Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Voyage of Science and Legacy
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 779 | 2.93 | 45 | |
| Fun | 872 | 2.23 | 45 | |
| Innovation | 392 | 3.32 | 45 | |
| Theme | 394 | 3.67 | 45 | |
| Graphics | 618 | 3.14 | 45 | |
| Humor | 1.50 | 10 | ||
| Mood | 147 | 3.79 | 45 |
Really cool to create an interactable story of Voyager, creates a very nice experience. Showing the pale blue dot is very nice, even recreating it. The game itself is more of a railroad, with a more 'do what you are told' feel. The concept, however, is very nice.
Thanks for the comment @bridgeonastick! You are right about it being a railroad - I wanted to make it more interactable but only had one day to make this so ended up favoring finished narrative over gameplay mechanics. Hopefully I will manage a better balance in the future.
It's a good game. I especially enjoyed all the animations.
Liked the narrative driven approach. And the art style felt right. Enjoyed it!
This is a great homage to the Voyager program. This would fit right in as a Google Doodle. The only minor thing is that the text was very small when I was playing it.
I enjoyed the experience but it definitely left me wanting more from it. Thanks for making this! Maybe one day we'll see an expanded version of this vision!
I like how you tell the story. Even if the game does not require many player contributions, I could feel the atmosphere of it. Great job.
Calling this 'interactive' is a real stretch. The only part where the player has any agency is the photo mission, and there was never any scoring on that or anything, so your success on it doesn't matter. Beyond that, it's just dull. A little bit of audio and some more graphical effects would go a long way in elevating this, but as I played it, it failed to draw me in at all. Also note that a lot of visual novels have branching stories, which is something that makes them much more engaging. I get that this is a true story, so branching paths wouldn't really make sense, but that's something to consider for the future if you keep making games like this.
Nice to relieve a bit of history.
Would have been nice to fail the mission! You know everything can go so wrong , feel the pressure you have with space mission (like taking the picture, or not pressing space too long and realize later on you need fuel.
Short and immersive text adventure! Really enjoyed the theme and how do you build the atmosphere! Congrats! o/
@falke thank you, that makes me feel better about spending disproportionate amounts of time on the animations..
@venezia never thought I would see the words "art style" being used to describe my scribbles. Thank you, your comment gives me hope and encourages to keep practicing!
@lb01 Thank you for the compliment - now I want to make a much better version so it would be good enough for Google Doodles! And yeah, improving the look of the text would be one of the first things on the list to improve. Along with adding a proper dedication to the Voyager team, especially Carl Sagan.
@kernon And here I thought it was already too much content and not enough polish. Thank you for encouragement, I would also like to improve it - will try to let you know if I make an update, but might be easier to exchange follows in itch.io
@loig Thank you, glad you felt the atmosphere despite the lack of music or sound effects, or even gameplay. Feels like I have so much to improve, but your comment helps remind me that it is not hopeless.
@quinn-patrick Thank you for taking the time to write so much good feedback. I also felt that interactive was not the best word for it, but couldn't come up with a better one. I agree that there is not enough agency and gameplay - in my rush I sacrificed and focused too much on wrong things (only had one day for this jam and wanted to tell the whole story, but still, could have spent less time on minor nitpicks and actually added some meaningful gameplay). And yeah, a narrative driven experience without any audio is just shooting myself in the foot. Regarding branching, it might be possible to exercise some creative freedom and add a bit of branching subplots - especially if there was a good system to be able to replay the branches without having to go through everything many times (or just giving ability to skip through narrative). So yeah, good points, gives me a lot to think about.
@dhim Thank you, you are right, I should have added a failure state, but I made some terrible code while rushing and couldn't easily make narrative skippable or have save states, so was afraid people will not want to replay the whole thing if they failed somewhere in the middle. In hindsight, I probably should have thought about it earlier, then would have written better code to support gameplay.
@caiolima Thanks, hopefully someday I will be able to make such immersive moods as you :)
The last line is something. Crazy that something we have made today will outlast the Earth. Great story to tell.
@sirred Indeed, the Voyager program is full of awe inspiring stories like it's legacy, the Golden Record and the Pale Blue Dot.
I found my game jam twin! My game was also based on Voyager. :)
I took a much looser approach and just used Voyager in concept. I had also wanted to add more gameplay and ended up with a pretty on rails experience. I was torn about making it too gamey or action based because it wasn't really in keeping with a space probe. I did want to have more management of the probe than I got done though. Similarly I only had about 10-12 hours in the weekend. I had wanted to have pixel planets floating by so I was jealous of your Jupiter. I liked your approach of typing in commands. Nice job!
Great story telling! :v: I enjoy every bit of this experience until the end! Good job on making it! Congratulations :smile:
This was actually super cool. I loved it! So emotional. Wish it had liftoff sounds and some quindar :) Storytelling comes out really strong. Almost shed manly tears at the end.
Cool concept and the visuals were neat too. Some audio would have helped set the mood and help immersion, but we all know 48 hours is just never enough time... good job
@blockerz That's so cool! I'm exited to play your take on it. It looks really good, I'm already jealous of your art...
@goutye Thank you, a great story is easy to tell - glad I didn't ruin it completely :)
@nyxkn I'm glad it made an impact - if it had some appropriate sounds and music those tears would have been shed for sure! Audio is definitely going into "things to add on update" list. Can get some good inspirations from Voyager documentaries.
@cheesepencil Thank you, audio indeed would have helped a lot - definitely should have prioritized it more, but doubt I could have created anything worth adding... That's one of many skills I still need to learn - hopefully making something for an update will be a good motivation to practice.
A very cool concept and great job for a jam! I liked being placed in the role of the spacecraft computer. I'd definitely play this again if you were to take it further along the lines of the comments you've made above.
Wow! Thanks! That's one small game for man, one giant concept for mankind!
@ellenbjohnson Thank you, I'll make a post on itch.io when upgraded version is done so you should get notified if you follow me there.
@tentaclemax Thank you! That's one small comment for man, one giant reference for mankind!
Nice idea and very well executed!
Interesting and original concept. Moody.
That was very interesting and well executed, loved it!
Not much of a game, but nice storytelling. BTW terminals usually use monospace fonts.
I love this concept!
Thank you for the comments!
@aggrathon That explains why it felt wrong, thank you for pointing it out! Console is one of the first things that I am going to upgrade post-jam and so monospace font will be a good start.
I like the ambition of this one, but I think it needed more time than 48 hours to do it justice. An interactive 'biography' of the Voyager probe is a great concept, and there's a lot of scope for minigames and such. I did enjoy the ride though.
Good stuff :8ball:
@oddballdave It would have been nice to have even 48, but life happened so only had about 16 hours on Sunday. In any case, I agree that it still need a lot of work. Looking forward to upgrading it once the jam is over.
Little iteration but oddly it's just what it's need. I love the mood I even try to tip fast when needed because I was really into it.
Brilliant! Simply brilliant! This is not just a game, but an interactive lesson in the history of space exploration. And what a romantic ending this game has! Standing applause for your resourcefulness!
Text was so tiny on my side, I couldn't read what was happening.
Seemed like a nice take on the theme though!
Short and sweet, that's nice. There of course is not a lot of "gameplay", but I think that's not a problem since the length was not too long. Overall it was nice to play something different.
I really loved this game. Great idea, and execution. I want more. Great idea with the concsole control.
I f'ed up the Jupiter photo :laughing: This gets a :heart: just on account of the Pale Blue Dot alone. I wished this had been a bit more interactive and branching, but I enjoyed the experience. Chilling and inspiring end. Well done!
Thank you for such wonderful comments, I really appreciate each one!
@nakami That gives me inspiration to make longer command chains with time limit, would create some real gameplay. Thank you for the idea!
@aprioriface Actually, it is pretty much only an interactive history, but thank you, glad the story made the impact I was going for.
@mechamew That's unfortunate - after playing your game I think you would have liked it. If you tried only web version, can try downloadable build, it should be better (at least it is on my PC). In any case, I knew I should have made time to choose a better and bigger font... Will definitely make an update for this!
@pete Thank you, glad the lack of gameplay wasn't a dealbreaker for you.
@gildar76 And more you shall have! Or at least a more polished version. Promise to release until next Ludum Dare!
@udo That was funny :) Thank you very much! And to be fair, you really couldn't have known the photo would have a delay and take so long to do.