FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD38 → Booster's Day Out

Booster's Day Out

By paulstraw

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1413.6537
Fun983.6638
Innovation3652.8838
Theme1783.6439
Graphics1023.9439
Audio3172.6935
Humor2362.6335
Mood2673.1136

Comments

vony256 2017-04-24 02:48

Nice work! i found this game actually pretty difficult and the graphics are really nice.

evannex 2017-04-24 03:41

Wow >.< Well it's incredibly addicting! Very challenging, I love it!

2017-04-24 04:04

the difficulty is a little much, rotation controls are not tight enough. The camera seemed too tight to plan any sort of a course, and the walls just added to the frustration.

cpv 2017-04-24 10:32

Nice game! Reminds of one space sim game. One thing to note is that the landing is very sensitive, a little tilt and it's gone. Also those boundaries/walls do not fit well into this game. Still, very good job!!

paulstraw 2017-04-24 16:33

@cpv Totally agreed that the walls need work. They were added very last-minute, my last commit was 92 seconds before the deadline. ๐Ÿ˜‚

takusan 2017-04-25 15:49

Great job! If this is the first game you released, I'm waiting for the future ones :D

for-science 2017-04-28 11:38

I like your graphics and your game is challenging but fun. Are the walls just meant to prevent the player from skipping parts of the game or are they just meant to prevent you from having to watch yourself slowly run out of fuel, while drifting into deep space?

paulstraw 2017-04-28 23:00

@for-science Thanks so much! The walls are there for a bit of both reasons. I've got a more elegant solution in mind to replace/augment them, but the current walls were added within the last 30 minutes or so before the compo deadline.

quoclon 2017-05-01 03:53

Really enjoyed this game. I must admit the learning curve is steep, but I really enjoyed the concept and sunk more time into it than most entries. The ship model was awesome, and I loved the explosions. Having a line to show where you have been was a nice touch. I was a bit confused on what the overall goal was, but I enjoyed playing around with the physics.

Honestly, it's also the most similar game I've played to my own, Sling Ship. Since we have similar concepts, would appreciate any feedback on improvements to gameplay, physics, etc. if you get the chance:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/sling-ship-search-for-a-small-world

Cheers!

mgoadric 2017-05-01 04:07

Nice graphics and physics! I wasn't sure what the goal was until I saw the second video in your post, I just putted around crashing into things. I like the idea of the tutorial as you go, but I could go anywhere with the A/D controls, making it very easy to miss what you were trying to lead me to do. I liked the pause before starting the next level, but wasn't sure why the trail continued after a crash. Crashes looked really cool. I want to keep playing.

powerspark 2017-05-01 04:13

Looks great and isn't slow in browser for me, nice work there! The game was too difficult, but I acknowledge it's pretty hard to set the amount of turning control and such *just right*... checkpoints would help a lot (unless I just didn't reach any :laughing:) Nice game!

paulstraw 2017-05-01 04:17

@powerspark, totally. Controls are one of those things I spent several hours tweaking during the jam, and I'm sure I'll keep on tweaking as I work on the post-jam version of the game. I've also got plans for checkpoints. ๐Ÿ™‚

aaranos 2017-05-01 11:03

Physics games are a dangerous slope, could go great could go bad. I think this turned out pretty good. The pull of gravity on the ship is well done and it was fun to test the limits of how close and fast I need to be to escape the pull.

I also like the little messages for controls and when you smash your ship to bits.

The art is simple but blends together very well.

hadik 2017-05-01 13:57

Interesting idea, simple but solid gameplay :) I think you can got TOP50 :)

mars 2017-05-01 18:41

This is is a *really* good compo entry. All the aspects of the physics, from the orbital mechanics to the exploding rocket, feel very good. The controls are very responsive and do exactly what I expect them to, as well.

The game was pretty difficult too, and I enjoyed trying over and over to attempt making it further than I did last time. The graphics aren't complex but they're consistent and not sloppy, so they end up being one of the games strengths.

All in all a very enjoyable experience, well done!

numnumdude 2017-05-01 21:19

The physics are great, but it was just impossible to do anything. I just keep exploding! The graphics are good though. Not anything amazing, but others disagree.

jhandsy 2017-05-02 17:16

It was pretty fun. I liked the little space messages a lot. The art was simple but nice! Good job! It was just a bit too tough to do anything. I think you probably should have given the ship a bit more resistance to damage. I really, REALLY wanted to land on another planet.

omiya-games 2017-05-06 00:53

While the gravity physics are great, I would have liked more finer control on rotating the ship. Rather than letting the rotation of the ship left to the physics engine, it would have been nice if the player had full control over rotation, e.g. letting go of A and D will keep the rocket the same angle as it was left before.

frederika 2017-05-06 01:13

This is fun, if a bit frustrating to control. I liked the way the rocket was destroyed when I crashed and I liked the general look of the game, too. It might have been a bit more fun if I could control the turning more easily and there were more fuel cells. Good job overall.

inventroom 2017-05-12 06:40

It ain't rocket science! Hereโ€™s the quick rundown of my thoughts:

PROS - Voxel graphics are lovely - Gameplay is easy to understand

CONS - Turning left and right is really imprecise - Lack of sound effects for picking up fuel and lack of music

For full criticism and breakdown of ranking, as well as candid reactions to gameplay, do check out the video~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fudg6FqATrY

nekusoul 2017-05-12 13:00

That's a really cute rocket! Nice gameplay, although maybe a bit too hard.

I've also noticed that some things like the gravity, fuel and steering are framerate dependent. I'm on a 144Hz Monitor and had to switch to 60Hz to play the game as intended. You may want to use UpdateFixed(), or even better make use of Time.deltaTime in your scripts to avoid these problems.

meenners 2017-05-12 13:22

Amazing! I had a blast playing lol no pun intended! Overall it was a really cool game! The explosion of the rocket was satisfactory for whatever reason lol Anyway, great game, great graphics, simple music would had been a nice touch. Great job!

gaffa 2017-05-12 13:32

Nice game!

psilon 2017-05-12 13:56

Great game, the graphics are nice too. I like the gameplay, maybe a map would be great.

mikea 2017-05-12 14:01

Nice little sandbox game! I enjoyed it quite a lot :)

failedstarfish 2017-05-12 14:17

really liked the graphics and the gameplay was hard but satisfying. Crashing the spaceship and seeing it break apart was fun, I seemed to do that a lot.

noddingtortoise 2017-05-12 16:08

Great game, challenging but fun! I loved the graphical style, especially the explosion effect when you crash, and the changing text at the start is a great touch. However, I have to agree with others that the game is a tad too hard, not sure if I even made it half way, though this could just be me being bad at this sort of game. Overall a great game, well done!

rubyleehs 2017-05-12 16:23

Superb game. Love the graphics, especially when you crash >.<

The game is a little hard but it was satisfying when you succeed. Wish there were multiple difficulties though not sure how would go about implementing it. More fuel perhaps?

Also, the smoke line continuing even after death kinda ruins the "niceness"/"coolness" of the crash explosion.

Edit: Just found out its your 1st LD/game released! Congratz!

paulstraw 2017-05-12 22:28

Thanks all for the wonderful reviews! I really appreciate it, and will be trying to get to as many of your games as I can before the deadline. ๐Ÿ’–

@nekusoul: That is a fantastic catch, thank you very much. I thought I was using `Time.deltaTime` everywhere I needed to be, but apparently not! I'll definitely make sure that's taken care of in future builds.

clickmation 2017-05-13 04:35

The graphics were nice and the death physics and tutorial was well made. However like everyone is saying in the comments,(and I know you already acknowledge this problem, but I had to point it out...) the walls were a bit to close to the planets. In this game the thrust is weak so you must have momentum, but the close walls don't give you enough space for you to jump to other directions. Maybe a border, where you have a warning saying 'Danger, 5 seconds to return to safety zone' would have been nice too. Other than that, the game felt really sturdy. Good luck!

garethiw 2017-05-13 16:57

Hey Paul!

This was super fun, definitely a seed of a great game here; getting the angles and boost *just* right for slingshotting feels really good.

I understand the walls being there for providing a path so to speak, but feel maybe they were a bit too close to the play area at times, especially as you have the mechanic where you explode when you run out of fuel.

Perhaps also an arrow pointing to your destination would be good.

Apart from that, great mood and graphics. Always enjoy seeing folks use PV in their games :)

2017-05-25 14:38

Very challenging game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if youโ€™d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKyqjTvBURc

2017-06-12 14:28

You've been featured on Ludum Dare to Believe! Check it out - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3762cGTiAM