Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD43 → The Orion Trail
By archimagus, DangerousFat, AlexT_Design, johnryanaudio and EvilEric
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 320 | 3.64 | 43 | |
| Fun | 480 | 3.30 | 43 | |
| Innovation | 495 | 3.18 | 43 | |
| Theme | 366 | 3.67 | 44 | |
| Graphics | 364 | 3.82 | 44 | |
| Audio | 105 | 3.87 | 41 | |
| Mood | 180 | 3.76 | 42 |
I liked the play on the Oregon Trail. I found myself bored as I kept going on, perhaps the game could have been shorter.
The theme was definitely a factor here. It was tough making sacrifices to keep things going. The polish was also good. Excellent effort!
Neat little nod to Oregon Trail. While playing, it seemed like the 50% hits were actually 100% hits. Also, there were a lot of "nontrivial" sacrifices, especially black holes, where'd you frequently get "-25 fuel to escape, or -25 fuel to get water, or -25 fuel to get people." Also, giving up fighters and people was trivial, while you could never have enough fuel or water, so that could use a little rebalancing. I liked the graphics and sound effects/music, I especially liked how it added an extra layer of instruments as you get close to the end. Great job!
I'm obviously biased toward space games, but I really love what you did here!! I especially love the UI design- it's unique and refreshing, while not being overwhelming.
love the 3d models, but the game is way to long. Also some choices are a net loss compared to the others
I made it!:D I love your graphics (I was feeling like in space!) and UI (it is neat and intuitive!). You made interesting events and I always was waiting for this fast-disappearing 'Encounter'! Good job! :D score.png
On the resource bars, the text got in the way of the value in the most critical point - when you're running out lol. Food, fuel and water were all very low and I couldnt tell which one needed it most because the text was in the way. Also, as said above, when you got to an encounter, sometimes, each option was -25 fuel, which basically gave no reason to select "get us out of here" because it offered no reward and you could just select something else. And the bars have no numerical value, when it says "-100 fuel", I don't know how much that will push my bar back.
Other than that, it was pretty good. I made it to the end with 1 ship left lol. stressful, but in a good way.
Fun take on the theme, although its one of those games that never feels like your in control with your decisions, but perhaps that's just me. And I to am a sucker for space games.
SPACE GAMES! Really nice game you've got here, fellas. The sound design is top-notch, it's on theme, and you do a great job evoking a mood. There are a bunch of little tweaks and quality of life improvements I could suggest, but I'm sure you had most of them and more on your "todo" list. The one thing I'll say that I sorely missed was a summary screen after an encounter. If I'm gambling on an outcome, I can't easily tell how it went by which bars went up or down 1%. Let me know if I rolled a 6 or a 1! Also some indication of how much of each resource was represented aside from numberless bars. Do I want to give up 2 fighters or 150 people? I don't know, how many do I have of each? 150 sure sounds like a lot. (Anyway, the answer is always trash the fighters. I have like a bajillion of them apparently.)
Very cool game though. I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for making it!
A very good entry, definitely one of my favorites. I very much appreciated the tension by a music that seemed dynamic? Great work. I ran out of fuel and lost right before arriving. I wish there was some sort of last chance mechanic there. Good job.
I really loved the presentation of this game. For a game with a lot of resources you really made it intuitive what the goal of the game was and how you were reaching it. I've always liked FTL but tbh, I thought the combat got tedious after a while so I liked how you made a streamline version of that that just focuses on decision making, sort of like Reigns. I agree with others, it was just hard to know what outcome actually happened on the rolls but it's not gamebreaking. I just trusted the #s and hoped for the best lol. Again, really great, streamlined concept that definitely made you weigh RNG vs the resources you had on hand. I think a place you could take it further is toss in some REALLY unique items like idk...something that lets you skip an encounter altogether, or halves fuel drain during travel, and then make the player decide if they want to sacrifice a ton of resources to get those bonuses. I think that'd be a nice addition that could make those sacrifices just a little harder :)
Fun, complete, cool game. During My Shitty Space Vacation, I found very little metal, which made it very hard to repair damage. I think I lost by running out of water or fuel, but it didn't tell me why I lost, or even if I lost, at the end - just a "Game Over" screen. I agree with others that you need to know what number the bars represent, or the choices don't seem very strategic. It would also be nice to know whether I rolled well or not on the random chances. Very good sounds and music, and the 3-D models are really great. The options became a little repetitive after a while. It also seemed like some of the encounters were optional (i.e. if I didn't click on "Encounter" they didn't happen), but I wasn't sure if I was saving fuel or avoiding risk or what with that choice. Very nice work - I enjoyed this a lot.
Biggest complain is that some choices are pretty much obvious and you do not feel like you have to make a trade off. Nice game though.
I'm honestly really surprised, in a good way. You guys have made a game I could reaplay just for the sake of seeing each possibility I could find. By the way, is the game beatable ? I could only make it halfway before running out of water.
I love atmosphere the music puts me in, I really feel like I'm in space and I'm responsible for leading my followers to extinction if I fail. The theme couldn't be more adapted to your game, you really knew how to make profit of it. I also like what you did with the planets. How did you make them ? Are these just spheres with a texture, or do they have a shader ? I need to know.
The game may be a bit too hard and too long, though. Either the pirates are way too powerful, or your ships are too weak. Also, your resources drain quite fast, and there were very few times where I could resplendish my water or my fuel. I think your game gave us way more fighters and people than needed, instead of mandatory resources like food or water that are given sparsely to us. Also, the friendly trader asks way too much fuel in exchange of resources, and knowing how long the trip is, I only bothered with him once.
With all that said, good job guys! I'm very impressed!
Great game, guys. Good concept that fits the theme perfectly.
Hey, I'm gonna leave an honest review for your game, so please, feel free to do the same for my game.
**Graphics** are good, while interfaces sometimes are hard to understand and account on - 4.5 / 5 **Audio** is great - 4.5 / 5 (would be nice to have some sounds besides music, but otherwise it's quite fitting) Thanks to the music and graphics, **Mood** is quite appealing too - 4 / 5 (leftover part relates to the gameplay that I will describe later)
I have tried 3 times and lost every time rather short of the final destination without any opportunity coming in that would allow me to fix the situation. That's the main problem of the game - the lack of player's agenda, at some point you get to the shortage of food or water or fuel (never came to fighters or people, even if I don't refill them) - and you can't do anything about it because traders usually don't propose you to exchange fighters/people for water/fuel/food The second one is the fact that choices are mostly rather obvious and while offered to either lose 25 fuel for nothing or to lose 25 fuel for 50 water I will always choose the latter. The same way, whenever I met pirates, there was the only good choice that I could take, that was clearly better than others
That's why it's not really **fun** to play the game - 2.5 / 5 This kind of gameplay is not exactly **innovative**, but has something new in it indeed - 3.5 / 5 And due to the fact that you can not deliberately kick people into the space or destroy fighters or break bad and raid stations - there's not much sacrifice (**theme**) inside - 2.5 / 5
**Overall**, though, it's still rather solid 3.5 / 5. Could be better if there would be more of an actual gameplay and tough choices which this game is supposed to be about. Good job, guys!
Audio was extremely satisfying and graphics were nice too. But I have to say that the game itself felt a bit too repetitive, the encounters were often too similar and the choices were too obvious(as someone already mentioned). Still, a really nice piece of art.
@quasar47 The Planets are 2 spheres. One for the planet surface and one for the atmosphere. Each of those spheres has a PBR texture set on it and the two are rotated differently to give the atmosphere the feeling of flowing over the surface while the planet rotated.
Hey, beautiful game very impressive looks, I'll admit it felt a bit weird to play. Too easy at the start, then quickly turns too hard because you run out of everything and you can't get everything back equally. (or maybe you can and its just a hard game) The choice did feel random at times, sometimes one choice was clearly optimal, most times they were fair but had nothing to do with each other. It was like choosing which reality you prefer, rather than which decision about one situation to take. For constructive criticism i'd say better feedback of what happened, lots of chance event and while you can observe which way things went, it would have been nice to have it plainly written. Also In between travelling is way too long, it doesn't keep player engaged and in the action. Overall id say more info, more number and maybe more drastic consequences. It's clear that the effect of our choices catch up to us, but it takes too long to happen and by then we are already on a doomed path waiting and hoping for a miracle that never comes.
On the bright side, it looks really nice, works well, has great audio and overall is a well polished experience. Good job!
I liked that the ships had roles and trying to make choices that were impactful. There was a shortage of Typhoid, Dysentery, and Cholera. Good work!
@firellon Thanks for all the feedback. I do have one concern with it though.
> Audio is great - 4.5 / 5 (would be nice to have some sounds besides music
There is a lot of audio other than the Music. I am concerned you weren't hearing it, in which case I wonder if others are missing it too. Every button has hover and click sounds, and there are sounds for entering and leaving warp, and encounters. What platform did you play on?
So close, but so far. About 1/2 way I still had hope of making it all the way to the end... and then all my fuel slowly went away and my refugee people were doomed to float through space, awaiting death like Tony Stark in the Avengers: End Game preview. He will probably be ok (for a little while at least), they will not.
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I really liked the whole atmosphere, but it was a really slow crawl only to die really close to the end. I feel like the encounters could have bigger impacts. Like it can kill you pretty fast but also get you back up rather fast. Also I didn't really get if losing a ship has any impact on you since they have the different symbols on them.
I really enjoyed this one. It is the best one I have played this time around, so far. Encounters seemed a bit repetitive with some sets showing up three or four times in a row. Also seemed to be very heavily slanted toward player failure. I like the ships, but more variety in enemies would have been a plus and some kind of graphical result in battles would have improved the overall feeling. On the whole, though, I thought it was really good. Nice Job!
Some of the options got repetitive, could have used more variety. One of the more polished games I have played. Good job!
Neat game! really took me back to my childhood playing Oregon Trail, I enjoyed all of the game. There isn't much to suggest except I wish there was ship animations during the frozen state. I like how the game is designed and laid out, fits really good with the theme too. Good job, can't wait to see what's in store for LD 44!
The base game was really fun. I do feel like there needs to be more variety in the options or make the game play shorter. It does get somewhat repetitive fairly quick.
I really love the warp sound. :D
Actually, I enjoyed all of the sounds. The graphics where really well done too.
I must have ran out of fuel, because I got a game over message right before the green bit, but it never said I won.
I wish the chance rolls where a little more explicit in their outcome. I had to look at my stats before and after to see what changed.
Also, the random options where a little too random. There were several times where I had some options that didn't make sense (-25 fuel, or -75 people, or -150 people [maybe more people consume more food/water?]).
Fun game, but a little too slow for me to keep trying for the end.
Hey excalibr8! Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!
If you'd like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/346059114?t=45m07s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
I did really enjoy myself. The sounddesign is great and the music makes me absolutely zen.
I loved the theme. This was very fun! Nice and polished and just a great game overall. It took me a bit to realize that I could click on the encounters to get good stuff! But it was really fun overall, and I love the soundtrack. I'm gonna go play it some more now!
Very epic entry with great mood and presentation. It felt a little like Mass Effect met FTL to me. Just with the UI I sometimes had my problems reading the lables. Probably because I am a one.eyes space pirate ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZuUnksM0WM
@philstrahl Hi, Thanks so much for playing and for all the feedback. As I am watching, just about everything you are commenting about I find myself saying "Yup, I know, would have been nice to get to that." Still great to hear the honest reactions as the game is being played, by far the most helpful type of feedback.