FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD40 → Retro Rocket Run!

Retro Rocket Run!

By gwolf86

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4303.2189
Fun4822.9788
Innovation4262.9689
Theme3093.5088
Graphics3863.1989
Audio2913.0784
Mood4302.9084

Comments

2017-12-04 10:06

Very cool quick project! It surprised me a few times. A good laugh! Beat this! :)

Retro_Rocket_Run_HS.PNG

I look forward to see some crazy high scores!

niphram 2017-12-04 12:12

Pretty fun, but the performance is dying a bit (could also be my pc)

Highest score I got was 37173

gwolf86 2017-12-04 12:21

Thanks for the feedback @niphram. It's probably a combination of both. Handling all of those coins was a big challenge that I didn't really solve in the allotted time.

If you could let me know your system specs that would be a massive help for when I come to optimise the post-compo version.

niphram 2017-12-04 12:33

@gwolf86 sure, my GPU is a GTX1060, my CPU a i56600k and I'm using chrome for playing :)

gwolf86 2017-12-04 12:35

Thanks @Niphram, much appreciated.

mruniverse 2017-12-04 12:43

gtx1060, i7 @ 2.97ghz, chrome. Definitely lost frames the minute I started running through the coin field. The "pickups" should have some sort of notification when they activate, as I went off the screen a number of times when I picked up an invert and an invisibility in quick succession.

bobombe 2017-12-04 12:44

It was quite fun ! A bit hard to understand what is going on. Maybe the start speed could be slower ?

mess110 2017-12-04 12:56

Wasn't sure what "power up" I had, I only figured out the inverse. Otherwise, I liked the idea to balance picking or not picking up coins. Seeing the current score would be nice. I saw coins, top score and time. Got 8k something :D

are-sundnes 2017-12-04 13:04

Great idea, and nice art. I have some FPS problems playing here, I'm guessing because of the many coin instances?

gwolf86 2017-12-04 13:11

Thanks for the feedback @mruniverse, @bobombe, and @mess110.

There is a particle effect and warning sound when a pickup is activated, although you don't get told which one (I wanted to do additional effects for each one but ran low on time).

I'll definitely look at slowing things down in the beginning, I also want to add an in-game tutorial that pauses to explain things as the happen for the first time.

If you can't tell what powerup activated by the immediate effect then it's probably the speed boost, which makes the controls more responsive.

gwolf86 2017-12-04 15:17

Yeah, managing that many coins was a real challenge @are-sundnes. I thought I'd fixed it before submitting but there's clearly still some issues on certain hardware.

bocodillo 2017-12-04 17:39

Fun game and I like the idea of a dodge game where all the walls are made of pickups. Had fps problems but it didn't really effect my ability to control the ship. Liked the music, although it did repeat a little too much. It was really enjoyable to play though, getting multiple pickups at once was panic inducing. Once you get inverse controls it just snowballs out of control! Good job. My best score was 53828.

hegemege 2017-12-04 20:43

Fun twist on the coins, but the game didn't have much feeling of progress. More variations to the repeating parts would've been nice! The invisible ship effect is just brutal :)

Good mood, fitting visuals and sounds. The coin sound was perfectly soft!

gamesplusjames 2017-12-04 21:51

A fun game! I like the idea of having to both avoid and collect the coins, it's an interesting one for sure. The web player didn't run very well, unfortunately, I wish there was an option to download the game to play :) Great job though, especially for your first LD! Keep it up!

generalvivi 2017-12-04 21:54

Nice game, but I was confused as to what types of affects were being done to my ship, It could use more feedback in those areas. Was never really sure if what I was doing was good or not.

seano 2017-12-04 22:08

It looks very nice, the elements are all there.

gwolf86 2017-12-04 22:14

Thanks for all the feedback.

@gamesplusjames, I've added a standalone version of the game for you to download and run. Let me know if there are any problems with it (I don't know why I didn't jsut put it up with the web build to be honest!)

gamesplusjames 2017-12-04 22:30

@gwolf86 awesome, just checked the standalone and it definitely runs much better. Nice one!

gwolf86 2017-12-04 22:57

@gamesplusjames, thanks for letting me know. Maybe the lag is just an issue with WebGL or particular browsers.

yodog 2017-12-05 00:40

This game has a great look and feel. The music is nice at first but gets a bit too grating after a while without any real variation. I would also love to see the score as you go, but I can see how that might affect whether I want to pick up coins or not. It might also be nice to get some kind of visual telling me what effect has been activated, but again I can see how that takes away from the surprise of the game. Overall I like it!

omnipotentindie 2017-12-05 00:41

Pretty solid. Bit easy and repetitive, but overall quite well made.

billeclipse 2017-12-05 01:33

Really cool game! :D

ham-and-swiss 2017-12-05 02:03

Lagging hard for me too, but really nice job on the game.

rombus 2017-12-05 02:10

haha it's funny how many things fucked me up the first time I played. Overall solid entry

darthnumbers 2017-12-05 02:13

fun gameplay, wish there was some more audio variation. Really clever take on the theme!

pvtroswold 2017-12-05 02:53

I love the creativity of LD games! Coins as obstacles, ha! Great job.. unfortunately despite the amazing font my FPS were pretty un-amazing. Great work otherwise!

happygreenfrog 2017-12-05 04:28

Gets a bit repetitive after a while, but a solid concept and good controls make this a pretty decent entry overall. Nicely done!

jk5000 2017-12-05 09:34

Simple idea for a game, and it was easy to play. Both the music and graphics was good. The music loop was a bit short, but that was okay. Overall a well made LD game.

jani-nykanen 2017-12-05 16:13

I got only 7,995, sniff.

It was a bit repetitive and the web version was a bit laggy on Opera & Linux, but otherwise, I liked it. The music fit the game well.

papacheech 2017-12-05 16:23

nice! This was really fun. I like the graphics and the gold coins are very satisfying looking. Logo is solid as well. As for the gameplay, it is simple yet addictive! Small issue I had, part way through sometimes my ship would disappear and just keep exploding. Otherwise, good work!

oliverlevay 2017-12-05 16:42

COOL CONCEPT

The more I played the more I lagged. The more you have, the worse it is! ;)

GG

gwolf86 2017-12-05 16:50

@papacheech, Was it doing that on every coin pickup or just more frequently? Picking up more coins is the only way to undo the effects of invisibility and inverted controls, so it creates a snowball effect. If it was triggering on every coin then that's definitely a bug. I saw it a couple of times whilst I was making it but could never work out what was causing it.

xclementx 2017-12-05 17:21

A bit laggy too but fun concept ! I like it :smiley: Well done!

mathiouza 2017-12-05 17:59

Circa 16000. But the bumpers looks like what ? Because when I got coins, sometimes I got hitted, but for no apparently reasons ... Great concept though ! I like the graphism and the sounds work well.

Overall good game ! Keep coding :)

btwj 2017-12-05 18:02

I enjoyed the idea of the game, although it did get laggy after a while... I kept dying when the controls inverted :( It's impressive how you managed to make audio and everything for this game in the compo. Good job!

schizoid2k 2017-12-05 19:03

Scored 14,119 here. Pretty cool game and fun to play. I think a visual indicator on what power up you have would help. I sometimes drove myself directly into the spikes when the power up wore off.

benhumphries 2017-12-05 19:16

I love the custom font and I love the concept! Unfortunately, as you noted, the WebGL build was pretty laggy. I think if you find a way to optimize the massive amount of coins on the screen it would probably work a lot better. Great job!

jeysym 2017-12-05 19:23

Nice game ;). But I agree that it would be nice to see what power ups are active.

priweejt 2017-12-05 19:25

hiscore.png

Quite fun, I might come back and try to improve my score later :D

dan-colman 2017-12-05 20:10

Right on theme, nice. Look at difficulty curve, might be too fast.

moistgames 2017-12-05 20:13

Very excellent work! This is a totally different play experience than what we went for, but definitely awesome!

chazatron16 2017-12-05 20:20

Really interesting and different mechanics and fun to play. I like the choice of how difficult you want to make it with the coin collecting mechanic.

strelly 2017-12-05 22:53

Sin título.png

meanmon13 2017-12-05 23:21

I liked it. The game definitely gets harder the more coins you collect!

fussenkuh 2017-12-06 00:50

Just barely cracked the top 10! I enjoyed the choice of grabbing coins to make my life harder. It's an interesting take on "more is worse." My only beef is really with the problem you're already aware of, lag in the WebGL version makes it less than ideal to play. Otherwise, great job!

highscore.png

asellio 2017-12-06 01:51

It was quite fun

x-budsterized-x 2017-12-06 10:36

I like the artstyle, sounds and execution of the idea... But the performance of the game is so bad :( it got a bit better when I downloaded the standalone Windows version, but after 10 seconds in the performance got just as bad as on web... managed to score over 17.000 anyway though since I kept trying because it was fun :D

360 2017-12-06 14:24

Dude, I don't believe you made 78k highscore. Haha. The game is fun, and funny. Nice post, check out my demo @ https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/do-ki Peace brooo

gwolf86 2017-12-06 14:29

@360, the trick is to avoid the coins for as long as possible and don't try to undo the negative effects (just try to play with them active). Besides, the designer is always good at their own game (Fun fact, after about 2:30 mins the levels start glitching out so it becomes impossible to avoid the coins anymore. It just keeps generating the same Y shape).

I checked out your game yesterday and gave you a rating. :)

yetman 2017-12-06 21:04

Cool game. I like the idea a lot. My main complaint that the "score, timer & coins" part are hard to read since the coins has a similar color. Otherwise, good work.

gruhh 2017-12-06 22:00

A simple game with a good inversion of expectation, good idea. I just felt a little loss of performance in the web version, but nothing that would get in the way. Congratulations.

Um jogo simples com uma boa inversão de expectativa, boa ideia. Apenas senti um pouco de perda de desempenho na versão web, mas nada que atrapalhasse muito. Parabéns. :flag_br:

svr-audio 2017-12-07 00:37

Pretty good game, I loved the music on this really good, the sfx were also good, combined with a very good art this game is really good, although the html version has some lags, the windows version runs in perfect shape =p great job, I loved the concept !

nammflow 2017-12-07 00:55

Screen Shot 2017-12-06 at 5.52.30 PM.png

Couldn't quite figure out what the best strategy is to earn more points. It was unclear by playing he game how coins and time ended up affecting the score in the end. I know that both increase score, but I love to get high scores so would like to figure out how to optimize!

Other notes: I like the music, although since it is a short sound clip, it does get reptitive quickly. I do like how this game is a nice little breeze to play. It's low stress and sometimes mesmerizing to just sit and play for a bit. Nice work!

pkenney 2017-12-07 01:57

22,570: https://imgur.com/a/y5wf2

This was fun! Nice job adding a variety of power-down effects to make it risky to take the coins! Invisible + inverted was nuts!! The damage one made it tough for me to know.. should I collect coins at all or not?

If I could make one tweak, I would make the restart command usable from the keyboard instead of having to take my hand off to grab the mouse. Don't want to add friction to that moment where I'm deciding whether to play "one more game!"

Also I liked the coin art and the way the lighting and slight perspective made it feel much more like a real space than pure flat top-down would have. It DID have a flying-into-a-field-of-coins feeling!

Nice work.

ropedog 2017-12-07 03:55

Neat little game - great job for your first entry! Graphics and music fit very well together, and it absolutely has a strong retro feel (which I love). You're definitely taking a risk when picking up coins, and it adds to the suspense. I would have liked more variance in the level, but maybe that can come later with a full release! Nice job!

gwolf86 2017-12-07 09:30

Thanks for all the continued support and feedback everyone!

@nammflow, the coins act as a multiplier to your time score. According to my maths, you'll be able to pick up an average of 200 coins before dying via their damage effects, so you then just have to stay alive long enough to get that sweet time multiplier. To beat my high score, that means staying alive for around 157 secs!

@pkenney, adding a replay key event was something I thought about adding but ran out of time to really polish the menus (they were the first thing in the game). I also wanted the score menu to have the option to take you directly back into the game, so these will definitely be something that gets added to a later release.

falak 2017-12-09 10:40

I love the way you used the theme! <3 Good luck

serpentworks-games 2017-12-09 10:45

Neat little game, I'm sorry about the lag! You might be able to fix that using object pooling, so you're really only ever respawning the same objects over and over again, instead of spawning and destroying them afterward. It doesn't cut down on the collisions that are going on ( since that's a -lot- of collisions in a short amount of time ) but it should help on the backend some.

I'd love some more feedback on what powerup I've got. I kept getting inverted controls, but not really knowing I had them, and smashing into the bumpers trying to move one way or the other. I definitely love the inclusion of power-ups though, it adds a good amount of depth to the game.

Great job for your first entry!

jynspielt 2017-12-09 11:08

Argh my computer is making the lagging worse but hey the more lagg the worse it is right? i imagine this a fun game and it looks okay and the music was okay too.

sbarrio 2017-12-09 11:38

Nice little game. Lags quite badly on the HTML5 build, though.

gwolf86 2017-12-09 11:48

(@serpentworks-games, I'm working on a new version of the game and object pooling is definitely the way to go. I'm already seeing some massive improvements in performance. Thanks for the feedback.

11tomi12 2017-12-09 11:57

Interesting game and great music!

If you are interested, please check out my LD40 game [Escape Infection!](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/escape-infection)

gris 2017-12-09 12:18

Great music and take on the theme. Congrats!

2017-12-09 13:41

Good concept to have power-ups also be the enemy! The "Play again" button should go straight into a new game.

samusoidal 2017-12-10 14:58

Well made Compo entry, for sure! It was a little difficult with no feedback as to what the coins were doing to me, and the music got pretty annoying after a bit. The concept was interesting and the controls were easy to pick up, however.

valkling-friend-of-all-things 2017-12-10 23:31

It looks great and the sound is nice. Had fun with it. No surprises here for feedback, the lag is brutal. Otherwise, take care of that and this game is solid.

Anyways, my Compo game is over here, if you want to have a look: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/squirrel-puncher-4000

naca 2017-12-12 02:22

Very good for your first time in the compo! Coins seem to be pretty random, so I always tried to avoid them. My best score:

best_score.png

cawrtz 2017-12-15 21:22

Nice entry! Unfortunately a bit laggy for me (HTML5, chromium, linux w/ nvidia graphics) — I think using Unity to do this kind of 2D game is a bit like killing a fly with dynamite ^^ The interpretation of the theme is straightforward but I prefer this to over-complicated games. I had fun playing it, and the game offers a lot of content. Congratulations for your entry!

robert-newman 2017-12-17 01:13

Really fun game with an obvious previously mentioned issue. After a few goes i almost got used to the lag but its was still an issue

Overall though a great job done

nekoballs 2017-12-19 18:15

Fun game! I found myself restarting a lot in the beginning until i had +150 coins with decent amount of health left. Good take on the theme and a great first ludum dare game!

score.png

goat-toaster-games 2017-12-24 03:15

Haha this was tough but awesome! Really fun submission.

levidsmith 2017-12-24 08:50

My system really started suffering from slowdown after about 10 seconds, and I was using the Windows build. I tried the HTML5 version as well, which wasn't much better. Seemed like a neat concept. I just think the number of instantiated coins killed my system, but I can't imagine there being much game logic in the coins and they appear to be composed of complex models.