Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD41 → ASCII Space Commander
By Skovtrolden and hjalte
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 3.50 | 4 | ||
| Fun | 2.75 | 4 | ||
| Innovation | 3.25 | 4 | ||
| Theme | 4.50 | 4 | ||
| Graphics | 3.50 | 4 | ||
| Humor | 1.75 | 4 | ||
| Mood | 3.25 | 4 |
The game is quite incomprehensible ^^' The command we are typing are not showed correctly, we can not errase letters and the fire command is quite too powerful, we just have to find the nearest enemy and then to fire at these coordinates. The idea is good though. And the theme is respected.
Keep coding :)
It crashed :( I was so exited about an ASCII game in a CMD window. Please fix this! My curiosity is exploding!
@MacDoom What exactly happened? What system are you on? Did you run it directly from the zip or extract it first? Would be awesome if you could answer some of those questions, since we're not quite sure what to fix atm :)
I unzipped it and when running the exe appears the CMD black window with an uncontrolled exception. "System.ArgumentOutOfRanfeException" "Name of the parameter: height" The actual value is 47 and it says that the maximum should be 46. Here's a screenshot, my computer is in spanish but it says to keep in mind that this value depends on the screen resolution and the font of the console. I'm running it on a Dell Inspiron 15 with Windows 10.
ASCIIcrash.png
I hope you can find a way to work it and this problem is not something too generic for the rest. If there's anything else I can do to help you just send me a message ;) GOOD LUCK!
@MacDoom Okay, basically we messed with the window size through code, and it probably auto-sized to an illegal size or something. Either way I uploaded a new file called "Resize window yourself", which should work. All you have to do is resize the window yourself. It'll be obvious when the window is big enough. Hope this works :)!
Oh and thank you so much for actually replying back with useful information, that was awesome!
Wow, now that was something different. I had quite some problems with it, though, mostly because I felt like I wasn't given a chance to get used to the unusual control . Before I even figured out what was going on, I was dead. Multiple times. And then I died some more.
But I can see how much went into it, never thought I'd play a scrolling space game in a console! I also liked the attention to details such as the visual countdown on the guns or the little jets when moving in a direction.
It also was slightly buggy on my end since I never managed to take a single shot, but that could also be a user error on my part. So overall I'd say it has potential but it needs to ease the players in with some kind of tutorial or first mission. This is how I'd design it: First, you are given a visible field on the grid to move to, maybe just something 5 cells east of the starting position, so players can learn how to move and how to stop. Then I'd have them move to a target range with passive, immovable targets to practice coordinate based shooting. The first enemy encounter I'd make also very simple, where the player would need to position themselves with the enemy shots doing little damage. Upon destroying them, they'd drop some cash/XP/cargo you can pick up by flying over it. Repeat this some more but balance it in a way that either a) the player has a chance to win a fight if they make one typing mistake, or b) that players can earn enough cash to purchase stronger shields, weapons, etc.
Sorry for the lengthy post, so here's a video of me getting very annoyed ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w
@PhilStrahl Oh man, what a shitshow! We basically coded all gameplay on the last day with no playtesting. God, didn't realize it was this bad...
You're almost invincible when moving, so it's best to be moving at all times, which we obviously didn't communicate in any way.
We should've definitely done something like you suggested, so the game wouldn't be so horrible... Oh well, glad you liked it for the effort, since that is basically the only redeeming thing about it, haha.
Thanks for playing, it was really cool to see!
@Hjalte (this one is copy/pasted from Patreon, so if you've seen my reply there, don't bother reading :wink:)
It happens. I was just getting pretty frustrated with not being able to shoot ;) Sadly, there's hardly enough time to make a functioning game and unless you're in a big-ish team, real "design" of it all comes last, in my case often even after audio ;) Still you have a nice foundation for a console based space shooter.