Foon →
Ludum Dare Explorer →
LD41 →
Iocus Navis
Iocus Navis
By ranzor and thatsommes
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 632 | 3.41 | 41 | |
| Fun | 737 | 3.15 | 41 | |
| Innovation | 635 | 3.29 | 41 | |
| Theme | 572 | 3.61 | 41 | |
| Graphics | 753 | 3.20 | 41 | |
| Audio | 545 | 3.03 | 41 | |
| Humor | 730 | 2.62 | 37 | |
| Mood | 609 | 3.25 | 41 | |
Comments
The basic mechanics of this were a lot of fun, if you add more cards and telegraph what enemy are likely to do (maybe just let the player see their hand) it can be a really great game. I would also like a game like this that is multiplayer but with a lot of players at once.
nina
2018-04-23 22:26
7Zip won't let me open the RAR file. "Can not open file ... as archive" :thinking:
@Lost-Dutchman-Software We should probably have said so in the description but most of the movement is predictable. The enemy ships will always move 1 tile forward, turn left or right and shoot.
@nina I'm sorry to say that I'm unable to recreate your problem. I tried opening it with both WinRAR and 7zip. For me it works with both.
Nice work lads! We also did a very original too, ye mid check it out?
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hype-time
seurimas
2018-04-24 23:07
404 error. Let me know when you fix the link!
wassim
2018-04-24 23:08
Sadly the link won't work to try it out :/ Keep me updated on any changes!
Guys, File not found (404 error).
@OscarTrevejo @seurimas @Wassim Link should work again now. Sorry about that.
djfariel
2018-04-25 00:19
Thanks for the fun! Trying to learn the mechanics of the asteroids and the ships was very interesting. My only desire with the game is that the camera followed the player on every tile. I once lost because I transition to a new screen and flew directly in to a planet, with no opportunity to strategize around it! Great job, though.
Interesting mix. A feel that the player relies too much on luck, and it's hard to find the home (I did find some planets, but I went right through them and died haha) without some direction. The music and sounds tie in very well. Well done!
megalink
2018-04-25 00:41
Very nice game! Quite challenging the concept was interesting.
Nice work! First impression just from the music playing set the mood well, overall kudos on the sound design. I also appreciated the death screen to tie in the replay in a way that makes sense. I was excited to see that enemies could shoot objects and each other. It made the gameplay area feel very dynamic.
There's a lot of potential in the gameplay that can be unlocked with just a touch of polish. The gameboard needs a bit more room to itself, the UI often covers up elements that the player needs to see. I'd love any way to see where hints at where objects are going to move and shoot so I can try to plan my moves.
I have to confess that I wasn't sure what was increasing my score and if I was trying to get somewhere or trying to stay in place and survive; I wasn't sure if there was an "end" to the game, or if I was shooting for a high score.
Great job overall! Great work with making a game with solid mechanics and compelling atmosphere!
tigerj
2018-04-25 00:48
Nice game, I did not like the hand I had that was shoot shoot shoot turn turn. I did not feel like there was a state being maintained before each turn, once there were not asteroids and then there were a lot and I died.
I think this is a very creative concept! The music was also very fitting for the feel of the game.
lopex
2018-04-25 00:55
very good game!
lopex
2018-04-25 00:55
very good game!
lopex
2018-04-25 00:56
very good game!
The gameplay was really fun! A few times I ended up with all of the same card and didnt have any choice though. It is apparent the enemies are playing with similar rules to the player but their if their movement was smooth it might help it look like they came from somewhere instead of just appearing. I would love to see more cards like turn right and shoot or move and shoot or some sort of wild card. That might really spice up the gameplay along with alternative goals!
I really liked this! I think there were times when I would like to have only played 1 or 2 cards but it's super rewarding when you play the right 3 moves and destroy one of the enemy ships. A 'scan' card that telegraphs the enemies next route might be an interesting addition. Great work!
@Urban-Logic-Games Wow I like that idea :-P Will def implement it if we make a post LD version. We did intend for you to be pick anywhere between 1 and 3 cards, but right before release we found a game breaking bug and just had to force the 3 cards.
n00b
2018-04-25 13:42
This game is very unique. The gameplay reminded me of something like final fantasy tactics but with spaceships. Overall a fun game.
drskort
2018-04-26 14:31
Really good game. I enjoyed the idea and the gameplay. Would liked to play it even longer :)
nidup
2018-04-26 14:53
Cool concept, I like the gameplay and overall ambiance. Btw, as you use Unity, you could generate a WebGL buid and upload it on a service like ich.io to make your game available to more testers. Great game, keep up the good work and congratz you just passed the 20 ratings :rocket:
dovakla
2018-04-26 21:53
This is a clever idea. It sort of reminded me of Out There, although the gameplay was of course totally different. This could of benefited from a little more polish, such as making the camera always track the ship like others have suggested. A card that points you in the direction of earth would probably be useful and would make it less luck-based.
Nice work, I really like the concept of the game. Feel Free to drop a review at our game https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/boomball
artiko
2018-04-27 11:08
Nice one! Apart from the missing music, the overall game is great! Well done!
@artiko missing music? There should be music in the game
Cool game ! I would expect more animation (when drawing cards or changing board) but the game is cool ! The music makes a nice mood.
Nice work ! Keep coding :)
artiko
2018-04-27 11:19
@thatsommes you're right, my bad! i'm gonna change my rating, sorry!
@Artiko Awesome! You scared me there :-P
cyrdach
2018-04-27 12:26
Very nice game, it would be awesome to be able to focus on some card type, cuz in one of mine games i was over and over getting 1 move forward and nonthing else but otherwise really nice game! GJ :D
dyoni
2018-04-27 23:51
Ops! The game bugged after I moved to the west limit of the map I guess. The enemy ships never actually tried to shoot at me at the first round I played, I guess it's just the AI trying to use its cards. Well, lucky me. After a while I got notified of the home planet, but it seemed that there were 2 identical Earths just on the next area of the map. Unfortunately I died while trying to get the right cards to get inside the planet.
@nina i had the same problem for opening the .rar for iocus-navis but updated to the latest version of 7 zip fixed it for me.
Pretty fun, a bit slow going as is often the way with turn based games. And the frustration of not being able to go where you want due to the lack of useful cards is a bit counter fun. Maybe more variation of cards would help. Hit some weird bug when i transitioned screens, think i may have ended up in something and then was just stuck. Tried again but still didn't make it to the planet. Its a bit tiny, would have liked to be able to have a larger screen as well just like double size.
@automatonvx I'm glad you were able to fix the 7zip bug! I agree in all of criticism and will take it with me to future games and possibly this one if we decide to improve it. Thank you for playing and reviewing!
nina
2018-04-28 16:35
@automatonvx yes! Had the same bug with another game, updated 7zip and that did the trick. I'll give it another try later today, thanks for reminding me! :)
@nina I'm glad too see you managed to fix the 7zip problem and have been able to play games!
invixel
2018-05-10 10:03
I think i got to earth but the game just froze, after it told me it had detected home to the west or something
anagf
2018-05-10 10:08
Nice game, very polished and complete. It seems you worked a lot the AI behaviour, which is a good point. At the end I found it a bit hard to find my planet, the system kept telling me to go to the south. But that's all, overall it's pretty good!
merlin
2018-05-10 12:20
Cool game guys :) I really like your art-style and the mix of cards and spacetravelling, good choice :) My thoughts / experiences: - In one playthrough I had a the problem that I there was no turning for a pretty long time, in another one I found myself in a situation with only forward movement cards and a n asteroid a few tiles in front of me, maybe it could help to distribute different probabilities depending on what cards were already drawn. (But after all space is a rough place to be...:) - It seems like the game crashes (halts) if you fly into a new screen and on the entry position is already something (in my case an asteroid) - It would be nice to have more different cards (e.g. a shield or a card which gives you a speed boost or sth similar) - It would also be nice if you could use more than 3 cards at once if you want :)
crimson
2018-05-10 12:20
Nice concept. The game plays well, the card-based movement makes decisions matter and the graphics are nice and get what you need to do across. Overall nice work!
@Invixel Wow, not sure how that might have happened, I will have to investigate!
@AnaGF Thank you! The AI is actually very simple and very hard-coded but due to the small screen size and the slight randomization it looks much more advanced than it really is. We do have a bug with the home planet where a new one spawns every 10 steps or so after the first one that's why you keep getting the message. 😉 As to not finding it, if we were to make a game like this again I would probably have an arrow pointing in the general direction of the home planet.
@merlin Thank you for the nice words! Don't tell @Ranzor but I also like the art style (wouldn't want him to get too high on himself!) as to address your problems I will adopt your style and order: * The cards right now are completely random which for better or worse make the game much harder, given more time I would probably have made a sort of "pool" of cards that were being drawn from. Right now it's random with a priority order like this: Forward > Double Forward == Turn Right == Turn Left > Shoot > U-Turn. * After some testing there seems to be some bugs related to going left that cause this bug. Has to do with how the camera movement is set up. You're never supposed to be able to fly on the outer most grid rows/columns and this will cause the game to crash. * We did talk about having a few more card types but didn't have time to implement and properly test those. But I love the possibilities of a shield card 😁 * Ideally it would probably be best to be allowed to choose how many cards you want to use.. We had a bug with the selection of less than 3 cards so we ended up locking it there due to the aforementioned time constraint 😫
@Crimson Thank you for your overall nice praise! 😉