Clear The Sky

erasmus-crowley 2018-08-13 01:26

Programming the satellites is pretty unintuitive, but once you understand the user interface there is a surprisingly fun and deep puzzle game underneath it.

The things that confused me the most were:

A) It took me a long time to realize that I needed to click the "save program" button to make rockets use the commands I was putting in.

B) Clicking on a landing pad shows Rocket and Program instead of the type of rocket and the selected program. You then have to click on Rocket to see "CHECKMARK Bomber" and click on the program to see "CHECKMARK F". It would be a lot more intuitive if you could just see Bomber and F when you clicked on the pad.

C) I think restart should clear the pads and selections of programs and rocket types, but leave the programs intact so that you can iterate on a possible solution. As it was, I had to memorize or write down my programs and punching them in everytime I restart became annoying real fast.

Despite the constructive criticism, the puzzles ARE really good, and I did enjoy playing it.

gettingrekt 2018-08-13 05:37

@erasmus-crowley Thank you for your feedback! A lot of good ideas, C was implemented but made the game even buggier, but not in the editor, so it was too hard to troubleshoot. That's why I had to remove that feature.

conorod 2018-08-13 18:47

This is fantastic. Steep learning curve, but, similar to Kerbal Space Program, even the learning and constant failing is fun! I'd love to see this expanded on!

amkingtrp 2018-08-13 19:22

I quite enjoyed this one. I would have preferred to have the programming tab open all the time instead of saving programs, so programming each rocket individually.

fengol 2018-08-13 19:33

I love programming-puzzle games!

derek-volker 2018-08-13 19:56

It took me a while to figure out what i was doing wrong until i noticed that i had to save the program in order for the alterations i made became valid. After that it was easier to go on try and error until i could solve the puzzles. The graphics are on point and the sound as well, just lacking some soundtrack to improve the game experience. I guess the only downside is the interface that took a while to get used, but since the time is limited it is a minor problem, if it even is a problem. Nicely done!

gettingrekt 2018-08-13 20:23

@conorod @amkingtrp @fengol @derek-volker Thank you for your feedback! I'm happy you survived the interface :)

shp 2018-08-14 18:39

Good concept, the UI kinda holds back the game but it was enjoyable regardless

slimothyj 2018-08-14 19:00

Great game! The concept was great. I liked programming my rockets like a roomba. However, I feel like being able to fine tune the rockets a bit more or perhaps having some more integers to play with instead of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 2,etc. Like having a slider or a number box to enter in how long you want something to go on for. The game is cahllenging and picks up in difficulty fast while still being simple enough to get the hang of quickly. Brillant game. Well done my dude.

2bam 2018-08-15 02:53

It was fun but really hard to understand the UI sequence as others already mentioned. I started clicking at the base (as the sign told me) but didn't figure out what the programs were until later I noticed I could change them on the right side. Restarting and winning a level clears the programs >.<, it'd be nicer to keep them and a button to clear.

P.S. Please remember to add the source! (I think the LudumDare page is not rendering correctly sometimes, I had to repeat the link in the links section.)

awix 2018-08-15 07:09

A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good. Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)

predominant 2018-08-20 09:53

My kinda game! Well executed. I even love the programmer art :P

ryan123rudder 2018-08-23 02:41

SERIOUSLY underrated game! Seriously, amazing job. I'm planning on deleting the Ludum Dare folder after voting is over to clear space on my computer, but I might just keep this one around!

gettingrekt 2018-08-24 15:01

@shp Thank you! Yeah the use-flow is not very clear @rytannic Thanks! For a final version that would definitely be useful to use custom values @2bam Thanks! Yeah it was gone but now its x2, well better safe than sorry! :D @awix Thank you, I'll try it after work today! I didn't have any sounds 3 hrs before deadline so it had way too low prio @predominant Thanks! Do you think that this site with game-designing programmers has the right demographic for a puzzle game with programming mechanics in space? No wai! @ryan123rudder Thanks! A bit exaggerating but I'm happy to hear you liked it :)

ryan123rudder 2018-08-31 14:01

@gettingrekt Surprisingly no exaggeration. It was very confusing at first, but it's actually been my favorite so far!