FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD47 → Escape Velocity

Escape Velocity

By sean-holloway and gibsonMatt

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall3353.8530
Fun3103.7630
Innovation5103.6031
Theme6583.7531
Graphics5843.8131
Audio1424.0030
Humor9252.5024
Mood3413.8231

Comments

wiskey 2020-10-06 10:56

very calming game, liked the graphics and the music, nicely done

daitse 2020-10-06 10:56

Nice game ! Cool concept, the music is very chill, the graphics very soothing ! Well done

wevel 2020-10-06 11:00

Fun game. Orbital mechanics are cool. It would be nice if you could see where you went on a previous attempt, as sometimes it felt a little like guess work to get to the goal.

thomas-carey 2020-10-06 22:45

Love the calm atmosphere. Would be nicer if the line was more accurate to where you were going. This is a great idea for a game.

puncherbear 2020-10-06 22:49

That's really awesome and the audio is amazing. On level 4 there is a blue planet that does not have a collider so it will never destroy your ship if you fly through it.

sean-holloway 2020-10-06 22:50

@wevel that is a great suggestion, if I do anything else with this I will definitely implement.

koolruz 2020-10-06 22:50

I couldn't get past the second level - No matter what I did, my ship went careening past the planet at very high velocity. I banged my head against it for about ten minutes before I finally gave up - I feel like there was something that I was missing, so I'll hold off on leaving any ratings for now!

I also noticed that the line that my ship followed seemed to be off from the guide being shown - I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but it made it hard to experiment and figure out what the effects of different trajectories would be, because I didn't have a good sense of where my ship was going to end up. You can see this in the attached gif - My guide says that the ship should pass by the bottom side of the planet, but instead I end up hitting it.

ship.gif

sean-holloway 2020-10-06 22:51

@puncherbear Haha, I now realize that I never managed to put anything that explains you can go through gas planets. Thanks for the heads up, and thanks for playing.

thomas-volpato 2020-10-06 22:51

The game is nice, and the music is relaxing, but I thought a bit bored after the first three levels. Pros: - Easy to play - The planets and sun have a nice visual To improve: - Explain that the shuttle should get inside the gravity circle to achieve progress in the game

tarch 2020-10-06 22:56

Very nice relaxing little orbiting game

sean-holloway 2020-10-06 23:04

@koolruz I looked back through my code, and I have found a variable that was tweaked just a little bit off in the trajectory code. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention.

fachscahfttf 2020-10-06 23:08

precisely calculating your path through foreign galaxies just to yeet your spaceship into a rock solid planet. was stuck on lvl 5 for ages but managed to finish the game. really cool to see this concept in such a beautiful polished way, since we almost made a similar game.

sean-holloway 2020-10-06 23:11

@fachscahfttf Thank you for making it all the way through! I made the last level extra hard, so it means a lot that someone pushed through.

noah-kuhn 2020-10-06 23:14

This game was so calming and atmospheric, but addictive! I suffered trying to get through level 8-- but refused to quit early; it was just that fun to play. Great music, wonderful aesthetic. Great job! :smile:

koolruz 2020-10-07 01:59

@sean-holloway It looks like the trajectory is still off :( I'm playing the webGL version if that helps.

ship.gif

I'm still unable to beat level 2 - Is there some trick to start off with less momentum as you leave your starting planet? I've noticed that my ship seems to do a varying number of loops to build up speed before departing, but I'm not sure how to control that.

sean-holloway 2020-10-07 03:30

@koolruz I won't be updating the trajectory calculation for the Ludum Dare build, that said, the velocity you start with is proportional to how far your mouse cursor is from the planet. If you click while the mouse is closer to you, you won't go as fast. The number of loops relates to that speedup across 1 second of warmup.

What I am getting from this is that the relationship between launch velocity and mouse distance from the planet should be made clearer, and I will definitely implement that in future builds. Thank you.

blind-lemon-games 2020-10-07 05:58

I love the choice of music, perfect. controls intuitive, that camera move was very nice at start of level. great looking suns. nice use of larger targets on harder levels. That final stage was very hard.

(is this n-bodied!?)

etrealjunior 2020-10-07 10:23

I liked your game my congratulations, I also did one if you want to know, and give me your feedback I am very grateful, this is the link https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/resurrection

johanhelsing 2020-10-07 19:27

Cool visualization of the path. I was struggling a bit on the second level, until I discovered you could regulate the escape velocity, so maybe I was just thick :P

The dying/crashing sound is genius.

Great job :)

anant-ahuja 2020-10-08 05:22

I loved the music, mechanic and mood of the game. However there was a bug on 2nd level. I reached the destination planet and started orbiting around it but it never took me to the next level. It just kept orbiting around the destination planet.

fireslash 2020-10-08 05:33

Took me a while to realize you could very the launch thrust by mouse distance.

Also the prediction arc seems to be somewhat unreliable, which made things a bit frustrating. However, the simple mechanics and chill vibes helped keep things comfy.

Overall a fun little gem.

aiyn-skriban 2020-10-09 08:32

Nice game, I like the music atmosphere and the difficulty of the game definitely made me try over and over again. A feature that could influence a tiny bit the trajectory of the spaceship to help could have been great! Nicely done anyway.

spawncampgames 2020-10-10 02:40

Very nice game. The 2nd level bugged out on me once. I got the ship orbiting the planet but win state didn't trigger.. It worked fine the 2nd time though.. Love the peaceful music and atmosphere and really enjoyed the sun shader.

davidcmcdonald 2020-10-10 02:45

This was amazing! This is a game I think you should refine and put on mobile or tablets. The audio is so mesmerizing and calming, I love the piano key as you hit a planet. I would love to see this game in a version that doesn't have levels, as I felt taken out of the experience when the menu came up, It would be awesome if you could just jump from one plant to another as the music slowly played. I found it a little hard as well, I think that can be good, but it felt a bit punishing for me when considering the music, I am being very picky tbh, but only because I actually think this game has strong commercial merit.

It took a while for me to realize that I could change the curve, but when I did and saw my ship passing through my home plants atmosphere and shooting off, but then slowing and turning around, it felt really good.

This is the highest rated game for me so far. Well done!

ree-rolph 2020-10-10 02:59

Really liked the concept, and the "smashing the keyboard" sound on death integrates really well with the music. Eventually, it felt like I was just trial and erroring it, so I threw in the towel, but maybe I'll try it again when it isn't 4 in the morning. Good job!

sean-holloway 2020-10-10 19:38

@davidcmcdonald Thank you for such kind and thoughtful feedback! Truly it means a lot, this is our first game so I'm so happy to hear that it really worked for someone. I tend to agree with all of these notes, they will definitely be taken into account when we make a full build.

prodigalson 2020-10-11 21:38

Had a bit of difficulty getting this to run which might have contribute to the overall experience I had. The webgl version runs a little smoother on FireFox than it did on Chrome and my pc would not let me run the .exe. However, I did get to lunch my rocket and bear levels 1 and 2. Thing is, I was not sure even how I won to be quite honest since at one point my ship enter orbit, left it, the camera zoomed in, and then the ship came down and I won. lol

The game needs more polishing especially around the physics and I did not quite see how it tides with the theme however I can tell that effort was put into the game and with a little more time on it it can be even better. Good job

gwinnell 2020-10-16 16:52

This is fantastic. The music really makes it. Trajectory calculation/accuracy seems to be covered by other feedback, so I won't mention it. Great entry team! :smiley:

anrqangel 2020-10-18 19:13

A fantastic game. I had so much fun with this, the music is nice and relaxing, the graphics and art style was amazing. I have to agree with David McDonald that this has real commercial potential.. It captivated me, so much.. I really love it..