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Badly Designed Cargo Delivery Pad

By jka

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2893.4429
Fun1883.5929
Innovation2373.4229
Theme1054.0729
Graphics4632.7729
Audio4042.4429
Humor1843.0427
Mood4682.4227

Comments

2021-10-03 23:34

Controls are strange. Clicking the right key moves you to the left. The game runs in like 5 FPS for some reason. Props for procedural generation.

Bug: clearing a stage should autohide the help view. Screenshot_20211004_012855.png

jka 2021-10-03 23:47

That's strange. I don't seem to be having any performance issues, but I've only tested in Firefox and Chromium, so it might be browser related?

Also, the help view should clear out after the first stage and only show again if you press "H" or the button. So I'm not sure what's happening there.

The controls might be a bit confusing, but that's by design. My thought was, that pressing right should activate the right-side engine. Might have been overthinking that one though. :smile:

Thanks for playing!

kazatan 2021-10-04 10:10

It ran well for me in Chrome, Windows 10. I enjoyed the game a lot too. For me, level 1 and 2 were way harder than 3 & 4. Level 5 I stopped on because I couldn't complete it in one trip and it was so far to fly back without any cargo!!

I had the same "issue" with the help text. It's not that it didn't clear after stage 1 - it did. It's that I couldn't see how to get to stage 2! The "Press space to advance level" text was hard to read and covered by the help text :laughing:

SFX were spot on for the art style.

I thought this fit the theme well - despite how infuriating it is trying to train your brain to press left to "go right" :laughing:

jka 2021-10-04 10:17

@kazatan Whoops, that's what happens when you make the tutorial in the final hour, I guess. I'll add some text at to this page to explain how to get to the next level, at least.

The difficulty is a bit luck based, due to the procedural level generation, so yeah that can happen. :sweat_smile:

Thanks for the feedback and thanks for playing! :smile:

faux-grey 2021-10-04 13:51

I like this, the tutorial text did confuse me on how to get to the next level, as it covered the "press space" thing!

After about 5 minutes in a realized I could use the mouse buttons to steer as well which was pretty dope.

He may be badly designed, but at least he's happy!

jka 2021-10-04 14:06

@faux-grey: The pad was actually an inanimate object until a couple of minutes before submission. I thought it looked kinda boring, so I quickly added a pair of eyes. :smile:

The text placement there is unfortunate. I added the tutorial text pretty much last minute and only tested it in full screen mode I think, in which case it doesn't overlap, so that's probably why I missed it. Glad you figured it out anyway! :sweat_smile:

Thanks for playing!

adrenallen 2021-10-04 16:44

I really enjoyed this one! Fun time killer. It's satisfying to get moving across the map at speed with cargo. Good job!

dennis-magnusson 2021-10-04 17:30

This was a fun game. It took a while to get used to controlling the thing, but after I got used to it it was fun. I thought the third level was way to difficult, though, especially when compared to the first two.

alice-02 2021-10-04 17:31

The controls are pretty fun and would make for a great rage game with some more polish, my biggest complaints are the audio and the fact that the 20 cargo requirement makes it so that most of every levels is just repeating what i already did 2 or 3 times

jka 2021-10-04 17:41

@dennis-magnusson The levels are random, so the difficulty can vary, maybe a bit too much sometime. :sweat_smile:

@alice-02 Yeah, I get that, maybe 10 would've been a better number.

Thanks for playing! :smiley:

wafflesys 2021-10-04 20:31

I have to say this isn't my type of game so I only played 2/3 levels. Nevertheless, this was very interesting and kind of fun. At some point it becomes repetitive especially that (at least for the levels I played) the number of delivery was always 20.

I understand that the levels are random. Though, I would recommend having a very basic first level that is always the same so that players can understand correctly how the game is played.

I'm unsure about the design of load/unload maybe something more representative would be better. Something like in the veine of download/upload icons or something. But anyway, this is me being picky :p

The game is nice, the concept isn't new but still nicely executed. Some more polishing and this would become something really fun to play with :)

owca 2021-10-04 20:32

Very cool idea. I like the controls - easy to learn, hard to master.

morris 2021-10-04 21:12

This is a fun one! Trying to keep the balance and get to the goal in one swoosh is very rewarding.

Also cute pad :D

gamepopper 2021-10-05 16:51

Very Lunar Lander-esque. Resetting is very awkward because the angular velocity doesn't get reset. Gameplay wise it feels very stiff, but the concept is pretty solid.

jka 2021-10-05 17:59

@gamepopper Originally, I wanted an automated reset system, but realized that I didn't have the time for that, so I had to do it like this last minute. Totally agree, it's not optimal. Thanks for playing and the feedback!

@wafflesys @owca @morris Thanks for playing! :smiley:

mythalore 2021-10-05 23:13

Hey really enjoyed your game, the physics of it is really smooth, feels great. Although I did hit my limit I enjoyed the first few levels. :)

glen-chang 2021-10-06 01:44

loved it. got to lvl 7. Wish that it wouldnt kick you back to lvl 1 cause I dont' want to go through all that progression again. I was hoping for a restart level button. Also if you know you messed up. Would be nice to have a instant go back to the refueling pad.

solah 2021-10-06 05:25

Very funny, the art is simple but works perfectly and the sound design is good. The gamepay is fun and unforgiving, well done!

jka 2021-10-06 08:26

@glen-chang Yeah, that's fair. It could do with some better balancing in that regard. Glad you enjoyed it, you've made it farther than I ever did, I think. So congrats on that! :smile:

@solah @mythalore Thanks for playing! :smile:

barrier 2021-10-07 08:22

The cargo loading and unloading is done great. The controls confuse me for some reason, maybe if left and right was swapped it would feel better? I didn't get far because I rage quit when I lost all the cargo, but its a solid game :D

guntrip 2021-10-07 16:44

This ran well for me too! And while the controls also felt swapped, it made it more challenging. I admit my main tactic was to angle the delivery pad towards the target and then fire both to zoom towards it :D

jka 2021-10-08 15:16

@barrier @guntrip Thanks for playing and for the feedback!

ubershmekel 2021-10-10 05:02

I made it to level 13 on the first try but was so frustrated that I rage quit after that. I initially felt like the controls were swapped too but got used to it. I think a subtle but masterful choice you made here was to make the cargo both circles and squares randomly, so it always feels like the cargo is behaving a bit differently. It was a lot of fun mastering the controls. I didn't enjoy the dead-end level design troll situations, and I wouldn't go again because it felt like each level was a huge amount of work. I think I would have kept going if it didn't reset to level 1. I was already upset when I goofed the 5 minute limit on level 13. The sound for the thrusters worked great, the ding for the cargo unloading was great, but the sound when I get loaded a new shape was way too loud and sharp for my ears. The character design for the space ship was adorable. Real masterful game making here. Please be a bit easier on me next time :) Thank you for the game.

flying-dog-fish 2021-10-10 20:22

Great game with many levels. Controls are just about on the right side of the frustration line. It fits the theme perfectly. Only the high-pitched sound of the emerging balls is rather annoying.

nyxkn 2021-10-10 21:19

Cute idea. Game felt a bit too frustrating at times. Definitely a really good match for the theme!

jka 2021-10-13 14:39

@ubershmekel @flying-dog-fish @nyxkn Thanks! :smiley:

kristinamay 2021-10-19 15:56

Wow nobody better ever let me drive a cargo hovership. :scream: (love this!)

jka 2021-10-25 12:05

@kristinamay Thanks! :smile: