Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → Every Man's Sky
By blaster391
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 122 | 3.70 | 43 | |
| Fun | 118 | 3.61 | 43 | |
| Innovation | 15 | 4.19 | 43 | |
| Theme | 254 | 3.43 | 43 | |
| Graphics | 490 | 2.41 | 43 | |
| Humor | 61 | 3.59 | 41 | |
| Mood | 415 | 2.71 | 40 |
This is something unique! I had already fun exploring the dark. Cant wait to see it later today again and create a bit more on my own! Great Idea and Execution!
One small thing: on dual monitor, the cursor easily slips on the second monitor and minimizes the game on click. You should capture the cursor and not just hide it.
It's bit hard to navigate in a complete darkness. Some static Galaxy Skybox will make this look better, I think. Or may be a global star map? And ability to create starts, and deploy planets on the orbits.
Also, could you please describe technologies used? Server side, protocol, etc. Looks interesting.
Thank you!
The graphics are a bit "meh", not really defined, nothing special, and it's a pity there isn't any sound.
BUT. You sir have got me cracking with the name, and I love the concept. I love it. There is no real gameplay, but I don't care, you got my 5 stars for the overall segment, just because of how funny it was.
And I saw a "rush b" blue planet so a made a red and a white planet with cyka and blyat as names. Amazing! Your game has memes!
Awesome concept (much better than No Man's Sky), I love the thought of going around and seeing other people's planets. Unfortunately the game is just that, creating spheres and seeing other people's spheres, it would be great if there were more options for planets (maybe even orbit?).
This was a very interesting entry and it was somehow very satisfying placing random spheres everywhere with some weird names. And of course also discovering what weird stuff other people has placed.
Kudos to you for trying something different.
You get one gigantic like from me for the pun. And another one for the awesome idea. I agree that there's some kind of skybox missing, which makes it pretty hard to navigate. Should be a lot clearer if there were just some kind of white stars or something in the background.
I'll definitely come back to this later so see how it turned out. Awesome work!
@teekos Sorry about the cursor locking! Tried to get it to work, but rushed it in at the last second. Will have to look into it for next time.
@icxon - watch this space, I might try typing up a blog post on how it all works and post it later today, I'll edit this comment with a link. EDIT: HERE - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/every-mans-sky/every-mans-sky-breakdown
@scornz - now the framework is there, I was imagining being able to extend this - I was thinking maybe adding stars, orbits would be amazing, I would need to think about how to get this all to sync with the server.
@zelos & others - adding a skybox was something I had considered, it was more of a time thing as to why I didn't add it - I'm hoping as the more of the universe is created it will be easy to navigate
Nice one! It reminds me of r/place - Everyone has its space in the galaxy, to build planets with whatever name they like. It was cool to find some counter-strike references.
you will most certainly win the humor category :smiley:
I've left there a bit of surprise :smiley:
@Dejvo That is a novel idea you had there. I think I might play your game because of it
This one was fun! Not much of gameplay but it got me hooked! Tried to visit all planets.
it's crazy how a game with so little gameplay was so fun! This game with some background music, some planets animations and more planets (not just size and color) will be awesome!!
Even though it doesn't have that much gameplay, I played it for an hour, I created the KSP-System, our Solar-System and made a Rainbow with giant ringed planets, this game is just awesome.
@nekoballs @rixud @feips - I'm so happy that you enjoyed it. My hope was to add more planet variations (maybe suns as well), but I just didn't have time. But I've just gone on and seen the universe today. It's crazy that it has grown this much :D
Neat little experiment. I wish there was some way to abort the creation window. Sometimes I realized it was going to put something where I didn't want it to go. Could use a lot more things to place also. Maybe some kind of 'stardust' particle to show movement and give a sense of speed?
This has the promise to be a really interesting creative space. If you were to take this further, it would be nice to:
- Edit, move, or remove your own planets - Show an alignment grid when placing planets - Give the planets more personality/variety - even possibly to the point of the absurd (like being able to create a planet with a beard and tophat and name it Abraham Lincoln)
I spent a good while in this, great job!
@ryte2byte you should be able to? Press space when in the menu will exit it (except for if you are typing the name), I could have made that clearer though. Stardust and particle effects would certainly help the atmosphere.
@smiling-cat-entertainment thank you for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it, extending the creation tools is an interesting idea, I found it is a fine line between making it easy to use and giving everyone the tools they want. An alignment tool is a cool idea, maybe snap to grid would mean people could create even cooler things
So it turns out publishing comments on mobile is kinda broken... And you can't delete comments when you post them... So my next few comments were duplicates, but I've edited them to actually respond to people, so that my comment section isn't full of me making duplicate comments
EDITED IN AT 08/05/2017 21:04
@lipsch I do agree I should have added a bit more atmosphere, I wanted to put together some music, but it was such a rush to finish it I never got chance. Particle effects sound cool, my thoughts were the ability to create suns, that use more particle effects than planets, and can emit light to change the way the world looks.
@chris-delta I see it as an experiment about what people do when they have a blank canvas to draw on... Turns out people promote themselves lol, I'm leaving it all because I don't want to moderate the space at all. I do see what you mean about there not being much to the core of the game, it is more a tech-demo/practice for me getting server side sync working well.
EDITED IN ON 09/05/2017 BECAUSE NEW WEBSITE CAN'T DELETE COMMENTS, RESPONDING TO PEOPLE BELOW
@wheffle Added customization is top of my list for things I could add to this project - I want it to be a creative space (pun intended) and anything I can do to enable more creativity from players is a plus.
@porcus-pie There is no Ludum Dare anymore, only memes... But really I'm glad you liked it, even if it is a bit bare bones content wise, it is still incredible to see how much people have done with it
EDITED IN ON 09/05/2017 BECAUSE NEW WEBSITE CAN'T DELETE COMMENTS, RESPONDING TO PEOPLE BELOW
@kleinzach - I'm glad you like it! UI isn't my strong suit, so I just wanted to make it as clear and easy to use as possible, even if it isn't very pretty. You were right about it being a risk, I made it having no idea how people would respond to it. I'm happy that so many people seem to enjoy it!
@coleslaughter - a web playable version would be cool, I was tempted to make it, I was just unsure of how the network side of things would react in browser, and whether I would run out of browser memory, so I played it safe. The text was a last minute thing, I did want to make it so the name always faced the player but this broke when I implemented planet rotation, and I couldn't work out the maths in time to get it to work properly, so in the future this would be implemented (hopefully). Depth is an interesting one, that I have also noticed when playing, especially now the universe is more full, I was thinking of making a line appear, between you and the planet, to give a bit of a sense of distance? Being able to adjust the distance is also a must. Thank you for your detailed response :D
@gundatsch - I do like how people are making one planet, then other people coming and adding planets around with the same theme, so I see the messenger side of this, it's like a tiny community being formed. And yeah, sound would have been in if I had time... I was tempted to just play the "2001 A Space Odyssey" theme on loop, but I decided against it on copyright grounds.
@slash-random I really was blown away by the creativity of some folks. And yeah, it is kinda an MMO, I just wanted too see what the LD community did when they all came together with a blank canvas
Amazing Idea! :D Altough I can't spend a lot time with such Games :p The graphics weren't very good. No sound. I could imagine it be much more interesting if you would have added some athmosphere with music and some particles or something.
Great Game (:
Like r/place, but much easier for people to create obnoxious advertisements. The KSP system somebody made was pretty cool, but there's not much to like about the core of this game.
Haha wow! Really simple but amazing idea. Quite genius in fact. Well done! My only suggestion would be just more content, games like this gets a ton of millage out of content (maybe more planet customization or stuff like that). Very cool project!
You doomed us all...the memes are too strong
In all serious though fantastic work. I had slightly too much fun mucking around and exploring this area. I can imagine that with more time you could really flesh this out into something really cool, a nice interactive space. But no I had a lot of, and just wish there was more content!
What an amazing and original idea! Perhaps it could have been done better, or a nicer interface, or more options for planets, but I loved it none the less. Great job, this is the kind of weird risk that I love to see in game jams!
Oh my god I freakin' love this idea! It's like an inter-dimensional comment section. I could TOTALLY see this being on its own domain page, with a random seed for a player's starting position, and the internet just goes hog wild on it. In fact, I would HIGHLY suggest making a web-playable version of this and releasing it online. :) I can see it really taking off!
A few minor things that would maybe give it a little more polish: Maybe consider having the text that people write be readable from both directions? It was sometimes kind of hard to read some of the planets because the text was at weird angles, and because it would get culled if you weren't at the same rotation angle, sometimes it was hard to find in the first place. More options for text customizations would also be awesome, to allow people to add their own little personal flair to it. Also, I found it kind of hard to judge the depth of where my planet was being placed. If you can find a way to make that a little more clear to the player (maybe give them the ability to move their planet a bit within creation window as they're making it) would be another convenient little thing.
Honestly, I think you have a really awesome thing here that could really have a huge community behind it if it just got enough exposure. I hope you have plans to work on this more in the future! :)
Simplicity is king :D
My impression is, that this is like a new type of messenger ... everyone is creating something with some deep message hidden in there. And you have a huge universe of absolute knowledge ... uuh ... exactly :D
Runs great ... perhaps some ambient soundtrack would be nice to create that space feeling ... Other than that, i can't tell why, but it's amazing ...
Interesting concept. I like the idea of creating a mmo as a ludum dare contribution. It is even nice, how the players are using your game. Some of their planet constellations and names where really creative.
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to share our creativity.
Kind of the opposite of a small world but pretty neat. I love the user-generated planets idea, and extra props for using RavenDb. It was pretty interesting to fly around and see what planets names people came up with.
@recursor - I see what you mean lol, I was going with the "Lots of Small worlds", but I guess it comes out as "Big Universe". Also I'm glad at least someone else knows about ravenDB :D Was super easy to work with for this project.
I will try it if you make the "more versions coming soon" as advertised!
This is outstanding! absolutely hilarious concept, can't wait to go back some time.
@Laaph oops, I forgot about that what platform are you on? I'll try and make a build for you
I'm not gonna critique everything that has been mentioned but this was actually an interesting and hilarious use of the theme. I'm actually intrigued to see what you do with this project should you decide to expand on it. I like how theirs a sense of uniqueness to everyones planet so definitely capitalize on that cause I haven't played a game yet that utilizes that sort of multiplayer aspect. Keep it up!
Interesting idea, I like that it's multiplayer. All it needs is some objective to make it more gamey.
I love the idea! Kinda wished we could customize further the planets, but that's only because I loved the idea haha. Everything worked as expected and I found some funny names in there.
Congratulations, great job!
Yes - unlike the "other" game you have multiplayer :)
Wow now I want to play a game called space balls, even though it's nothing like this game.
Really neat game, I love the idea of being able to create and visit user-generated planets. Great job!
Genius concept! There are not many people who can create an online game in two days, yet you did, and a fun one! Great work!
hahaha Love the name! Its a fantastic concept ^^ Maybe improve a little the graphics. Good cob :3
This is not just game, this is art and a interesting social experiment. I am glad tested this quite late in voting period so people have had time to create lots a planets. Had fun exploring around space and finding creative ways people had used tools you’ve given them. Amazing job!
This was an amazing experience! Plopped a fictional solar system named after my game :P
1 question: how do you remove planets that you make? I made a planet of the wrong size, and I regret it. It's called Eris near someone else's model of our Solar System.
Pro-Categories: Innovation, Theme, Humor
Con-Categories; Graphics, Mood, Fun
Overall I would say that while it was cool to experience, as well as a bit fun to make my own solar system, it wasn't much of a game. The concept was nice, however, and I enjoyed seeing other people's planets. Kudos to you for making it multiplayer, which must have been hard.
Ludum Dare casts Vicious Mockery on Sean Murray. Roll for damage.
This is less of a game, and more a standing memorial to how stupid an idea it is to give players the ability to name any world they want. I still approve greatly.
I left a little memorial to an actual thing of importance to me that was lost with the NMS Pathfinder update, in the form of a small giant-and-moon system in the void between Advertisement Square and the wall of white ringed worlds. I do like being sincere every now and then, even in the lands of dank memes.
Great concept, I think your prioritisation of features given the time constraints is evident and wise, and it's exciting knowing that you can now apply these principles to other projects going forward. Really well done mate! :)
@blaster391 notifications still don't work, so I didn't see this!
I'm on a mac, so if you make a mac build I'll play it.
farout.png
I'm betting this little planet is at the edge of the currently known universe. I must say, the screenshots you posted don't do justice to the experience. But I get that it's hard, since the experience comes from user creation and you gave us the tool. I really enjoyed placing planets, following the paths that one other player had created and then finding the little spec at that very very far distance and setting out on the hunt. In the beginning the game must have been pretty empty though, so I'm happy I came upon it this late.
There are some quite obvious things that would possibly make this even more fun such as better sense of flight, more planet types, some neat scan effect for discovering planets (the youtube "Making stuff look good in Unity" has one about the No Man Sky scan effect), and nicer UI for creating (especially if you only want to clone place the same planet type over and again).
Great game though!
@laaph Sorry for the delays! My laptop decided to give up on me, please try out the new mac build (completely untested though, so good luck)
@jishenaz - This is unfortunately a feature I didn't have chance to put together, maybe in a future version.
@local-minimum Yeah, I was intending on updating the screenshots as it progressed, but each time I logged on I was completely blown away, so I decided to try and leave it as a surprise for people.
@blackrose @dragonzlay @local-minimum (and everyone else Re: graphics) - Graphics has never been my strong suit when it's come to game dev, it's why I try and go for an abstract style, making things simple and clean for the user, but thanks to all the suggestions and material people have given me to work with, I am definitely going to hone my skills to try and improve the look of my future projects.
AND FOR EVERYONE
Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game and helping it become what it is now, this was as much of a game than it was an experiment to see what the community could create and it is beautiful in it's own way, all the support I've received is pretty overwhelming. Any criticism both positive and negative is really appreciated, allowing me to evaluate what I need to work on, as well as what my strengths as a developer are. It's kinda crazy seeing the universe as it is now, I'm very interested to see how far this will go before the end of the compo (or the server explodes) Thank you all again <3