FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD47 → Orbit

Orbit

By zen and huthuthunter

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall8413.4771
Fun10233.1572
Innovation10653.0872
Theme6943.7272
Graphics6223.7673
Audio4713.5571
Humor2.503
Mood3.003

Comments

rickdearman 2020-10-05 16:08

It was good! Took me a little while to get the hang of it, but really fun.

coleslaughter 2020-10-05 16:10

Very neat! I appreciate the simple concept and equally simple controls.

I think the difficulty curve could use some tuning. The first time I played, I had like 8 asteroids on the field, and it was much more manageable when my next attempt started me with 2 :sweat_smile: I also got a level with 0 asteroids and immediately won.

Still though, I like the dichotomy created by having to use your own health meter to destroy the asteroids. It's a novel little risk/reward mechanic. With a little more polish, this could make for an awesome mobile game!

joskerdu 2020-10-05 22:14

Love this game. The audio, the pixels, the simplicity of it. Well done team!

Definitely some RNG issues with the level - once I started with 0 and won immediately but that's not losing any points with me. :)

happygamer500 2020-10-05 22:38

Great game but there is a bug that if you win and run out of fuel, both a win and lose message appear.

gemberkoekje 2020-10-05 22:39

I'm a little bit confuzzled what the goal is. I got a few with 0 astroids and I won immediately. Then I got a few with more astroids, but I could pass them but I did not clear them? Might've missed something :P Graphics are simple but effective, I wouldn't have minded a second button (to switch reverse lanes) but not bad.

zen 2020-10-05 22:43

Thanks @coleslaughter for the feedback, definitely agree with you that the asteroid generation could be improved to avoid 0 spawning resulting in an instant win.

zen 2020-10-05 22:43

@happygamer500 thanks for the bug report, will look into fixing it if we continue working on the game after the jam : )

zen 2020-10-05 22:43

@gemberkoeje Thanks for the feedback, The aim of the game was to clear the asteroids as displayed by the counter at the top. I like the idea of being able to change directions as a second mechanic, might add it after the jam if we continue working on the game.

galse87 2020-10-05 22:43

I must say that the game is fun, but I have some feedback: The sound design is kinda weird. Imagine I had like 27% of fuel and then I hit an obstacle. I wouldn't know if I'm dead or not ( before I read it on the text, of course ). Also the sprites for fuel and the obstacle that takes more fuel are weird IMO. The fuel does not look like a gallon and the other obstacle looks like candy ( lol ). Another problem I had was that basically started dead. What happened was: I got into a level that had 7 obstacles and 2 were next to where I spawned. I instantly died. Also, some levels are waaaay harder than others ( this 7 obstacles one for example ).

zen 2020-10-05 22:47

@rickdearman Thanks for playing : )

zen 2020-10-05 23:01

@galse87 Thanks for the feedback, the idea was that as you played you got better and checked the bottom to see how much fuel taking damage does (25btw). We tried to keep the art consistent with each other (obstacles and ship 8x8 pixels) and it's quite hard to fit in much detail. You can only take MAX 25 damage at the start from spawning on an obstacle and have enough time to weave your way through to the fuel before you die, so it's not possible to die immediately unless you spam space and switch lanes into another obstacle. The difficulty is random each time so there is no progression, just supposed to be a little experience and a working game to the theme stuck in a loop.

samelgamedev 2020-10-06 00:13

this is a fun short game. the pixel art was really cool and i really liked the electronic vibe of the soundtrack, plus having the spaceship stuck in an orbit was a nice spin (pun unintended but please pretend it was) on the theme. also i know people have already mentioned this but i had several instances where i started a level with zero obstacles, winning immediately. otherwise, good work!

samelgamedev 2020-10-06 00:13

(looks like it published my comment twice and won't let me delete it, sorry bout that :( )

zen 2020-10-06 00:20

@samelgamedev Thanks so much for the feedback. yeah... sorry about the level spawning at 0 instant win i guess.

raniere 2020-10-06 00:48

Simple, clean e very fun! Great game!! :)

nohua 2020-10-06 01:00

Not a bad idea, but i wish you could control which loop you go on and I experienced the zero debris moments too.

thebooksnail 2020-10-06 01:14

I like the one button mechanic. Nice and simple yet made me pause for a bit to figure out how to play correctly and win.

alpharock6 2020-10-06 01:20

Really enjoyed this! I was a bit confused at first because I think it loaded in with me right on top of the debris and immediately went to a win screen haha. Very chill visual/audio experience. On computer I think I would prefer left/right navigation, but one tap seems like it would make perfect sense for mobile :)

zen 2020-10-06 02:04

@alpharock6 Thanks for the feedback. sorry for the auto win sometimes its a bit of a bug

zen 2020-10-06 02:08

@thebooksnail thanks for the feedback. we thought having one button for everything would be cool too.

no-grapes-games 2020-10-06 03:30

Simple and fun! Nice music and graphics created a good feel to it all. The single-button gameplay was pretty cool ~ It's easy enough to figure out what to do and how to control, but satisfying to play. I ran into some of the level generation issues others did. Nothing too major though. Overall nice entry!

zen 2020-10-06 03:38

@no-grapes-games thanks so much for your nice comment! really sorry about the level generation issues.

bicheste 2020-10-06 03:57

There is so much charm in this game, its simple and nice. Now the nitpicking. Some rng issues starting a level and winning inmediatly, could use another button to "speed" things up a bit. Good job!

verso 2020-10-06 04:01

I appreciate the simplicity of this game, it's very fun and charming. Great job!

diptoman 2020-10-06 04:02

Simple, clean game. While I enjoyed it - I feel a lot of it depended on luck on where the fuel is getting placed and completely out of your hand (specifically since you start on such low fuel). Some levels I got 3 fuel tanks in a row and woosh - it was a piece of cake, some other time - it's on the otehr side, really far away and well, there's nothing you can do.

Apart from that - game is really well polished, gfx/audio is spot on. Great stuff!

nomad912 2020-10-06 04:04

unusual, cool, simple. I like it

zen 2020-10-06 04:18

@diptoman Thanks for playing the game and the positive feedback! Yeah probably could have made the random generation a bit more sophisticated like not letting the fuel spawn on the other side if your low.

zen 2020-10-06 04:19

@bicheste Glad you liked the game! sorry about the random generation issues planning to fix them if we continue with the game after the jam

theseusinabottle 2020-10-06 04:54

Nice simple and satisfying. A great little gameplay loop you've got going on. I could see having this on my phone for long car/train/bus rides to kill time. Your art and sound where fantastic. Overall very enjoyable.

zen 2020-10-06 04:58

@theseusinabottle Thanks for the nice comment, glad you enjoyed our game : )

seth-tal 2020-10-06 05:41

This game is really cute, and the art is wonderful! I really think it could do with a little extra speed though. The game plays out very slowly. I think if you made the movement speed of everything maybe 50-100% faster it would be a fantastic little mobile game. Overall though, great entry for Ludum Dare!

zen 2020-10-06 05:45

@seth-tal Thanks for the awesome feedback. I definitely agree with you, this game could do with some balancing especially the speed. Might port to mobile after the jam is over : )

game-endeavor 2020-10-06 10:01

Cute game. :) I really like the art and audio. I was confused at first about what to do since health and fuel are the same thing. My first attempt I took some time to look at my environment and soon crashed into rocks enough to destroy my ship. On the 2nd time after I had familiarized myself with the environment, I avoided the rocks and only picked up the fuel, which I thought was the purpose of the game, giving me a wrong impression about what the goal of the game was. I only figured it out after reading the description here multiple times that ramming my ship into the objects was the correct thing to do (in moderation)

It feels a bit odd that the ship moves at the same speed that the orbital radius rings do. I think it would be nice if they moved slower than the player's ship. It really stood out to me that they moved in sync.

roboshamit 2020-10-06 13:28

Liked it a lot! Maybe give player option to speed up in exchange of more fuel?

stefan-laimer 2020-10-06 16:01

Nice little game. I really liked the music. But the spaceship could have been a bit faster or as people before me suggested: exchange fuel for speed

gogani 2020-10-06 16:36

fun and nice concept! I was a bit confused with the automatic win bug, but then it was fine!

nelow 2020-10-06 19:22

I love the feeling, but it could be a little faster,

Don't rely too much on pure randomness, or you easily loose control over difficulty. speed up the game each time you break an asteroid / a pack of ones, count it as score, controls the difficulty curve and tada ! you have a great mobile arcade game !

Please, port it to Android, it matches so much the genre of the store <3 (I would play it a lot if it becomes more difficult ! )

dotsquare 2020-10-06 21:14

I liked it, well done ! The music and graphics are very nice and polished. At first it was not clear to me if I had to avoid obstacles or hit them, because I did not understood clearly why I died, but the I finally get it. Maybe a little introductory text would have been cool to explain that, and a bit of story ? Anyway congrats ! 🎉

rhoff95 2020-10-06 21:40

Great game! Would like to see more going on while circling the planet. There was not a lot of challenge once you were in the right orbit and then all there was to do was wait. I would also prefer to at least have an option for controls that allowed me to go up or down. Great job!

purpledartfrog 2020-10-07 10:57

Neat simple game - well polished :smile: could use more content... but I suppose every LD entry could :rofl:

:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

zen 2020-10-07 21:34

@purpledartfrog Thanks for playing our game and for the feedback. Definitely agree with you, the game could do with more context, like why are you crashing your ship into obstacles. The current goal of the game was not our original concept however we had to add in some sort of win condition before the time ran out, so that was the easiest one. Next time we are definitely gonna pick an idea and work on it for the whole three days rather than switching ideas 48 hours in to the jam, that way we will be able to flesh out the game and make things like the win condition actually make sense.

federico-delgado 2020-10-07 21:55

It was really fun, i liked the music and the experience was very neat!

mauricioscherer 2020-10-07 22:03

I loved your game, the graphics, music and gameplay very good. Short but complete, congratulations

starcloud0621 2020-10-07 22:04

Simple, and well polished. Well done!

detectivelosos 2020-10-07 23:48

I actually really enjoyed this little game, but I have to start with negative things first.

At first I was completely and utterly confused by what was happening. I ran into asteroids right after I spawned and got a game over screen time after time. Then suddenly it generated a level with no asteroids at all and I got a victory screen right away. Which was to put it lightly - a bit disorienting.

After a couple of quick restarts I got used to one button controls. And then I tried to figure out how to dispatch of all the asteroids without touching them and exploding. After some time I accidentally smashed into one not straight into but kinda knocking it sideways and I didn't explode because of it!

So yeah, I thought at the time that I finally figured out the mechanics and started actually engaging with the gameplay: grabbing fuel, dodging asteroids and then sidekicking them by switching lines at the exact right moment. And it was actually pretty cool and fun despite the fact that there is no gradual difficulty increase but completely random levels instead.

And after a couple of rounds I ran straight into the asteroid and did not explode! Then I figured out that you don't have to time your line switches to kick the asteroids sideways, you just need to have enough fuel left to not explode. Which I found to be less interesting that the thing that I imagined. So I kept playing the game by my imaginary rules :D

And yeah, it happened to be quite a lot of fun, so in the end I finished something like a ten rounds of varying difficulty. I really liked the minimalistic presentation and the nonstandard small window size.

So if you plan on creating a post-jam version I would suggest adding something like a tutorial stage and creating a couple of levels progressively increasing in difficulty. And maybe even create some additional mechanic of dispatching asteroids like the one I described or something entirely different so it would add a whole another dimension to the gameplay.

zen 2020-10-08 02:37

@federico-delgado @mauricioscherer @starcloud0621 Thanks so much for playing!

zen 2020-10-08 02:38

@detectivelosos Thanks for the in depth feedback. Definitely agree with all your points and will try to add them in after the jam if we continue with the game. Thanks heaps : )

aimainiac 2020-10-08 22:17

Ok game, I just wish it was faster and had a clearer objective.

stormcat 2020-10-09 06:06

Really cute game! The premise was really easy to understand and the gameplay was still fun and engaging. The music and sound were great, and I loved the art as well, particularly of the planet (go Australia). Although I did once get a level with no asteriods (which was a little weird) it was a fun and well-balanced game. Good job!

joh 2020-10-09 06:25

Interesting mechanic, having to manage health to destroy the obstacles was nice. I have to agree with the issue of RNG, you could easily have easier or harder levels in a random order. I do feel its a missed opportunity for incremental difficulty, especially since the gameplay loop is so simple, yet enjoyable. Game looked good overall, so good investment with the rather simple art style. a nice experience!

zen 2020-10-09 07:11

@aimainiac @stormcat @joh Thanks for playing and for the feedback ! :)

gandalfthegod 2020-10-09 08:57

Fun little game, just wish there was a speed up button because you sometimes just get stuck in a loop of waiting for fuel just to clear the last asteroid

jrevel 2020-10-09 09:00

Cool game ! The gameplay is simple, but the polish is great, and the art style and the music fit perfectly !

fabiole 2020-10-09 09:26

Nice entry man ! may be too simple :s I still enjoy the game ;)

gurpegui 2020-10-09 09:39

Simply yet rewarding and nice game! Good job I really liked how simple it is and on theme!

croxel-studios 2020-10-09 11:56

Nice entry! Glad you managed to submit a playable game at the end besides the problems you had.

It would be cool if fuel decreased on orbit changes to make you think the best route beforehand. But it's great to be done in 24h :)

invader 2020-10-09 21:52

It's a cool little game. Nice take on orbital maneuvers! :)

icxon 2020-10-11 05:34

The game requires some planning which is cool. Hope you enjoyed the jam! :smile:

Here is my playtest:

https://youtu.be/zGnNFjkbbFI

joedev 2020-10-11 17:41

Fun times, the gameplay can get very tense when you risk smashing an asteroid but then the next fuel tank spawns miles away! Wish there was maybe a little more to it, but very understandable due what you said about switching ideas above :) Good fun, well done