A Solar Disorder

moddingmachine 2021-10-04 03:41

Lovely submission! I really like your implementation of the theme, rather unique if I do say so myself. Not gonna lie, this is your best submission yet, its really cool to see how your coding skills have developed over time! What did you use to program it this time?

lovetocode999 2021-10-04 17:23

@moddingmachine

Thanks! I agree, this is definitely my best submission thus far :smile:

I used [LÖVE](https://love2d.org) with [hump](https://github.com/vrld/hump#readme) for gamestates and OOP, [lighter](https://github.com/speakk/lighter#readme) for lighting, and love.physics (which pretty much just wraps Box2D with a nice Lua API) for physics. Although, Box2D is made for much smaller stuff than solar systems, so I had to implement the gravity myself :laughing:

alice-02 2021-10-04 18:34

The controls are pretty fun and I really like the art, but I think the asteroids are super hard to hit, and the game also crashed quite a lot while i was playing

thepelranthean 2021-10-05 00:36

Agreed with Alice_02, the game liked to crash a bit. Here's a stack trace if it's helpful.

``` Error

main.lua:361: Box2D assertion failed: bd->position.IsValid()

Traceback

[C]: in function 'newBody' main.lua:361: in function 'init' main.lua:696: in function 'init' libraries/hump/class.lua:79: in function 'Fire' main.lua:561: in function 'update' main.lua:471: in function 'update' main.lua:205: in function 'update' [C]: in function 'xpcall' ```

On the other hand, I really liked the gravity you implemented. It took me a little while to figure out a good strategy, but once I did, it was quite fun. I'm glad to spend a bit of time participating in such a time honored profession as zooming around space, blowing up asteroids.

Thanks for sharing the game!

lovetocode999 2021-10-05 02:01

@alice-02

Glad you enjoyed the controls and the art! Sorry for all the crashing, I meant to fix that before anyone rated this :sweat_smile:

I just pushed an update that *should* (:fingers_crossed:) fix the crashing.

Thanks for playing and rating my game!

lovetocode999 2021-10-05 02:03

@thepelranthean

Sorry about that, it should be fixed now! Thanks for the stack trace!

I'm glad you enjoyed the gameplay, thanks for playing and rating!

varundevs 2021-10-05 04:58

Nice

hypertheory 2021-10-05 08:48

A simple and interesting game idea. Well done!

lovetocode999 2021-10-05 13:12

@varundevs @hypertheory

Thanks!

dent 2021-10-06 00:55

Charming entry with a clear concept. I consistently steered my vessel into the sun, but I think that's just me being bad with coordination ;)

silurus 2021-10-07 09:40

The game is interesting! Being attracted to the planet makes the game more difficult, that's well thought out!

lovetocode999 2021-10-07 13:44

@dent

I'm glad the game was easy to understand, and that you found it charming!

I intentionally made this game quite difficult, so it's no surprise that you consistently crashed. I myself usually get only 5-10 points, and I created it! :laughing:

lovetocode999 2021-10-07 13:46

@silurus

Thanks! I spent several hours Saturday tweaking the gravity mechanic to get it *just right*. =P

ribout-horace 2021-10-10 21:06

A cool infinite game ! The deplacement is a little quirky but that's the spirit of the game ! Still cool tho ! Good job

lovetocode999 2021-10-10 21:29

@ribout-horace

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :smile:

ivysly 2021-10-10 21:47

cool concept, but for some reason the asteroids stop coming after a little while...?

rookrules 2021-10-10 21:51

I didnt like that the asteroids could kill me and it was a little hard to hit them for sure but it's a cool idea overall

lovetocode999 2021-10-11 02:35

@ivysly

Thanks!

Aw man... And here I thought I had all the major bugs ironed out... Alas!

Well I hope you had a fun time playing besides that bug! I shall (attempt to) fix it sometime this week.

Thanks for playing!

lovetocode999 2021-10-11 02:42

@rookrules

I'm glad you found it difficult! That was the intention :smile:

Although I'm not sure what else you expected the asteroids to do upon hitting a spaceship half their size, I'll gladly consider any suggestions!

Thanks for playing!

dob 2021-10-12 18:43

Smooth and appealing with good sounds. Really interesting how the shooting creates inverse momentum - that's a neat feature. One quibble - the gravity does not work like actual gravity, which means you can't ever enter into a stable orbit, and instead you are always sucked into the sun regardless of trajectory. That means this game doesn't play like Spacewar and other derivatives, which is disconcerting for an old school guy like me. Real gravity is weaker the farther away you are (inverse R^2), and with that, it is relatively easy to get into an orbit, even an elliptical one, on games like this. But your game looks and plays and sounds neat. Nice work.

brainloaf-studio 2021-10-12 21:34

A simple but fun game, nice! I wasn't ever able to make it very far (usually ended up flinging myself right into the sun) but I like the idea of your own projectiles causing knockback. The sound design is simple but works well too, it feels like a classic arcade game. Nice work!

ic-rainbow 2021-10-14 18:33

I'm with @dob on orbiting. Having stable orbits would be good a backdrop for knockback, promoting sniper shots and shoot/correct dance.

Also, a screen filter will mess with blue bullets making them effectively invisible. You have to supplement with some greens.

Other than that, a very cute game.

lovetocode999 2021-10-14 23:12

@dob

Thank you for your feedback! That makes sense, I'll play some games like that to try and get a feel for the mechanic, and I'll definitely incorporate it if/when I make a post jam version!

I'm glad you enjoyed it, thanks for playing!

lovetocode999 2021-10-14 23:13

@brainloaf-studio

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the gameplay!

lovetocode999 2021-10-14 23:16

@ic-rainbow

Oooh yes that would be cool! I'm definitely fixing the gravity when I make a post jam version :smile:

Oh no, I completely forgot about screen filters! I hope that didn't cause too much annoyance. Thank you for your feedback!

Thanks for playing and rating!

honey-pony 2021-10-15 02:56

I really like the vibe this game has to it, even without music. It kind of feels like a dusty Atari game or something that I would play at like 2AM at night... no music, no background noise, just silence interrupted by spaceshippy sounds.

I did not really manage to hit a lost of asteroids. I think this is because of a combination of factors: - Asteroids are small - Asteroids have a somewhat strange trajectory - When focusing on aiming, you can easily get sucked into the sun - Your have a finite ammo supply

Adjusting any of these factors could make it more possible to hit asteroids. As it stands, I mostly just circled the sun and if an asteroid happened to be in my path I would try to shoot it right before I hit it. Or maybe it's supposed to be really hard to hit asteroids without being really good at the game, I have no idea.

I do think that most of the game mechanics are pretty fun on their own terms. It's cool to have a sun with gravity, and it's cool that the asteroids make it bigger, and it's cool to have a finite ammo supply, and finally the momentum system is really cool too. I like all of these ideas quite a bit. I just don't know how to actually play the game well, when it comes down to it. :sweat_smile:

One tiny note is I really like the way the rocket fire works. The little flame sprite is just great.

lovetocode999 2021-10-15 17:19

@honey-pony

Yay, I'm glad that's how the game's atmosphere came across! That's definitely the vibe I was going for, even if I had had time to make music and work on sfx a bit more.

I did intentionally make the asteroids quite difficult to hit, but I'm starting to wonder whether that was a good idea, considering I've received several comments about how difficult it is :sweat_smile:

I definitely wanted the asteroid trajectory to be a bit cooler, but this was my first time implementing gravity on such a large scale and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing! :laughing:

Had I implemented gravity correctly, the path they take from where they spawn is set such that they would (hopefully) spiral into the sun. I'm definitely fixing the gravity when I have time to make a post ld version though!

I'm glad you found all the different mechanics to be cool! Same goes for the rocket flame. I'm quite happy with how all my graphics turned out this LD :smile:

Thank you for playing and rating, and for leaving such detailed feedback!

keichits 2021-10-15 18:28

Very smart usage of unstability theme. It's a realy good game for a 48h COMPO jam, the mechanics works realy well. Congrats for the great work!

lovetocode999 2021-10-15 18:30

@keichits

Thanks!

730 2021-10-16 00:01

Nice little concept, I like the gravity and how the star keeps getting bigger. The game itself feels somewhat boring, there's actually not much to do, and it's hard to aim and actually hit something, shots are too small and too slow. More interesting shooting or asteroid variations or something might've been nice. Also, the game starts lagging the larger the star gets, not sure if that's actually related to the size or not though. I survived until it took up like the whole height of the screen because I wanted to see if it would blow up or what. A_Solar_Disorder_2021-10-15_20-56-00.png

lovetocode999 2021-10-16 00:18

Thanks for your feedback! I'm realizing that I probably should have made the game a bit easier based on all the feedback I have received :sweat_smile:

Oh, making the star blow up would be awesome! Yet another thing to add to a post jam version!

I'm not sure why it starts lagging, I need to investigate that when I get time. I haven't noticed it on my local machine, but that's most likely just my CPU making up for poor coding practices :laughing:

Thanks for playing and rating!

screenshot.png

aatala 2021-10-16 04:15

Nice concept, i liked playing the game, but for me it was more just survivinng, couldnn't kill asteroids and survive at the same time lol

zimny11 2021-10-16 12:22

Cool game. The idea ins nice. I think it will benefit from a bigger screen (or ability to get better weapons). Since the asteroids move quite fast it is hard to shoot them, avoid other asteroids and keep ship in orbit and bigger screen maybe would fix it. On the other hand bigger screen would prolong the game, and it looks like you go for short, more dynamic gameplay, so maybe I'm wrong. What maked game fun for me was trying to survive as long as possible and to get the sun to touch the edge of the screen. I was able to survive hiding in the corner at last stage, until sun filled up the whole screen :) Good job with the compo game!

lovetocode999 2021-10-16 17:23

@aatala

Yeah I think it was a bit stupid to make it as hard as I did lol

Thanks for playing and rating!

lovetocode999 2021-10-16 17:25

@zimny11

Thanks for your feedback! I definitely have a lot of changes to make if/when I release a post-jam version.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, thank you for playing and rating!

alvan-arulandu 2021-10-18 14:00

Wow, the rocket movement is super fun. I enjoyed the difficulty and felt super proud of myself when I actually hit an asteroid. Great job!

lovetocode999 2021-10-18 14:42

@alvan-arulandu

Thank you! I'm glad you found it fun and you didn't find the difficulty too hard!

Thanks for playing and rating!

crefossus 2021-10-21 00:27

Here is your highlight with lots of thoughts while playing and rating - enjoy :D https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1182474267

lovetocode999 2021-10-21 16:49

@crefossus

Awesome, thank you so much!! =D

I have taken note of all the suggestions you gave. Thanks for such detailed feedback, it's greatly appreciated!