FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD39 → Broken Shuttle

Broken Shuttle

By nyri0

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1733.5728
Fun1883.4429
Innovation2603.2529
Theme2213.7029
Graphics3053.3329
Humor1253.1429
Mood2583.1128

Comments

matoux42 2017-07-31 11:10

Nice game ! :grinning:

sgt3v 2017-07-31 21:10

I really liked the game, the game mechanics are really good written and levels are well designed. The conversations were a plus. Good work!

lucien-catonnet 2017-08-01 08:07

I especially liked that the talented green pilot woman didn't take no shit from that useless pessimist piece of crap octopus man. Go green women.

linheha 2017-08-01 11:24

Good job ! Nice levels, and I really liked the way you did the planet (colors and paint) :)

gistnoesis 2017-08-01 22:41

Nice graphics. Don't know if it's intended but on a track-pad, we can't click left and right simultaneously and have both engines up at the same time to go straight. I think the game would be fun even without the power restriction if you add more planets, sort of a gravitational maze.

nyri0 2017-08-01 22:53

Thanks to all of you for your reviews!

@gistnoesis Sorry for the trackpad. When I make an update of this game, I'll allow control with keyboard (it's really easy, just two if-then-else statements to modify).

You're totally right for the levels, I wanted to do so much more, with more planets, little asteroids etc. But I obviously didn't have enough time... The levels system actually supports that kind of levels, I just need to have time and courage to make new levels (drawing the sprites, conceiving the levels, playtesting).

drachmor 2017-08-02 05:36

I really enjoyed the movement of the character in this game - I always love managing momentum in a thoughtful way. That being said, I felt like most of the gameplay was more "trial and error" than it should have been. I can't really criticize the lack of audio, as I didn't include audio in my game as well (also, there's no sound in space, so it's even logically excusable!) Overall though, I thought you did a pretty good job!

nusan 2017-08-02 07:13

Really polished game, I liked the challenge. I'm only missing more feedback when you run out of juice, and maybe a preview of your trajectory could make the game more accessible. Good job!

snowy 2017-08-02 14:16

I really like the concept of this game, and it was fairly well-executed, but I feel like it could've been more. The "puzzle solving" felt more like "trial and error", which was a tad bit disappointing. I'm not going to blame you about the lack of sound and music, because that's the last thing you probably need to worry about if you're making a game in 48h, but some peaceful spacey music would've enhanced the atmosphere a lot.

Don't get me wrong though, I loved the game! From the art, to the conversation between the characters. I had great fun with it! It all felt really polished. The challenge was also balanced, with a nice difficulty curve going through the levels. And, I'll be honest, a lot of the dialogue was really witty and I enjoyed every bit of it.

Overall, I feel like you did a great job on the game!

pixel-game-wizard 2017-08-03 00:58

I enjoyed this game. It felt to me very puzzle-like, and it has a personality of its own. I would have liked to see more I think, but I guess that's how ludum dare goes in general. XD Overall I think this is great.

sarah 2017-08-04 02:41

I liked the pink planets the best :D Overall I really like the concept of this, it's really fun. If there were more levels I would definitely keep playing. Sound and music would have made it that much better :) Good job!

brorawr 2017-08-04 12:28

yaay python! \o/

Really good entry, good job!

milano23 2017-08-04 15:04

Nice game. Reminds me of angry birds in space, except without the sling shot. Really like games that use gravity as a mechanic. Great job on the dialogue as well. Good job!

rac-games 2017-08-04 19:32

I enjoyed the gameplay, which was easy to get into and had a nice difficulty curve for me. You pulled off the controls and the gravity mechanic very well, which resulted in a good game feel. The graphics are pretty neat too. I like the fact that you included a story with characters, but for me the dialog felt a little trivial sometimes. Overall I had a good time playing your game, great job :grinning: !

jimbly 2017-08-04 22:40

Nice game, I played through all of the levels! Gameplay was simple to understand, difficult to master. The short lines between planets were entertaining, just one or two sentences is just the right amount of dialog, I think =). Thank you for not forcing me to re-read them each time I died ;).

gonutz 2017-08-04 22:51

Unfortunately I cannot play your Windows 64 bit game on my 32 bit machine, could you add another build?

nyri0 2017-08-04 23:10

@gonutz I'll try to make a 32bit executable but you can already play the game without it: download the source code, install Python from https://www.python.org/downloads/, open the Windows command line (cmd or Powershell) and type `pip install pygame`, then double-click game.pyw and you can play.

timbeaudet 2017-08-05 03:55

I played on stream, _(VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164456874)_ so you were able to watch a lot of thoughts live as I played. However I _**promised**_ I would come back to rate and give feedback. Any questions/comments use [@timbeaudet on twitter](https://www.twitter.com/timbeaudet). And **finally** a link to _my_ game if you wanted to check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/edrive

Feedback:

For a first LudumDare event, very nice. You must have some good prior experience or/even jamming experience. The art was pretty consistent. Relatively minimalistic, but works quite well. The game had a storyline of sorts that went along with it which was quite neat, I'm not convinced it really had a solid effect on mood or not, but I liked it. The game was quite simple to grasp the concept, fire engines with very limited amount of power that runs out extremely quickly and use the gravitational pulls to reach the station.

Thankfully you didn't need to reach the station at a slow speed. The hit box felt about right, in general, but there was once or twice I was hoping it had been more generous. Back to the cutscene, because the mouse buttons flipped the text I didn't get to see some of the text because I was busy doing "micro" boosts to reach the station and it skipped beyond. That said forcing keyboard use to change cutscene would be a **no-no** as well. Maybe a forced delay of 1/4 or 1/2 second before skipping the first text of a cutscene? Perhaps even when within a range of the space-station, maybe do a slowdown/visualization of docking - before entering the story mode. Indicating no more key pressing needed.

Finally because of the story mode going along I felt the ending was a little more abrupt. I assume there were more levels planned and cut based on the script? Otherwise maybe more hint of ending and some more victorious, **WE SURVIVED** / heroic text could be added to the story end. Audio was missing. Sound effects for the engines, collision of a planet, and something during cutscene could have really brought feedback to another level.

All in all a good entry.

prodigalson 2017-08-05 18:12

I keep turning on the wrong thrusters at first but I quickly go the hand of it. Physics take a little to get used to at first but I think it was fair. Hand drawn graphics look good. Wish there was at least sound for the thursters but I get it, it is the empty void of space...there's no sound that can be heard ;)

gonutz 2017-08-06 16:21

@nyri0 I am sorry but I do not want to install python myself for this but if you find time to release a Win 32 version please let me know, I will be back to try it in that case. Thanks!

petzi 2017-08-09 23:27

Not bad! The graphics are really nice and I think the simple mechanic is elegant, though I didn't like the dialogues because they felt very tasteless and pointless. I also feel that the gameplay somehow off.

I think the problem is that it feels too luck-based. I didn't spend that much time thinking about how the different objects could affect my course, but rather trying very very slight variations of the last thing I tried, until I somehow got it right. I think this is because the ship's control is too minute, so it's more of a precision game than a puzzle game.

The level with the moving planets is a bit better because it does seem that you have to think logically. But it's still plagued by the ship's sensitive controls: it should be more obvious that you're failing because you're not following the right strategy, instead of feeling that it's because you didn't control the ship correctly. So the solution is to make the ship easier to control, more predictable.

Ultimately, in it's current form it's not that much fun, at least for me. It didn't feel like a puzzle game that I was beating with my wits and learning with each level, and it didn't feel like a dexterity game where I learn to control the ship with each level. It just felt like, in each level, I had to start trying things out and hope for the best, and nothing from the previous levels helped me.

Man, maybe I wrote too much. I hope what I said makes sense!

tomdeal 2017-08-15 16:42

I really like the mechanics in this game. Very simple but challenging. The pace could be a bit slower, so it would be easier to steer the ship, but I had a blast playing the game.

kerdelos 2017-08-19 11:18

Wow I'm really amazed by the quality you managed to reach with you game for you first Ludum dare. This is impressive. I find the graphics gorgeous (sure it's not Direct X 11 PBR tesselated 4K models like in The Witcher 3 but it's beautiful in it's own way ) and the scenario complements really well the levels by adding a little touch of humour. Too bad there's no music, it could really bring this game to the sky ( see the irony here ? ). The only thing I think could enhanced the game would be some feedback on what forces the different planets apply on you because right now it's a bit hard to predict the movement of the shuttle and feels a bit too much like a luck based die and retry.

A part from that this a great game that I really enjoyed playing and I'm really curious to see what you'll achieve next Ludum Dare ! Keep up the good work ;)