rustywolf 2023-05-01 04:52
Really interesting choice to open a business that literally cannot be profitable. Jokes aside, I love the mechanic and how the orbits can affect the price of the journey. Cool entry
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD53 → Solar Express
By jellybean
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 259 | 3.34 | 21 | |
| Fun | 260 | 3.15 | 21 | |
| Innovation | 115 | 3.63 | 21 | |
| Theme | 23 | 4.39 | 21 | |
| Graphics | 237 | 3.42 | 21 | |
| Audio | 249 | 2.97 | 21 | |
| Humor | 328 | 2.05 | 19 | |
| Mood | 286 | 2.97 | 19 |
Really interesting choice to open a business that literally cannot be profitable. Jokes aside, I love the mechanic and how the orbits can affect the price of the journey. Cool entry
I think the idea behind your game is really cool, but I had some difficulty tracking how much fuel I had used between planets.
Hello there fellow space game maker. :D Really nice idea, I like the graphics, they are simple but very good. The music and sfx are okay, I realized you need to wait for planets to be closer to be profitable. Sometimes there are no good jobs though, it would be nice to reset them or something. Pretty good overall. I made $250 but there are no more good jobs. :D
This was fun, and waiting for the orbits to align to reduce fuel cost is a really neat idea. I also liked the information about each of the celestial bodies
Love the space theme! I played it for a bit and racked up a little bit of money. I'd suggest maybe varying the jobs given out at each planet. I found that a good strategy was, believe it or not, to deliver back and forth between mercury and the outer planets. Mercury orbits so fast that you can time your trip to an outer planet fairly quickly and the profit/cost ratio between delivering between mercury and the outer planets is generally better than planet hopping between planets next-door to each other. Whenever I landed at an outer planet there was a good chance there would be a job to deliver back to Mercury and vice versa.
@spigs I'm really glad somebody found that, Mercury ends up being the closest planet to just about everyother planet on avergae, and that's based on real data which I thought was interesting! So I don't know that I can fix that without changing the orbits. I probably should've just made a universe up instead!
I really like the concept and implementation. If you had additional time, I think a bit more polish could have gone a long way. Great submission!
Really cool idea! I decided to retire after I got to 700. 08.05.2023_23.03.02_REC.png
I like the concept and your graphics, the camera is a bit stuttering, but all in all I like it very much.
solar_express.png
Great idea! Having to time your journey right to maximize money earned from a job feels really good. The graphics look pretty good, giving that oldschool vibe.
The camera in general works well, sometimes delivering nice cinematic shots of your ship traveling through the system. It does however, make some awkward transitions or stuttering on occasion (probably because the ship itself stutters as it tries to follow the planet on its orbit). I wanted to take a look at your camera code, but your source code link returns a 404 error.
Pretty good game! The gameplay is pretty fun once you get into it, although I would have liked something else to spend my money on, maybe upgrades or repairs (or a perpetual maintenance fee to provide an ending). I liked the graphics too, and the sounds are, although a bit strange, quite fitting. I found the camera a little jittery sometimes (but this is probably to be expected of a compo game with a circular setting like this), and would have liked less scrolling out to do (a must since clicking a planet always zoomed in). Overall good entry!
Nice UI, cool 3D space, good sound effect coverage. I did have one issue where my money total was overwritten by the job title if it was too long, which wasn't good. I also wish there was a fuel estimator or something, but I guess that gamble is where player skill may enter the picture. I liked the jobs and the inclusion of some cool solar objects not normally included in the list. I wish the web browser had a full screen mode!
Very creative! I like the concept, very interesting. I suggest you could add a time limit to some deliveries, so you have to take a suboptimal route at times. I think it would be cool to add some moons too!
It would also be nice to show the planet names at all times when zoomed out, I took some time to find makemake (never heard of that one before) and their small shapes can be difficult to distinguish from the stars.
@lcstark thanks for pointing out the 404 error! I left the repo private.