All Systems Online

2017-07-31 12:16

Very fun game, once you get started. Gameplay starts a bit slow, until you can work up enough scrap from learning how to defeat the enemies. From there, it's satisfying to explore different combinations to defeat endless enemies.

No sound, music, or effects really makes this game miss out on it's true potential... But the engine runs great, no bugs, and the limitation to your actions really highlight the "Power Shortage" theme, as you have to balance ship elements in a sort of puzzle to get the most out of your creation. You can arm your ship to the teeth, but you'll be a sitting duck while they recharge, so balance your power demands!

A few minor things: The game could use a few number tweaks to make it quicker and more fast-paced. Ship cores are painfully difficult to destroy. Flying feels clunky, especially when out of power. No effects/sounds for things happening make it too number-dependent. Unsatisfying/underpowered turrets make them difficult to use effectively. The Core's turret is just so much better

Overall, I give this game a must-try!

devorc 2017-07-31 13:50

This was a great game! As Natesky9 said, the start was kind of slow. The starting ship was slow which made it the game _feel_ slow. I also think the balance between parts is off. The core is strong (which makes sense), but other items are way to weak. The HP of many parts could be raised. Other than those things this game was super fun once it got going!:grinning:

larx 2017-07-31 14:59

Haha, seems like we've independently had a very similar idea, but yours is actually good :P

It's very fun and I played it for a while, mostly creating [borg cubes](http://imgur.com/Irc38hw)!

vkmicro 2017-07-31 15:54

**First of all:** I really loved the ship building mechanics. That's pretty unique and impressive mechanic to have in a game for Ludum Dare. I was surprisingly pleased. Well done.

**Overall game impression:** A nice and simple opening / introduction screen to inform you about the game and gameplay. I made a similar one and always appreciate a game that has one of those. The movement, I wish there was a side movement to allow more freedom but overall it wasn't something that made me dislike the game. It was pretty fun and definitely unique. Also very addicting once you get a hang of the game. Been playing for way longer than I care to admit! xD

**Suggestions and comments on improvement:** Sound effects would definitely help but that's just an extra. I hardly had time for sound effects myself so I'm not gonna critique just on that. More freedom of movement would definitely help.

p.s. check out my game as well please.

remco 2017-07-31 17:06

The intro-screen mentions the 'A' key instead of the 'S' key, as the description here correctly mentions.

I like building things, especially when they get to 'do' stuff later :slight_smile:

player2point0 2017-07-31 20:08

Really great game. It's fun just flying around and blowing up ships, I also like how you can upgrade your ship at any time.

tjakka5 2017-08-01 15:16

Great game! Very interesting indeed.

I love the scrap and building mechanic. The way power has to be managed is very interesting and fun too.

I think you could improve it by juicing it up a bit; smooth camera, smooth movement, music, sound effects.

pureunstable 2017-08-01 19:47

Great game! I just sat here the last hour and tried to perfect my ship after figuring out how to play. I had a great time destroying all of the other ships and just playing around with it.

My only critiques would be to make the turrets have more health (as they seem to be very easy to destroy after you have ~2 turrets on your own ship), sound effects/music, and for there to be larger ships once the player has progressed enough.

AllSystemsOnline.png

obidubi 2017-08-02 06:54

This is a really cool game! It has a lot of potential as a game and was very fun to play once I got the hang of it. The power management through different blocks on a ship was great and the game play was cohesive and well done. I liked the idea of being able to collect the scrap from other ships to add more stuff to your own (The chance of getting scrap should be a little bit higher in my opinion). This game reminds me of what a very early, 2D version of this game I like called Starmade would look like (Here is a link for reference: http://www.star-made.org/ ). Adding some music and and sound effects would definitely improve this game and make it more interesting, as well as maybe adding some lighting effects to really make it immersive. Overall, really good job with this one and I am interested to see what you add to it next!

boundtotheearth 2017-08-02 12:21

Awesome game! You might want to consider finding a way for players to start reducing the ship's size (maybe by stacking components). The size of my ship got pretty ridiculous after a while and made it pretty hard to manage

dob 2017-08-02 16:14

Really great - one of the most fun I've played. I loved designing ships and figuring out good combinations. It would have been fun to have higher-powered versions of the various parts, so you could maintain a smaller footprint on the ship while still being powerful. Even when my ship got big, it was slow to fight others, and most of the battle consisted of plonking away at the core. So, a faster pace and more powerful stuff (plus some sounds) and this would be completely awesome, instead of merely awesome. Very nice work. I'm so impressed.ship.png

jordanfb 2017-08-03 03:29

Quite a cool concept, it reminds me somewhat of Captain Forever, (which you should be able to find by searching the name). The movement felt a little slow, but that may be because I never got many engines, unlike some of the reviewers here :D. If you polished up the AI and (in my opinion) made the movement a little more fluid, it could be quite fun! I would also have preferred an easier way to choose what items to buy, since I'm on a laptop, so it's hard to scroll to the correct item. Good work!

ryte2byte 2017-08-03 03:57

This is great an I had a lot of fun. Reminds me of a 2d Starmade. I would have liked an arrow on the core to indicate which direction was forward. Also wouldn't mind seeing enemy ships just turn into pickups as soon as the core was killed, but it looks like this was done on purpose.

steve-johnson 2017-08-03 04:39

I made a game with a very similar concept 7 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvqtfLrDhx4

Also, I'm on a Mac, and I got your game running in WINE. Please re-host this file and let me know so I can stop keeping it in my Dropbox folder! https://www.dropbox.com/s/39odp4915vrkcde/AllSystemsOnline.zip?dl=0

I was never able to buy anything other than a generator. Maybe it's because of WINE or something? So the fact that movement was always extremely slow might not be part of the actual game. I'll refrain from rating you for this reason. If you put up a video I'd be happy to give a rating though.

sarah 2017-08-03 04:40

It's really fun building ships. This is a great idea, good job making it work :) The battles were fun but I just kept getting destroyed :(

simon-millard 2017-08-03 06:31

Awesome game! Very innovative and fun to play! The tempo was quite slow, and actually I found that I was running out of scrap much more than I was running out of power. Perhaps starting with a bit more scrap so you could build more than just a power generator (or two hull) in the beginning would have been nice, because it takes some time to get going.

Overall a really sweet game however. Too bad it doesn't have any sound or music, but I still enjoyed it a lot. Well done!

rikoclon 2017-08-03 06:37

Def All there in the fun aspect, great job with the concept!! Building the ship is way cool. The graphics work as they establish purpose but they are not exactly eye catching. Some lighted and shaded pixels really could have gone along way here. Explosions are needed badly. I love how the ships fall apart, I wanted more destruction for each bullet tho. The game was also far too easy. If you can start the game with nothing but a generator and win battles, of course you can win with turrets and engines. Being able to build at any time made things again too easy, but it did make the game fun. Ultimately I got bored, because of the lack of challenge. This game would be so much more fun and challenging if it were online!! I seriously hope your considering beefing up the graphics/sound and making an online version. With the right platform and marketing you can sell this.

fangzhangmnm 2017-08-03 06:51

I consumed 40 minutes on this game Hunt and eat and growth type of survival game the gameplay is addictiving but lack of balancing - The core's firepower is so strong and turrent is useless at the beginning. Only hull is useful - lack of stronger enemies QQ截图20170803144859.jpg

sketchycode 2017-08-03 06:57

Love the concept! As others have said, the start was a bit slow. A strafe ability wouldn't hurt. You could also add something to interfere with the strategy of just burning down enemy turrets right away. Even with hulls, it's kind of easy to essentially disable enemy ships within a few seconds. Overall, awesome job!

cronje 2017-08-03 07:30

Certainly like the concept of ship building! and space and sci fi! Nice game.

sunnray 2017-08-03 07:33

I watched this game being played on stream and its really fun. I like the ship building mechanics.

jcmonkey 2017-08-04 04:53

really nice game for the amount of time you had to do this in

aurel300 2017-08-04 15:34

We streamed your game with Danae plays on Twitch. :) Here's a link:

[Danae streams Ludum Dare 39: Day 1, part 3: All Systems Online](https://youtu.be/5SMgmMwZhJg?t=2m40s)

This was fun, although a lot could be improved, obviously. If I were to suggest the first thing to make the game feel more "fun" to play, it would be to increase the tempo – make the default movement speed faster; make the bullets dodgeable, but more damaging; make the enemies move more actively (actively trying to ram you after losing turrets / building their own); make stronger enemies appear as time progresses. Also the camera viewpoint is very tiny, maybe a zoom out option? As it is, I am sure people will be happy to spend an hour perfecting their ships, although there isn't as much incentive to do so in my opinion :) Still, good job!

rami 2017-08-04 18:58

Nice game, looks inspired by Starmade, I liked it, Spent like 8 minutes playing it, I would only ask if there's a way to repair my code :)