FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD28 → Ursa Miner

Ursa Miner

By william_edwards

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness282
Innovation2763.24
Graphics4513.00
Mood5452.69
Overall5592.94
Audio7101.85
Humor7131.78
Fun7682.44
Theme8202.27

Comments

sknoslo 2013-12-16 03:21

The controls took some getting used to, otherwise it was pretty entertaining. I was confused as to what I was doing, but that's my fault because I didn't read the instructions.

polishedpixels 2013-12-16 03:30

Need more optimization for web...but fun never the less

wombatica 2013-12-16 08:11

Like it!! Love the deforming terrain. Plays fine on my laptop. Everything could be tweaked and further improved but that's 48hrs and one guy....
Good sound effects, pity you didn't have time to learn to generate music.

capnramses 2013-12-16 15:39

I got Error: could not load ui.js ?

ittlebit 2013-12-16 16:41

The deforming terrain was pretty cool, Very minimal.

oskardevelopment 2013-12-16 17:40

I'm very impressed! Really amazing that you were able to do so much on so little time. Good luck!

gaspard_ 2013-12-16 18:30

Graphics are awesome!
But the game experience wasn't so great... reversed up and down really confused me and when you put some tiny lag above that...
The mood is well set, but the game could use some music.
Good job!

william_edwards 2013-12-16 18:40

@Gaspard_ thank you :)

I actually asked on the LD IRC minutes before I submitted, and most people there said they wanted me to *swap* the up/down... To what it is now! I can't win.

The lag is because Constructive Solid Geometry is a performance hog and this game needs a powerful CPU and GPU to keep up. Optimising it would be worthy of a thesis assignment ;)

Glad you liked it though.

ovenchips 2013-12-16 22:58

The link appears to be down... :(

cwkx 2013-12-17 08:58

I couldn't resist the blocks when I saw this in the screenshots :D I love the simple art style, runs fine on my laptop. Excellent work!

vrld 2013-12-17 09:49

Ursa miner gives a nice Descent feeling (good job on that), but it doesn't really feel like a finished game. Here are my main points (in case you want to develop this further - please do!):

1) Add an arrow to point to the airlock (like in Freespace). It's really hard to find it using the XYZ coordinates in the upper left corner alone.
2) Better feedback, e.g.screenshake when firing the vaporizer, particle effec when collecting gems, oxygen bar instead of a number, stuff like that.
3) Background - less black (dark greyish blue could work) and maybe add a few stars
4) Afterburner!

daredevildave 2013-12-17 10:14

It's a great idea. I found the collision detection on the gems frustrating.

Some background music would add a lot to the atmosphere.

And some way of finding the airlock again. :-)

enaskil 2013-12-17 11:33

Really fun, I love this type of Descentesque free flying games and it's always a bonus if you get to shoot something while at it.

ysty 2013-12-17 12:14

Once I got a handle on the controls it was great. I love the aesthetic.

lubos 2013-12-17 12:58

Shooting holes is indeed awesome! And once you get used to controls you don't mind them at all. Nice experience overall.

xgeovanni 2013-12-17 20:05

It's going to be great when this sort of fully destructible terrain can be run on top of a more complex game.

pietro-ferrantelli 2013-12-17 20:50

This game is very interesting ! Amazing job :)

jlauener 2013-12-18 21:10

Wow quite impressive for a html5 game. It was fun to explore the universe, and going full speed between those blocks is a nice feeling :)

Revert Y axis would have been nice.

After playing for a while started to lag (firefox).

psychomonster 2013-12-19 20:57

Very cool idea but I couldn't move and crasehd into blocks... Think it is a problem with my Keyboard :(

ashtom 2013-12-19 21:05

A bit choppy (maybe I have a low config) but fun and somewhat immersive. I wish I could identify what the airlock looks like.

alchiggins 2013-12-19 21:14

Technically, super impressive. The player was too hard to control, though, and the collision box for picking up gems was way too small. Also really, really hard to find the airlock again, even when you make an effort not the stray too far from it - maybe making the asteroids around it the same color or just leaving some empty space around it would be helpful? You did a great job of conveying the sense of fear, confusing, and paranoia one would have doing this job alone in space, though!

william_edwards 2013-12-19 21:15

@Ashtom you start in one. Its always at 0,0,0. If you start the level and fly a little bit forward, you can then swing around and take a look at it. And keep remembering where it is at all times; if you fly away wildly and enjoy the immersion, you'll never find your way back!

And yeah its a polygon hog however simple it looks. Please watch the dev video :)

atmospherium 2013-12-20 18:14

Really cool abstract art. My computer had a hard time keeping up, but other than that this was a very interesting game.

netmute 2013-12-20 19:39

I liked that you can actually shoot holes into everything. But the forward velocity was way too sensitive. I pushed forward a couple thousand miles of space, got hopelessly lost, and then managed to get stuck in a hole that I just dug into something. That was fun :D

evilseanbot 2013-12-20 19:46

Very fascinating mechanic with the boring holes in things. Unfortunately it was too slow on my computer.

ointment 2013-12-21 00:44

Super laggy, unintuitive controls. The vaporizer *is* pretty cool though, I saw that development video when you posted it and was looking forward to trying it out.

Demo Effect: The Game, I guess.

crowbeak 2013-12-21 10:03

The left and right button appear to just cause barrel rolls (web player on a mac), so I dunno if I'm just not getting it or what.

drnick 2013-12-21 21:52

dat Goldeneye controllers. Nice atmosphere. - notdrnick
PS: drnick has a shitty computer and is sorry for not being able to play this game

isaacmarco 2013-12-31 16:25

needs some optimization, but the idea is very good

csanyk 2014-01-01 23:32

Technically impressive but a bit too slow in my browser to play at a decent framerate.

jimmypaulin 2014-01-02 16:14

Very technically accomplished and an interesting concept. I liked the feeling of flying through the unusual space and exploring around, though it didn't run particularly well on my ageing rig...

broxxar 2014-01-02 17:35

Not quite sure I got it, but this is pretty awesome. Honestly just flying through the procedural terrain was awesome, not really sure how the vaporiser or oxygen mechanics played a part. Aside from not running at 60 fps, this looks great.

archaeometrician 2014-01-02 17:48

Amazing work ! Really interesting to see what can be done with .js
Very cool to mine into the rock!

rosastegosaurus 2014-01-05 18:28

First i thought something was wrong with the game or the browser, then i got how it worked. I liked it, but it was hard.
very impressively made considering the short time.

2016-05-02 17:15

The link is down :(