FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD19 → -REACH-

-REACH-

By zachwlewis

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Theme213.9041
Innovation923.0340
Fun1232.6841
Graphics1992.2441
Audio1431.9730
Humor972.3625
Overall1002.9541
Community1981.7218
Coolness201

Comments

draknek 2010-12-19 12:11

This is neat! Didn't realise I could retire, so I died in space...

pov 2010-12-19 14:42

Cool concept.

wizbane 2010-12-20 04:45

Cool basic mechanics & concept. I think you could take the strategy further with some additional mechanics like scanning planets. I wish you could zoom out the view, or get a better idea of which planets you already went to.

johnfn 2010-12-20 05:51

Cute, simple, and perhaps a little addictive too! All in all, I couldn't ask for more out of a 6 hour game. Nice job.

zillix 2010-12-20 06:25

Neat idea! Kind of gave me a vibe of futility. Reminded me of Spore's space stage.

razzberries 2010-12-20 08:37

Cool names I got: THAWFFAR, ULKICHVH, YICSDYNE, and XSVAAPAU.

It fit the theme really well, and I found myself wanting to find more planets despite how simplified everything was. It would be cool if you updated this with more information about the planets (Like, what they look like, stuff like that). I wouldn't fix the name generation though, that's part of what made it so charming for me. Nicely done!

barigorokarl 2010-12-20 11:46

Very very cool concept. I felt really allone out there on this yellow circles, because my grey circle was far far away.
I also like the 2001 graphics style. wow!

korywazhere 2010-12-20 13:59

Lovely game, the simple style let my imagination run wild. I really felt like I was a space traveller =)

madk 2010-12-20 18:21

It's nothing more than glorified Russian Roulette. That's what I keep telling myself, but the game is inexplicably fun to play. Awesome job for a 6 hour game.

sos 2010-12-20 19:11

I could talk to your name generator when I'm drunk :D. Cool concept ;)

madk 2010-12-20 19:19

It's nothing more than glorified Russian Roulette. That's what I keep telling myself, but the game is inexplicably fun to play. Awesome job for a 6 hour game.

increpare 2010-12-20 19:56

It seems there's a threshold above which you can explore freely until the undiscovered planet count dries up. I discovered 177 planets before retiring. Interesting concepts - fact that the graph vertices weren't based on distance made any sort of tactical playing very difficult.

frr171 2010-12-20 21:54

Strangely addicting! I found myself really weighing my options when it came down to choosing a planet.

hamumu 2010-12-21 01:10

As someone else said (oddly, twice...?), it's Russian Roulette. There's no game at all, just completely unmitigated random chance. But as slot machines are fun, so is this. I like the looks of it. I wish there was just a little nubbin of gameplay to grab onto... it's almost a minimalist Weird Worlds, but about one feature shy of actually having gameplay.

zachwlewis 2010-12-21 05:37

The concept in my mind had strategy: Better graph construction and pathfinding, travel information (12.3 years to this planet) and persistence across games. But, this is all I could churn out in my timebox. :(

Maybe I'll revisit this idea. It seems people either love or hate the random name generator. I love it. I want to make an RPG where all the things (characters, towns, items, skills) are named with something like that. Just to piss people off, I think. :)

the-jack 2010-12-21 06:30

Nifty concept and given the time a very good execution.

plams 2010-12-21 20:42

Shame you didn't have more time, but nice for a 6hr effort. The destinations didn't make a lot of sense (a lot of nearby systems, but I can only travel enormous lengths?!). Needs more discovery and challenge,.. perhaps like in Star Control II where star temperature is related to mineral richness, but also more dangerous :)

ranklar 2010-12-22 05:11

It was ok, decent for time spent. Still, I would have liked to get bigger bonuses to your life, was too easy to end up dead or having to retire... which I guess is fine since you most likely had very little to keep the user entertained in the long run. Nice job, could be a really nice game. I did like the interface, seemed to work fine, would be nice to see how long travel was, but it was fine.

John Axon 2010-12-22 05:38

Cool game Zachary! I had fun seeing where I could go and how long I could last. I enjoyed the tension I felt when I didn't know if I could make it to the next star. If you added more atmosphere to this game with some background sfx, it would be a really cool experience.

danblack 2010-12-22 10:37

Nice concept but I think it needed a bit longer than 6 hours spent on it to do it justice. it just felt a bit random to me and therefore not much point in playing. Worth spending more time on it if you can though. it'd be interesting to see where you went with it.

endurion 2010-12-22 13:22

I like the concept. Really solid for 6 hours.
I wish you could see a bigger map when you retire. Also more life addons ;)

dertom 2010-12-25 12:18

Nice concept! Actually I died quite young...but it was a nice life full of discoveries ;D Too less "feel youngers" and too much "makes you ship fasters" ;D

terry 2010-12-26 14:26

Pretty well done for six hours! I like the idea.

yadurajiv 2010-12-26 15:15

For some reason, it does not work for me on Kongregate. Nice game :)

localcoder 2010-12-27 23:24

I love the way the text looks in this game. Especially the stark black-and-white text-only title screen.

badlydrawnrod 2010-12-29 19:53

Nice idea.

ryan 2011-01-09 02:46

Neat game. Very simple and lots of luck. I found mostly unremarkable planets. XD