thevideogamester 2020-10-05 08:41
Little difficult to get the perspective down but once you do it's a very unique entry in the genre. Definitely forces players to think differently then with others in that niche .
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD47 → Among The Stars
By layne-stokes
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 298 | 3.45 | 43 | |
| Fun | 236 | 3.43 | 43 | |
| Innovation | 319 | 3.28 | 43 | |
| Theme | 208 | 3.81 | 43 | |
| Graphics | 280 | 3.48 | 43 | |
| Audio | 55 | 3.85 | 43 | |
| Mood | 268 | 3.25 | 43 |
Little difficult to get the perspective down but once you do it's a very unique entry in the genre. Definitely forces players to think differently then with others in that niche .
Nice game. Took me a while to get used to the control.
I managed to get to the top of the leaderboard ;D
Since you played my game as well, I think we both shared the same problems with control, which is that "left" and "right" don't really work when you are in a circle. I wished you have implemented my other control, which may allow me to get a higher score :D
But overall, I really like this idea, the music is on point (although it stopped at the end), and it did get me into the zoom. The ring though .. what a bait. I can't count how many time I lose health just to get the ring and I don't even know what they do or if they are worth it.
Thanks for the game !
#2 (at the time of writing)! Once the controls and perspective were figured out, it's a pretty enjoyable little game. Really liked the aesthetic / graphics. Great work!
Oh, I'm digging it.
Music slaps. The controls are a little challenging, but in a fun way, and the jump mechanic feels good. Nice idea to place the rings so you have to jump to get them. It's really hard to judge the depth of objects, though.
Really nice game. As stated above it is a little hard to know when the asteroids are hitting you. But besides that I really liked the game. Really nice job!
Love it! Only point of critique would be the depth perception...
Great entry! Did take a while to figure out what hits you and when to "jump" so you can pick up the rings/powerups, but once I did it's great fun and awesome timewaster. Will come back to this.
I was kind of confused by what's going on as a whole since I didn't see clearly what was hitting me exactly, but otherwise, this was a nice idea for a game! I loved the way you enter the game from the main menu. I'd just change the colors of "(un)mute music" and stuff since it was hard to read this way. Nice game!
I like the game! Although the controls feel a bit confusing and slippery, and the pickups are harder to pick out, like when exactly to pick them out. Fantastic music tho!
It's a nice idea for an endless runner.
The graphics is nice and simple but I don't know which asteroids will come first and I have no idea when I am about to get hit.
In the menu, I clicked invert controls but it went to play. Oh, I just realized as I'm typing this that it's because it's the jump button. Because I was thinking the 3 buttons were meant to be clicked.
Great game. The graphics were really good. Music was great had that arcade jam. I did struggle to think the scaling as they moved towards the player could be adjusted a little. Overall really enjoyed playing it!
Very nice entry, the music is so good!
The only little bad point, is that we don't know where item are (asteroid or rings)
Good job!
Awesome! The perspective shift brings new freshness to the endless runner, and the music is great.
@layne-stokes the music is really great :) nice game.
It is challenging while interesting to evade asteroids by judging its distance. The rings are very difficult to fetch though.
The movement was very reminiscent of the game Gyruss, or Tempest both games I am very familiar with so I had no problem with the movement. My hand-eye coordination is another thing! :smile: This was really fun and adding the leaderboard just made it that much more addictive. The gfx and music were top notch. Congrats on finishing and submitting your game!
Good entry. The perspective reminds me of this retro shooter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haehLgNNB4c Makes me wish I could shoot.
The jumping mechanic was interesting, but hard to handle because of the perspective. I pretty much ignored the rings because of the risk.
Great compo entry!
Nice entry - gives me heavy Super Hexagon vibes which is a good thing. Sadly, I was terrible at that game too. Great job!
Great idea for a game. I like the art and the music is great. Something about the depth feels unfair, I don't know if it's the toon shader or the zeroed out camera angle, but it's really difficult to read the timing for the jumps, but that's a pretty small problem for a compo game. Thanks for the submission.
As other have said the perspective was difficult to grasp, It was hard to know when will the asteroid hit you or when you can grab the coins. Also A lot more feedback was needed here, feedback from getting hit by an asteroid and grabbing coins/ power-ups would make it much better. But oh man the music....AMAZING. Cool entry!
This game has very unobvious hitboxes, but also cool music and jumping mechanics. Great!
How do you like the idea to move player more slowly and precisely when "Shift" key is down?
I had fun playing! The controls threw me off at first (being inverted by default) but once I switched them it was easier. Love the music and how you meshed an endless runner with the theme of this jam. The graphics are nice as well. I agree with what was mentioned about the depth but this is a great comp submission regardless. Congrats!
@zwodahs I originally had a circle point orientation control in the game so if you were at the top of the circle and pressed d you'd move clockwise and if you were on the bottom of the circle you'd move counter-clockwise. After some playtesting I simplified things to a clockwise or counter-clockwise orientation so the same key would always move you clockwise or c-clockwise. I might add it back as an option in the future. Thanks so much for playing the game I hope you had fun!
@thevideogamester Thanks for playing! Yeah the perspective challenge came from a weird experiment and people tended to find it challenging in playtest for a short time and then for most it suddenly clicked for them and they become much better/invested in the game
@echo-gameworks Cheers! The leaderboard has gotten much more competetive since you banked the second highest score. I hope that's a good sign :smile:
@cryptomnesic Thank you so much!
@noahw Thank you so much for playing! Yeah you are right the controls could use a little refinement to make it even better but it's good to hear they are fun how they are.
@kovalok I wish I had more time to refine the hitboxes but I tried to err on the side of giving the player an advantage. I should have really made a reference to the fact that the thrusters are invincible and it's only the body of the ship you need to worry about. Thank you for taking the time to play it
@mrredbeard Thanks for playing it! I agree the depth perception is a pretty difficult challange I decided to keep it in playtesting because some players adapted to the game really well and really enjoyed the challenge. I wish I had time to add an accessibility option to show the depth of objects in relation to the player easier to allow even more players to enjoy the game. Something I will definitely look at in the future
@kuro I appreciate you taking the time to play my game. I'm really glad you enjoyed it. And thank you for letting me know about clearly defining dangers vs pickups something I should add to the game in future builds
@tamail Great advice for the UI changes! I do admit it's hard to read. Thank you so much for playing!
@mind0o Yeah the controls at the moment are a little unforgiving. The original idea was to have a sligh ease in/out on the controls so you could make really fine adjustments unfortunately I literally just run out of time to implement this. Thank you so much for playing as well!
@marbles The main menu uses the in game controls to progress so I can see the confusion but it's good the click made you learn the jump control as well. I do agree the depth perception can be a bit of a challenge. Thanks for taking the time to play thye game
@glaikunt Thanks for playing, I appreciate it! Great advice in the future I would definitely be refining the depth perception of the objects.
@vivoubos Great point and I will be looking into how to make the spacial distance clearer to the player. I have found it helps a bit if you make the game full screen. Thanks for playing!
@happydevilgames Thank you so much, I appreciate the comments!!
@rgilpt I am really happy to hear you enjoyed it. Thanks for playing!
@chaosinism Yeah the rings are a an extra layer of challenge but you are right I should also spawn some out of the center to make it easier for all players to pick up. One of the goals I had which I ran out of time to implement was extending my spawn manager to allow the rings and asteroids to spawn together in tandem to create more satisfying patterns in the gameplay, something I will look to add in the future. Thank you for playing!
@kunonooni Thanks so much for the kind words I am just glad you enjoyed playing it!
@ismael-rodriguez I've had a few requests for shooting now so that is something I will definitely look at adding in the future! Thanks for taking the time to play my game!
@haustgeirr If it helps you feel better I am pretty terrible at most of the games I make and this is no exception. Luckily I have some friends who are big fans of the genre who helped me playtest this game which made it much better. Thanks for the kind words and also playing my game I appreciate it!
@ramble-house-games Thanks for playing! I have gotten very mixed responses on how the depth is presented to the players but I do agree there should be some ways to improve it for the player even adding accessibility options to allow all players to enjoy the game. If I had more time I definitely would have loved to add this! I appreciate the feedback!
@glaciereclipse Thanks for taking the time to play. I agree it needed more feedback. A game can never have enough juice. I'll definitely be adding more to this game in the future
@fumybulb You are right I could have refined the controls and hitboxes more. Originally I was going to add ease in/out on the movement controls so the player would be able to make very fine movement controls with quick presses but I didn't have time to implement that with a compo entry. I should also have made it clear in game that you only have to worry about the body of the ship and not the thrusters. Thank you for playing the game!
@balance686 It's funny I find the default controls inverted as well but heaps of playtesters preferred the default controls as implemented. From the feedback and playtest it seems people either have a clockwise/counter-clockwise mentaility or perceive movement relative to the top or bottom of the cirlce which is interesting. Thanks so much for taking the time to play and giving me feedback!
Nice concept, remidns me of Super Hexagon
I think it needs work on the collision though, it isn't always clear when you'll get hit. Also for the jump maybe have an indicator on the other side to see where you'll end up?
I think this game's biggest flaw is the perspective. It's hard to keep track of how far the asteroids are. I see that you're using Unity, so if you haven't gotten into 3D development yet, I think you should try to turn this into a 3D game. I would absolutely play it again in 3d, because I really enjoyed this game. The concept and its execution are really good. Also, I really like the song. Overall a really good game!
Really nice game! I really liked the gameplay and had a lot of fun. It was rather nice having online leaderboards: I managed to reach a score of 23812 (currently #5) after a couple of tries. It would have been great on a device with 3D capabilities (ex. VR), but obviously that's a bit too much for a game jam. The invert controls option didn't work for me for some reason, but other than that, great entry!
@nitero An indicator to show the result of the jump is a great idea! I have addressed the colliders in messages above but tl;dr ran out of time to really fine tune colliders in the 48 hours and the thursters are invincible it's only the body of the ship you need to worry about. Thank you for taking the time to play
@monkosum Thanks for taking the time to play! I have addressed the perspective issue in above comments and it's actually a core part of the game's challenge that some players enjoy and some don't. Given more time I would have loved to add an accessibility option to allow all players to enjoy but using techniques to show highlight the depth.
@frogman A VR port would be really interesting! Was this on the html version? I'll look into the invert controls issue now. Thanks for the kind words and taking the time to play the game.
Nice idea. Had a bit of hard time getting a feel for the depth of the rings and kept missing them. Really digging the music. Well done!
Very interesting! I am very impressed on how you pulled off the leaderboard system in just 72h. The audio is alright, pretty fitting. The only thing that could use some work is the UI
Overall, Pretty good.
-WitekWitek
Also PS: It's kinda hard to tell where the obstacles are coming from.
@witekwitek Thanks for the feedback! I actually made it in 48 hours not 72 as it is a compo entry
@cogcomp Thanks for playing!
Music is jammin! Leaving it running while I write here.
Had a little friction at first trying to figure the game out, but then I got into it and played until I got a respectable spot on the leaderboard (nice touch).
Friction points on first contact: controls felt backwards and I struggled to activate the option as it did not seem to kick in when I activated it. I still don't know what happened, it just suddenly seemed to kick in one time. Then in game trying to play, it took me a while to figure out at what scale the objects were passing my collision plane, especially the rings. I kept leaping for them too late. But after a while I got better at judging the distance.
None of those issues stuck around after I got up to speed though. And then I found myself getting into the zone. I appreciated the very quick restart, and REALLY appreciated the way the game is not exactly repeating itself every time I play, so it was fresh enough that retry meant "play more" and not "do the exact same thing over again."
Controls were solid, and I enjoyed the feeling of flowing through the different geometric patterns the obstacles came in.
If I could tweak one thing about the game, I think there is room for improvement on the VERY small adjustments. The controls may be slightly too responsive to tiny taps, given that it asks to you to sometimes make tiny movements. I found myself overshooting tiny moves, and the feel might be improved by having a few frames of ramp-up on the responsiveness.
Overall a nice entry that sucked me into playing "one more game" a few times more than I thought I would. Nice job!
@pkenney Thanks so much, I really appreciate the detailed feedback you left! I agree with all of your points especially the few frames of ramp-up on the responsiveness. It was on the wishlist but I just ran out of time to implement it.
It's awesome to have such a detailed look into my game with super great suggestions on how to improve it. When I go back to work on it I will definitely be looking at ways to take care of the friction. Thanks again!