wskilljoy 2018-04-23 12:00
Quite cool! If you flesh this out, I could see it as a successful title!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD41 → Red Shirt Engineer
By noxbuds
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 434 | 3.23 | 40 | |
| Fun | 523 | 2.96 | 40 | |
| Innovation | 188 | 3.65 | 40 | |
| Theme | 308 | 3.67 | 40 | |
| Graphics | 517 | 2.81 | 40 | |
| Audio | 466 | 2.40 | 37 | |
| Humor | 414 | 2.44 | 36 | |
| Mood | 398 | 2.94 | 37 |
Quite cool! If you flesh this out, I could see it as a successful title!
Interesting gameplay! I like it!
Nice and clear design. Scoped too big. All the different logic gates... no levels to use them on. Should be good if finished off. Needs a way too exit mid game, shouldn't quit after final screen, all presume the player wants to replay.
Pretty neat, but there was a couple of "wut?" factors like can I not actually move forwards? Also, why can't I connect wires directly from the output to the input without any logic gates?
Something that really bugged me was that it was really difficult to get the guns firing precisely in the right direction. Perhaps larger colliders on the enemy ships, or some kind of subtle aim helper would improve this.
At first, I thought that only being able to connect one wire from the output was annoying, like with the railgun's overheating sensor. However, having that limitation actually lends to the feeling of an emergency fix, which is pretty cool.
@L14 Game Studio Thanks, I agree - I had underestimated how much work it'd be getting the wiring system working and setting up circuits ;) Definitely planning on expanding it and adding more. I also agree about the UI and options to exit - I realised like 2/3 hours before the end that I needed a UI so I assembled one as fast as possible :S
Also I have just built a web version and created a page on itch.io for it: https://noxbuds.itch.io/red-shirt-engineer
@good-enough Thanks for the feedback - to be honest I thought it wouldn't be much of a puzzle if you just directly connected the inputs to the outputs ;) Also I suspect what you're talking about with not moving forwards is that the background is misleading... it really needs some kind of scrolling. What's probably happening is the enemy is moving at the same time and direction, and since the ships move at the same speed it looks like you're not moving. I'll definitely look into making a scrolling background which seems appropriate :)
@Noxbuds Right as to not being much of a puzzle, but I ended up making it like this: right key -> or gate -> right thruster, and the same for the left thruster; no different from connecting directly. I figured if both thrusters were firing, we'd move forward.
I had trouble with the controls. i managed to shoot, but didnt figure out how to move my ship.
Fun concept, but I couldn't figure out how to turn, maybe broken.
@andwhatnotetc You turn by only activating one of the thruster groups at a time ;)
Interesting but maybe with a progression of the different concept in the "algorithms" we have to make it can be funier. Cool concept, keep coding :)
I agree with others that it was scoped too big, however this is a worthy prototype. The idea of a logic game under a time pressure is good, but the UI needs to do everything it can to make it easy, especially at the start - perhaps lay out logic gates to be used in the first few levels, and graduate to having the user add 1+ logic gates in designated spots later.
@radical-dog Thanks for the suggestion, definitely needs some UI work :)
"Once viewing the engineering panel, everything is fairly self-explanatory." lol, classic gamedev quote ;)
It took me a while to figure out what was going on (and I can read electrical diagrams... I just didn't understand what the goal was) but when I understood the point it was good fun - the pop up dialogs could get a bit annoying when trying to wire things, but other than that I think this was great: really worth fleshing out!
@mrspeaker LOL - that quote is relatively speaking I guess ;) Thanks for the feedback
As a proof of concept this is awesome. But then again, I'm studying electrical engineering. Anyway I hope you do more in the future with this! Cool idea. Also if you don't mind would you rate my game? Thanks for creating this!
As already noted, the controls for the space view are hard to get at first. I had the forward thrusters on, thought it wasn't doing anything, and escaped the fight. Afterwards I was just slipping against the fixed stars in the pointless infinity of space I guess, because the other spacecraft was nowhere to be seen. I wish I'd had a pointer to the enemy location, so I could continue the fight and not restart the game.
Apart from that, this was great! It had been a while since I'd used those symbols.
Amazing! This is my favorite game so far! You have to figure it all out first though. If you complete this game, this can be a thing!!
I liked it, but it certainly requires a bit of a nerd to play it. There's a lot of potential here, but a lot of quality of life things should go in to it before that day. You might get a feel for some of them by watching the video I recorded of me playing your game.
https://youtu.be/10y6Mij3ee8?t=24m31s
@ben-pearson Thanks! Definitely agree that there needs to be a tutorial system, and a way to tell where your enemy is if they're off-screen.
Interesting and very clever use of the theme, took me a while to figure out how to play though. This must have taken a massive amount of work to do in 48 hours, almost a mini logic gate designer. The concept has a alot of potential for expansion. Enjoyable game.
GUI was a little tricky at first, but had a blast playing it. Hope you guys create more levels which, liked what I have played so far!
It was a little bit confusing to figure out how to connect the wires at first, but once I got going it was fun and stressful! :P nice!
Liked it when you can connect different controls to actions, even double them. Nicely done!
I love logic gate games, this is great combination of gameplay elements, really enjoyed it.
Very nice idea, logic gates are always fun, but the clunky UX was frustrating. At first I thought something was broken with keyboard input as arrow keys and W was working, but A and D weren't (even though it said something about thrusters right before). In the logic editor it took a while to see the blue dots, and I'm not sure why one can't hook up e.g. right input to left thrusters immediately without a gate. When I had gotten the thrusters working I returned to the ship view to find the shooting had stopped and I couldn't find any emenies or something -- after waiting around for a while I restarted the game. This time I got through the logic quicker and the enemty was still there, and I could shoot it down with the very slow weapons. I'm still not sure whether the main thrusters actually work, since pressing W lights the back up, but you're not actually moving anywhere (another ship was on-screen, and it stayed in the same spot regardless if I was "moving" or not).
Then came the logic design for the weapons system; I'm guessing you have to AND the user input with either the inverse or the non-inverse of the overheat signal, depending on if it's active high or low, which you find out by trying and then redesigning if you did it wrong? Honestly I couldn't get past this part as there was too much information to handle with the current UI; when a node tooltip closed I immediately forgot what it was about -- a label next to the nodes would be great so you can see what everything is. The mouse is constantly moving back and forth between the nodes, the main design board and the toolbar to do things and switch between nodes, which gets a bit tiring.
With smoother UX this would make a great game!
@tsjost Thanks for the feedback! I definitely plan to expand the game a bit and improve the UI a lot more :)
I liked your idea a lot. It's interesting to repair ship using the logic gates, I hoped there were more challenges teaching about different type of gates. I would play it if gets expanded in the future. Well done!
Ambitious game! I enjoyed it though (and finished it), and I like the potential too. I think it would be good to improve the graphics a little bit, because it was quite difficult to figure out which way you were moving (although i guess would be in real-life space). Secondly, I felt I was under pressure to do the logic, which is a good mechanic, but I couldn't tell how much pressure, so it would be good to add a health bar in that screen. And final point, I wish the puzzles went on for longer, I love the potential of how the time constraints might cause me to compromise on my logic design and then have to cope with it when controlling my ship, maybe by gradually introducing more complex systems with time. Anyway, all of this comes from me enjoying your game and considering the possibilities so please take don't take it as bashing! Nice concept and nice work!
It reminded me of volfield but much harder.
Very good combination, you made these incompatible themes work well together. Although, I think the game might have turned out better had you applied your focus differently -- there are lots of logic gates, but only two simple levels, for example, and while the tooltips are a nice convenience, it might have been better to throw in some static labels and work on getting forward-thrusting to work instead :P However, I will say you did a great job getting the mood right. I felt real anxiety trying to fix the circuits before my ship got blown up. I suggest adding music to further amplify the mood.
Super cool game! It definitely needs that the player knows something about logic gates. For further versions a sensible tutorial will be a must to become reachable for all gamers. A couple of more levels would have been amazing. Also the fact that the puzzle don't have to be 100% completed, just to make work the necessary needs to the ocation granted that feeling of "hackery" so satisfyng. Destroying your enemy with a fast repaired ship is really rewarding. Congratulations!
Gotta say this is a really cool idea and I could see it being fleshed into a polished game. Being the engineer in the background that gets the ship going is pretty satisfying, though I had a hard time figuring out the logic gates at first. Took some figuring, but yeah, great submission!