Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Unbound
By lcstark
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 661 | 3.22 | 27 | |
| Fun | 621 | 3.10 | 27 | |
| Innovation | 604 | 3.00 | 27 | |
| Theme | 709 | 3.06 | 27 | |
| Graphics | 746 | 2.72 | 27 | |
| Audio | 453 | 3.12 | 26 | |
| Humor | 1 | |||
| Mood | 565 | 3.36 | 27 |
Really nice game, took me a few secs to get used to the controls. But it's good. Not to hard and challenging but still motivates you to go to the end and unlock all the upgrades to finish the game. The graphics are simple but do the job perfectly and the whole thing is totally bugless. Nice job !
Great use of the theme! Loved the controls that represent space inertia, and the deepness of the endless space
Nice one, quite easy to pick and play, which is not always the case with jam games, so, well done there! Movement felt quite satisfying and indeed space-y, so, I liked that. And the fact that you get back to the station kept me more engaged, actually! It feels like maybe collector could be on all the time, but that is just a little suggestion. :slight_smile: All in all, nice little game and indeed, bugless, which most of the games can only dream of.
@dzejpi Thanks! I've made the collector work like that because I planned to have more equipment to install on your ship, and I made it so the more you have enabled at the same time, the more power (and thus more fuel) was being used. Though I think you're right, perhaps when I limited the scope and left just the collector I should have let go of that idea too. Might be something for me to remember for the next jam - when you remove planned features, make sure everything left makes sense. :P
Simplistic, but addictive! Even if the graphics are simple, I enjoy it! For me, the ship is a little bit slower, but overall is great! Congratulations!
The controls were really hard for me but the moody piano and dark color theming were really enticing and gave the entire game a cohesive vibe. I like how you implemented the low gravity, it was fun to scoot around in. I think the asteroids would have fit in better with unaliased/non-vector edges because everything else has an appealing pixel rough edge aesthetic. Nice work!
Fun and really relaxing experience :) At the start it took a bit to get use to controls and where the front of the space ship is (could have been more distinct), but after that it was smooth. I kind of wish asteroid were moving, that would add to difficulty, but then it wouldn't probably be so relaxing. I also found a small bug, I think. If you toggle collector and have already mouse on top of a scrap it would not register as possible for collection. You have to move mouse out of scrap and back on it. Thinking about it, maybe it would be fun to have collector as a physical thing that player needs to steer too? Anyway, good job!
I liked the game, it was fun to play but the controls for me personally proved a bit difficult, and so well hit the theme. Cool game
I enjoyed playing your game very much. I especially liked the controls, as for my taste they both were floaty, as space probably is, but at the same time quite crispy. This allowed for some cool "I'll space-drift this spacecraft around that asteroid". Ended up awkwardly power sliding towards the container that I wanted to pick up, so I'll count that as a win. Surely enought, the next asteroid was my next drift target. :D Very cool entry, I also liked the upgrades as it made me feel much more competent :) Congrats on a great game :)
Cool entry! Took a moment to understand the controls, but they fit with the setting and the dampen movement button was a great idea. The game loop was nice and simple, wished there were some more resources than just fuel for one to balance out (you already hinted at others in the upgrade descriptions, so I guess there just wasn't enough time) Also nice work on the music, created some nice mood!
The game plays well after you memorize the controls. I thinks I used WASD + Q/E + space the most, plus the crate colector of course.
I like space games with controls like these. This game is about movement and its optimization.
To begin with, I skipped the whole story section of the description. :D
I'm not sure what is a meta for movement, although Q/E using 4 fuel like the main movement was a bit disappointing. you're using a less traditional movement scheme to optimize, but for the player it's hard to estimate the benefits. What I'm saying it would be nice to have a way to explore how good or bad some movement patters are: how much fuel I spend if I just rotate+thrust as opposed to using Q/E. Is it 25% more efficient, etc. I don't know how, but knowing what is beneficial would be the clue to motivate the player to use more controls as opposed to sticking to WASD. The consumption per second works for a very short span planning and is good to let the player know that releasing W is a good idea when you maxed the velocity. Maybe a per/5 or per/10 seconds consumption could help for the longer term planning, I dunno. :D It almost feels like in order to fulfill this desire of mine a dedicated mode is required, where you start from A to B and try to get there using the least amount of fuel possible. That would make me experiment with alternatives and comparisons would be easier in a smaller scope run.
One another idea is making the grabber far less costly to upkeep (maybe 0.5/s?), but a bit more expensive to turn on. This would create a situation where it's better to turn it on, fly through the crates without losing too much speed, collecting all of them in a line and then turning the grabber off, resulting in a net positive. Right now 4/s consumption means that is crazy expensive to keep on, I would rather do an instant enabling->grab->disable combo. I'm not even sure it's efficient to grab 2 crates around you with keeping it on as you would need some time to move the mouse cursor. The clicking part is another one I'm not quite sure about - maybe an automatic grab (with physics moving them towards you) would be better, but it needs testing.
Assigning the grabber to `[1]` is a weird choice tbh. This is the sole controls command I had to look up. The is a label on it, but `1` reads more like a count or a level ("grabber level 1"), therefore a key like `x` or anything else that is not digit could help a bit here. Maybe you were planning more than one tool, hence it being `1` and another tool would be `2`.
I tried using `ctrl`, but it seem to do nothing. Is it implemented?
I posted an upgrade screen because one of the background stars confused me with a "next screen" arrow. :D When a star ends up below the radar, it also confused me as a point of interest, but it wasn't :D I would prefer an opaque background for the radar for this reason, or maybe a different color/style for start (which may not fit the 2-bit style of the game, but maybe you'll move away from it if you ever wish to continue working on this game).
I managed to beat the game. I would probably be OK with it going for another round or two, as movement was quite enjoying, but that could be a good trick from you - it's better to keep the player interested and unsaturated than making them bored from the gameplay.
I wonder why it's a JAM instead of compo if you made everything yourself during the jam. Did you ran out of time and needed an extra day? I'm just curious.
a.png b.png
@zimny11 Thank you! Yeah, looks like there is that issue with the collector, gonna have to fix it in the post-jam version. The collector was going to be a physical thing, it got cut because of time. Might work it back in eventually. As for the moving asteroids, I'm not sure, like you said it would probably make the game much less relaxing. I might experiment with some slow rotation, though, might look good and not be too stressful. :)
@oadt Thanks! Yeah, there were more resources planned, both for collecting / crafting at the station, and used by the ship. Sadly, they became victims of scope cuts. :P But at least I have a lot of things to improve in the post-jam version!
@quasilyte Thank you for such detailed feedback!
> Maybe a per/5 or per/10 seconds consumption could help for the longer term planning, I dunno. :D [...]
At first I was considering making it so you'd have to return to the station yourself before the fuel runs out or you'd lose, but in the end I figured that would make it too punishing for the player. Maybe a separate mode like that could work, though, then the additional long-term statistics would really be useful. I was also thinking about having some sort of map on the station, so maybe adding a planning stage where you could plot the best course would also fit that mode?
> One another idea is making the grabber far less costly to upkeep (maybe 0.5/s?), but a bit more expensive to turn on. [...]
I wanted the grabber to be a bit more physics-based - after enabling it, it would follow the mouse and use resources only when moving, and you'd use it to grab resources and bring them in to the ship. With separate resources for fuel and equipment power it would also mean you could balance it by either moving the collector to a different position, or moving/rotating the whole ship instead. I didn't think of adding an instant cost of turning it on, that might be a nice thing to consider, thanks!
> Assigning the grabber to [1] is a weird choice tbh. This is the sole controls command I had to look up. [...]
Yeah, there was going to be more equipment to unlock. Maybe for the next time I need to make a simple sprite resembling a keyboard key to make it more obvious, placing it both there on the label and in the pause menu controls screen might do easier to connect the dots without having to scour for the controls later.
> I tried using ctrl, but it seem to do nothing. Is it implemented?
Ctrl is kinda the reverse of what space does for movement. Normally, when you rotate the ship and let go of A/D, the thrusters auto-fire to stop your rotation. If you hold Ctrl, they won't do that, and you'll spin freely until you let go of the button. Maybe I should have called that differently than free rotation, it was the first thing that came to mind. :)
> I posted an upgrade screen because one of the background stars confused me with a “next screen” arrow. :D [...]
Hah, that's what I get for trying to use Itch.io's theme system! Maybe I should add a disclaimer to best play fullscreen then. :D As for the radar I think you're right, either making it opaque or only going transparent when there are objects below would be better.
> I wonder why it’s a JAM instead of compo if you made everything yourself during the jam. Did you ran out of time and needed an extra day? I’m just curious.
Yeah, I ran out of time. I was gonna go for the compo, but I had less time over the weekend than I hoped for, and when I finished the game was pretty bare bones:
compo.png
I thought it would be better to give it at least another few hours the next day instead of posting what I had at the time.
Again, thanks for playing and the feedback! :)
> At first I was considering making it so you’d have to return to the station yourself before the fuel runs out or you’d lose, but in the end I figured that would make it too punishing for the player.
It definitely would be too punishing for an LD game I believe. :D
> Maybe for the next time I need to make a simple sprite resembling a keyboard key to make it more obvious
A simple convention of adding `[]` around the label could help here. But a button-like outline would be even better of course, but sounds like too much efforts.
Even after reading the description you provided, I have no idea how to use that ctrl thing. :D
Overall, makes sense. Thank you for the detailed response (and for an elaborated feedback for my game, I always love that and it's one of the main reasons to participate in LD; "good gaem" does not hit the string for me anymore)
> Hah, that’s what I get for trying to use Itch.io’s theme system! Maybe I should add a disclaimer to best play fullscreen then. :D As for the radar I think you’re right, either making it opaque or only going transparent when there are objects below would be better.
I'm always too lazy to do that, but there is an option to add a border between the background and the playable area. Either by adding a border to the game itself or by adjusting the background for itch io. There might be other ways.
I can recommend this template, in particular: https://jannikboysen.itch.io/easy-releasy But hey, I wouldn't go that far myself for a compo game. It might be worthwhile to do **after** the deadline, when you can still edit the page and cool-looking page can improve its performance (e.g. more browser plays)
@quasilyte > A simple convention of adding [] around the label could help here.
Funny, I've used that before, but somehow with this game I totally blanked on that.
> Even after reading the description you provided, I have no idea how to use that ctrl thing. :D
Don't worry about it, it's pretty useless anyway. I only added it because I thought it fit - since the movement has a way to move with/without inertia, I thought rotation should be the same. In the end the cost of rotation isn't that big to make it something you'd need. I'll think about it for an updated version, maybe I'll find some way to make it more useful and it will lead me to a better explanation of that system.
> I can recommend this template, in particular: https://jannikboysen.itch.io/easy-releasy
Thanks, I'll look into it! I've never done much with the Itch page customisation either, so at least having some examples to poke at might be helpful if I find the time to experiment with it. In the short-term I'll probably increase the window size and add a border like you said.
> Thank you for the detailed response (and for an elaborated feedback for my game, I always love that and it’s one of the main reasons to participate in LD; “good gaem” does not hit the string for me anymore)
Sure thing, that's why I'm doing it too. :) I'm happy if I can write something more than just "I liked it", especially if I can add something others haven't mentioned before. And most of the time after the compo/jam I feel like I haven't done nearly enough, so getting some good feedback helps me focus more on the good part of what I *have* done. Not to mention getting someone else's perspective on things I might have gotten tunnel vision over the course of development.
Good idea, I think It would be a little better/more detailed if you implemented a health system cuz I can just fling myself forward and hit an asteroid to stop/save fuel. Completed without buying all the upgrades. More resources could be implemented, and the story could be improved to include things like a broken bigger station and dialog like "We need the rest of the fuel/oxygen to get back to base, lets fall back." or "We took too much damage, lets go back to the station for repairs" as a cutscene when we run out of resources. I like the space controls, music is nice and calm. Overall pretty good tho, good job!
Really gives me the feeling of a spaceship rambling through the void. Peaceful exploring the deep sky. Great sound effect, could add some more variety in gameplay.
Cool Idea and amazing visuals :).
Nice game. I liked 3-axis controls, reminded me of Sub Culture game. And while controls not that controllable, I get that it's by design and it's interesting to get used to it. Overall, would be cool to have some other upgrades, but yea, there's never time for that during jams, so good job!
nice game
I had fun playing it! the music was really nice I liked how minimalistic it was, blended in nicely and let me focus on playing the game. Rescue on the way! :)
Nice idea, I like how the inertia-based movement encourages the player to do efficient maneuvers and use the mini-map for long term planning. I didn't understand why my fuel drain was so high until I found out it was caused by collisions because I used asteroids for breaking. It would be good to have some kind of feedback when taking damage, maybe some fuel leaking into space from the collision point.
interesting mechanics!
@decosense Thanks!
> I didn’t understand why my fuel drain was so high until I found out it was caused by collisions because I used asteroids for breaking. It would be good to have some kind of feedback when taking damage, maybe some fuel leaking into space from the collision point.
There is no collision damage (I wanted to have it as a separate HP system, but decided against it for the jam), the fuel is drained by using thrusters (separate for movement and rotation, so using both is more expensive) and having the collector turned on. Using asteroids to brake actually saves you a lot of fuel. There's also slow passive drain of -1 (without the upgrade). Other than that, only way you could increase the drain is by holding T, as I left the debug quadruple drain button in the game. :P
I actually thought controls were pretty good. It felt somewhat like flying a spaceship (or how I imagine). A little more work on the look of the spaceship and the scrap would improve alot to me, but nice little game, with great mechanics.
Very interesting entry! I'm not sure if the world is procedurally generated - considering the fact that scrap doesn't regenerate after upgrading the station, I imagine not - but it would lend itself quite well to the roguelike formula in that sense. The minimap was quite useful for finding scrap, and wasn't something I was expecting to see in an LD entry! The movement method was interesting, but could feel quite clunky at times - such a slow acceleration rate and top-speed made the controls feel a bit sluggish and unresponsive, and the station could lose nearly all of it's momentum by just barely nudging a rock, which felt very punishing (maybe increase the speed values a bit, and give the rocks the same type of space-d out movement, instead of having them be pinned in place in space?). However, despite this, I think this entry was stellar (ha ha ha) and a very good time. Well done, and congrats!
@rbbhn It is procedurally generated, though the map is used for the entire playthrough. I wanted the player to have to venture out further and further as they progressed, though that feeling is certainly limited by the fact I didn't have the time to implement more resources and upgrades. I also wanted to have dynamically loaded and unloaded chunks to make the map infinite, but sadly not enough time again, so it's just what it is at the start time.