Star Hopper: Crank

futil 2017-08-01 15:09

Liking this one a lot! It's like a rather unique take on the clicker genre! (cranker genre? huehue) It feels good to start adding parts on to your ship and making the whole ore-collection process faster. I like the art, the game looks rather nice. It took me a few minutes to figure out what I needed to do, but once I did it felt pretty natural. I'm actually leaving the game running while I write this review, to see how much I can add. Great job, I'd love to see this game taken even further!

tolmera 2017-08-03 00:19

Very cool! I like it already. I'll give it a good play on Friday and see if I can get a nice ship together :)

schu 2017-08-03 00:21

I really love the concept. Great fit with the theme but I think it's a game that's extremely hard for people to get into. I know for me personally, the UI was a bit confusing. In particular, the button to get out of the Navigation menu was hidden below the bottom of my screen. I also think it's a bit hard to understand what you're actually doing but once you figure it out it's a really cool idea. I think with polish and a better on-ramp for new users (such as starting with only navigation and engines and then gaining new parts) I think it could make a really neat game. For such a short amount of time, great work!

norticks 2017-08-03 00:55

kept it open on another tab, and stil playing after rating :p

thygrrr 2017-08-03 01:58

Well, this has got to be the first Hamsterwheel-, err, Rabbit-Crank-Driven space station I have seen!

Likes: - many options, deep space exploration feel - cute rabbit - loving the blue print feel of the build mode

Try differently: - it really doesn't play well with 125% GUI scale, I have to scale the browser down to 70% to even see the close buttons - need spacy floaty sounds :)

Overall: - a complex space mining and building game as a COMPO ENTRY? wow, I am impressed!

stormforce02 2017-08-03 02:09

I've been playing so long that I almost forgot to rate this and comment, so... I hope that says something. Really wonderful game, honestly. I made something very similar for this Ludum Dare but it's more of the combat side of things, so it's really good to see someone take the other approach.

jimbly 2017-08-03 16:23

Fun little game! I seemed to be having a very buggy experience though - the numbers next to the resources didn't seem to reflect what was happening, usually say a negative number next to energy, but my energy kept going up, and the ore number was close for a while (said +3 but I was getting +1.5/second or so), but then I bought a couple more miners, now it said +4.7, but I was gaining only +0.1/s at that point, so had to stop playing. Energy was full, and always said + a lot (built a bunch of panels), and everything was lit up, so not sure what was going wrong. also usually had two sets of scroll bars visible (I resized my window at some point), and had to scroll each of them to find various buttons.

Overall, enjoyed it though =).

tolmera 2017-08-03 22:12

Same as most of the above, there was a learning curve, and I don't really get what's up with the power-flow and the numbers, but that being said; this is a great game! Very impressive the amount of content and art (not an artist myself), I like the mechanics! :)

Game seemed to slow down as I built more parts, or just as time passed (noticeable within 5 minutes of play).

But that didn't stop me from having this open all evening, and I'm only stopping now because I have work in the morning :)

Capture.PNG

deathray 2017-08-04 01:44

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone! :smile: The original energy calculations were certainly kind of off (to put it nicely); I was doing calculations in a weird order. I've fixed that (mostly?) in the post-compo version, and added a new UI, and a few other things that should address some of the well-deserved, constructive criticism brought up by many people. If you want to play the game again for fun after rating, then I'd recommend trying the newer version. ...and follow me on twitter/tumblr/reddit for some (very infrequent) updates.

@tolmera - The screenshot is great - that's an interesting design. I love seeing what people come up with. @thygrrr - I really wish I knew how to make "spacy floaty sounds"! @stormforce02 - Your game looks awesome too.

brandon-diaz 2017-08-04 18:59

Very cool, great art style and effects. You managed to get a lot of UI done in the time given as well, it's impressive. Like others it took me a long time to get the hang of it, but I sunk a good 15 minutes building aimlessly.

peachtreeoath 2017-08-05 05:03

As a fan of incrementals I really liked this variant on the genre. I like the interplay between the different resources, it's always good to have several carrot on sticks to keep the player craving different goals. The concept of the rabbit itself is pretty funny. Good job on the game, you had me playing way too long.

tolmera 2017-08-06 18:09

Hey @deathray - [you put your game on my list to play](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/end-of-time/whos-not-had-any-love-link-your-game-for-me-to-play), and [I streamed the play-through on Friday](https://youtu.be/-DEvWdMWCKk?t=2847), didn't get as far through as I did when I played it before, but thought you might like to see the little bit of gameplay :)

deathray 2017-08-08 03:32

Thanks so much @tolmera. That video was really wonderful! :blush: Version 1.1.2 (some bug fixes, the ability to earn while browser tab isn't in focus, and a slightly bulkier ship) is dedicated to you.

tolmera 2017-08-08 20:45

Aww :) Thank you :) (woohoo! Loving this game!)

joshburleson 2017-08-09 15:00

The highest praise I can give this game is that it's super compelling. Something about a rabbit cranking a ships battery in deep space is fascinating and makes you want to look deeper into what's going on. The thing is the UX is really difficult. The UI looks really nice but with no indication of what was going on I was lost for at least 15 minutes. This was compounded by the fact that I couldn't figure out how to get out of the navigation tab and was stuck there until I found a solution in your comments (scale down browser). Really props on making such a unique game. Give the player a little more direction and I think you have something really special.

elmismopancho 2017-08-09 23:18

This game is very interesting, but as many have already said, there is a learning curve, and the progression of the game is slow, and that can go against the number of reviews you will get. However, is a great game, and I will keep playing it while I rate other games.

PS: I tried playing it on an ipad and the start button didn't work.

deathray 2017-08-10 02:56

Thanks for the feedback, it's really helpful. (Josh - I'm impressed by your willingness to figure out the game for so long!) I put in a tiny css fix to correct for the navigation and parts menus not scrolling correctly, because with certain sized monitors this is game-breaking. :hammer: I also removed some code that didn't do anything except kill the ability to scroll with the mouse wheel. LD39 version is 1.0.4 ([details here](https://github.com/deathraygames/star-hopper-crank/commit/fa11aae9477f9e8d41817d920b90f4b4b19b60f1)), and the post-compo version (recommended if you want all the UI improvements) is at v1.1.3.

foodzilla 2017-08-10 05:25

This is a hella-ambitious game. Kudos to you guys for making this for the compo!

ddrkirbyisq 2017-08-10 06:10

Oo yay a progression game! Could definitely use some work, but it's pretty promising!

(I played the compo version)

failedstarfish 2017-08-10 12:54

As others have said the learning curve is pretty steep. Once you learn how to play the game is adictive and fun. I kept it on and played for a long time. Really liked the graphics and the little guy turning the crank forever.

kpded 2017-08-11 08:02

It seems like this game has fantastic level of gameplay depth for compo entry!

Background music would add a lot to the game mood

pavelsovushkin 2017-08-11 11:22

I would like to learn at the beginning and more events in the first interaction