Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD53 → Asteroid Miner
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 379 | 2.77 | 26 | |
| Fun | 376 | 2.56 | 26 | |
| Innovation | 403 | 2.04 | 26 | |
| Theme | 401 | 2.22 | 26 | |
| Graphics | 319 | 3.00 | 26 | |
| Audio | 311 | 2.47 | 26 | |
| Mood | 344 | 2.64 | 26 |
Classic asteroid game with souped up visuals!
How did you make the Asteroids? I ask because the art style of the ship vs. the sky vs. the asteroids are very different from one another. I'd love to follow a tutorial to be able to get such nice looking asteroid objects.
@candlesan The ship was a result of me panicking about how much time I had left before I had to submit otherwise I'd have nothing to submit. The asteroids took me FAR too long to do. It was a combination of taking photos of interesting shaped rocks that form a rock wall in my garden. Editing them slightly with a hammer and then playing with filters, colours etc etc etc to make something that looks good. I can't really write a tutorial I'm afraid on this as I am not sure I could replicate the steps. It took me HOURS to get these asteroids looking good.
I'll be streaming @ twitch.tv/balimaarthebassfish in about 10.5 hours from now. I'll definitely be playing your game :)
and the asteroids involved me learning a little bit of Blender too god help me.
Classic asteroids! The asteroid visuals are great.
There's a couple things around the edges that could use some polishing--I think the ship should turn a bit slower (although honestly, you could lean into the idea of the ship having wacky physics) and I got lost off the side of the screen a few times.
Your first project you are 100% guaranteed to overscope because you have no idea what a "reasonable scope" actually is.
On the criticisms of what you have, your ship turning is way to fast which makes it hard to control. You can also go off screen and get lost.
Asteroids do indeed look cool! Simple game loop that functions, definitely could use some more stuff but a totally reasonable comp entry.
I liked that you could fire as quickly as you could press Space. I wish it were a little bit more difficult, but I like your ideas for updates you would make for it.
Asteroids do look very good - I can tell you spent a lot of time on them :)
The ship was very hard to control for me, spinning too fast :P
Let's SPINNNNN !! Was a great experience to play a classic asteroid game, thanks for your submission :)
So slippery!! I had some trouble delivering the ore, but that's what makes it fun :smile: Simple and effective! Great take on the asteroid concept!
@nathaniel-kaplan @wolfier you got lost off the screen? :O that means there is an issue somewhere with my boundaries. can you please share a screenshot or tell me where on the screen the issue is? that is certainly not something that reared its head in my testing!
@asmadigames thank you for playing :) I had planned a few more features but unfortunately RL interfered.
@braveskin I had planned to make more asteroids, make more spawn over time and so on. Unfortunately... time :D
@mitur @shiiigear Maybe I should have a new emote for my streams :D A Spinning Ship :D But yes I do see the issue with the turning. Its a case of the dev deciding it was too easy and making it harder - sorry!
@fluburbio Thank you for playing :)
I've just read how did you make the asteroids. Woah, that's commitment! :D Nice entry, even very cool for a first entry! And very wise things you've learned from it, as I can read. :) I guess everyone has to learn these on their own skin. 1 thing I would change: make the turning less sensive. Or even better: use WASD for forward-backwards-strafing, and just use the mouse for turning/aiming/shooting. It would be much smoother, easier to control, thus the asteroids could be faster, etc. What do you think? :) Keep up the good work, see you next time! :D
@tudvari I had considered using mouse controls to steer but decided to implement keyboard first, get things working and then play with pointing the ship towards a cursor later... then I completely forgot about it haha It was the only thing I had not written notes on. Thank you for your kind words!
It's a solid little game. I found the left/right a bit fast for my liking but that could be personal preference. I ended my recording before I tested death but I appreciate the invulnerability window after death.
https://youtu.be/ETLrDx2yaVY
@bangkerpow thank you so much for playing and taking the time to record and upload your gameplay to YT :)
I thought I should include an invuln timer on respawn because it would hardly be fair on a player to lose another life just because the respawn point also happened to have an asteroid in it at that particular moment.
Welcome to Ludum Dare! I hope we can see more of your work here in the future. The premise is simpel which is good for your first jam.
For the main feedback: The controls are too floaty. The decceleration on the rotation should be way higher to make it more controllable. Then you can play around with the momentum of the ship as a whole if that is the challenge you want to introduce. Difficult controls are generally not the way to make a game difficult, they often make a game frustrating. You want the challenge to come from the mastery of the player and the control they can exert over the game.
A couple small issues: - The ship is a little small - The ship spins quickly making it hard to control
Other than those small issues though the game is nice. I also like what you said in the first reply which was that you took rocks from your garden for the asteroids. That's really cool using rocks in your backyard then modifying them for your own asteroid assets.
@sam-minh thanks for playing! yeah I know now the controls are too difficult. It was a function of me deciding my original setup was too easy so I made it more difficult. It seems I went too far - lesson learned!
@synthol Thank you for playing my modest effort :) I had to take examples from nature because I can't draw to save my life haha. Apologies for making the ship too hard to control. Its a lesson I have learned for next time.
a bit too sensitive on the turning but still a classic ol game of asteroids, even without a score or proper life system
@iggy-lonely can I ask what you mean by a score and "proper life system"?
The asteroids looked super good! Like others mentioned the ship is a little finicky to control but I was mostly able to get it to do what I wanted. Honestly not bad at all for a compo that where you lost 25% of the total development time! Based on your comments above it sounds like you got bogged down in asset creation, which is really common when you're starting out. You'll get faster over time!
One piece of advice I'd give is to limit how many brand new skills/unknown things you tackle during the jam. It's really easy to get sucked into rabbit holes and lose sight of the bigger project. You want to be focused on creating content, not figuring out HOW to create the content. For example, for my game, I limited myself to learning three new things: Unity's PlayerPrefs (for save data), Unity's spline package (for rail grinding), and action game movement (jumping, dashing, etc). Everything else I already knew how to do, for the most part anyway.
Welcome to the party. I like that i had to try to die. And thenwhen i did i found i have eternal life. Thanks! I never thought i'd achieve it in a game jam, but behold, you did. Congrats!
@balimaarthebassfish a reward for shooting the meteors and by life system I mean that if you die, you get sent back to the titlescreen, indicating you having lost
Nice job on your FIRST ludum dare! you should be proud you finished. learn from what you did in this and take it to the next. the ship was a little too touchy and was hard to control. nice classic asteroids game. thanks for making the game.
Congrats on your first Ludum Dare entry! You even submitted into the Compo - Ludum Dare hard mode! It's a nice Asteroids clone with a twist.
Btw. the embedded html build is cropped out so that's probably why some people go out of screen and some think you don't have a score system implemented.
Snímek obrazovky 2023-05-08 v 15.54.33.png
@mediflect Thank you for the kind words and the advice. Youre totally right, I was really bogged down by asset creation. Kinda obsessed over those asteroids a little too much haha
@commanderstitch I ran out of time to implement a "kick to main menu" after the final death :D But hey you get to have another 3 lives instead :D
@iggy-lonely if you download one of the other builds you will see I do in fact have a score system in place. For some reason the web build embedded on the site here crops out a fair portion of the game screen.
@paulhocker thank you for playing! sorry about the controls. I had decided early on that it was "too easy" and so made it harder. looks like I went too far the other way!
@jiri-hysek ah ha! the mystery resolved! maybe I made the game area too large? do you happen to know what the dimensions should be for embedded games on LD should work at?
I love this programmer art! Playing a classic asteroids-inspired game with such simple art feels so right. It's a great creative idea to use photos for textures. As for the gameplay, there isn't much to say that wasn't said already: turning could be less sensitive and maybe a bit of variety in gameplay could make the game better. But that said, it was pretty fun and really solid for the first ever compo. Well done!
Here's my playthrough, if you'd like to see it. https://youtu.be/xsKf9BKrdq4
@yngvarr thank you for playing! I would have put a bit more variety in if RL hadnt reared its ugly head. But considering I did this with 10-12 hours left on the clock (and I slept for 8 hours too!) I am very happy with what I managed to accomplish :)
Nice job! Rotate is fast, So I tried to turn myself into a turret, spinning at high speed and firing bullets around!