets from which your game is selected at start. I'll be making more in future updates, but the bat adds enough randomness to mess things up for now.

The Bridge is represented here in the form of the 2 funnel-tubes. They can still used to tunnel through walls, but Glomp may not bring items through with him... I have my reasons ;p

One thing about games that always struck me as unnatural was the fact that

1. If you can bring something with you, you know it will be useful, and
2. There is only one way to solve most problems.

Well, not only are these not true in real life, but it also takes away from the fun of creative problem-solving. While I may only be taking small steps in this direction, I will be working on making this a bigger element in The Sea of Glomp updates.

Tips for Your Enjoyment

The observant will find many places that are hidden from dragons and that thieving bat, including the chest interiors.

If using a keyboard to play instead of a joystick, be sure to use your diagonals, especially when trying to test walls for secret pathways.

Sometimes going back has a different result... I hope it's annoying ;p

The dragons may be smarter than you think. They can sense you in an adjacent room, and they can tell when there are lots of goodies around. If a dragon is camped out in a room you need to enter, give it time, or lure him out with something valueble.

Funnel-tubes can be used to cross barriers, but no items can be brought with you.

Warp Portals can be brought with you and are customizable shortcuts which are so useful, I can't even say.

Wearing the Viking Helmet reduces damage by 1/5 heart, which can also mean access to places unreachable normally.

Hints for the Weaksauce
If there's one thing that is bad about the net, it's that even the slightest difficulty in a game makes a faq sound good. But we rob ourselves of that excitement of when we do eventually figure something out. However, if I give clues, then you can still enjoy some of the discovery without seeking out wholesale answers.
Please only use if you are totally stumped:

Hints, but before you cheat, I always leave a graphical clue; follow the trail

Updates Details

8/30/07 ... V.1.06
Few will notice this fix. I improved one of the hidden secrets. Hmm.... what's another word for "spicy"?

8/29/07 ... V.1.05
I made some changes to the lower-sky to make the main path more logical. I hope this helps. I also added some graphical reminders to help you find the way back out. Oh, and I moved the item hidden in the cloud to be more noticable

8/19/07 ... V.1.04
Portal glitch involving screaming fixed.
As there are a few ways to get the egg back, I worked a little on the dragons' reactions to them all.

8/16/07 ... V.1.03
There is now a 1 second grace period when a dragon enters a room.
I added difficulty switch. "Pirana" is normal, and "guppy" is easy, with more lives, weaker, slower enemies, and less fun

8/14/07 ... V.1.02
Fixed the warp portal glitch, now It searches the screen pixel by pixel for a safe place.

8/13/07 ... V.1.01
Item/lock initial configuration remains the same after you start over, though you will lose any progress (otherwise there's no point to having lives) However, this should help with a common complaint.
Magnet through warp gate issue has been fixed I believe.
I fixed the problem of people getting stuck on the spiral cloud room

08/07/07... V.1.0
Launch version.

Future Updates:
There are currently 4 initial item configurations. I'm planning new initial item placements. Eventually I'd like to make a randomizer that takes into account accessibility.
I will eventually make changes to the maze-like areas, because I know my way through them too well.
I have plans to expand the game with entirely new areas. I have 2 in mind. I'll keep this page updated.

Contact me
Comments about the game? Want to report a glitch? Want me to know that I suck? Go ahead, drop an email.
If reporting a glitch, it would help if I knew what version you were playing (on title screen). The web is filled with game sites that grabbed my game and haven't been updated. Presently, Newgrounds, ArmorGames, and jayisgames are the only sites I make sure are updated myself.
glomp@paulkramm.com

Special thanks
To NeoGAF for sucking away my free time since 1999 or so, and making this project take twice as long.
To my Exgf, Creslyn, and to my gamer friend, James, for playtesting.
To Macca for writing the soundtrack of my life. Ram on.