Ludum Dare 19
December 17th-20th, 2010
Theme: Discovery
More Info: /ludum-dare-19-has-begun/
Compact Discovery - Starspell - Competition Entry
Instructions
You are a space ship pilot on a voyage of DISCOVERY!!!! (what else would you be doing?). Explore the galaxy around you, mine for carbon, get rich in poly-carbonate (p or polys) and fight off evil space pirates! It's the magical world of "Compact Discovery"!
Space pirates can't attack you outside of your shields. Each planet will either be mineable, provide you with polys or will be a hidden enemy base. Planets will change each time you visit your Hub. You won't know what kind of planet it is until you get close to it. Mineable planets will glow blue at their core after you get close to them.
From the Hub you can trade in your mined carbon for polys, get upgrades for your ship and your ship's health will be recharged.
Around you are arrows pointing to all the planets in the system. The red arrow is always directed to the Hub.
Controls
Movement: Mouse. Your craft will move faster the further away your cursor is from the ship.
Fire: Mouse Left Button.
Pause: P Key
Mine Planet/Open Hub Menu/Close Hub Menu/Reset after Death: Space. To access the Hub Menu you must be on the Hub.
Cloaking Device: S Key
Quick Return: R Key
View Starspell's journal. | View all entries by Starspell
Ratings
| #20 | Community | 3.87 |
| #49 | Coolness | 11% |
| #87 | Theme | 3.27 |
| #109 | Fun | 2.77 |
| #118 | Overall | 2.82 |
| #129 | Innovation | 2.68 |
| #157 | Graphics | 2.50 |
| #175 | Audio | 1.38 |
| #208 | Humor | 1.42 |
Comments
I can't get S or R to work: they don't seem to do anything at all. Ah, I see they don't come as standard on this ship.
Enemies are too fast: they end up just swarming me and it doesn't look right. Quests aren't implemented I guess?
Needs a preloader.
@Draknek. S and R need to be bought first, I'll make that clearer in the instructions.
Quests: I didn't have time for as stated at the bottom of the website page.
Enemies too fast? I didn't think they were but maybe my computer was running slowly? :D
Thank you for the feedback.
I got lost in space :(. Your description says the red arrow points to the hub, but it would have been better to use an arrow significantly larger than the rest. Also, the arrows around the shield are altogether just too small. It would have been better to implement a radar to the lower right
I used the web version
yay, glad to see more space games ^^
Enemies are a bit fast and they form some sort of enemy ball if you stay still, would be cool if they swooped past you and the circled around, but overall really fun. Good work!
Very pretty, but I couldn't find much substance in the gameplay. You find planets, you shoot pirates, but why bother finding planets in the first place?
Plays quite nice. For now it's way too easy, you really have to try hard to get killed.
The big arrow circle feels awkward. A small star map would be more logical.
Interesting game overall, I guess the combat system needs some work, it's just shooting randomly around for now...
Nice game mate, it kept me entertainment for a little while. I am glad you made a red arrow pointing back to the base, I would have never found a way back. Nice job!
Decent concept, but just not fun. The random spawn were annoying since they occur basically on TOP of you, the arrows are not accurate and are arrayed sround the circle rather than in a vector from your ship to the circle's edge to the planets, and the mining mechanic was unclear even after I read the instructions correctly. Nice idea, but poorly executed.
@pythong and Endurion and huhwhozat: I am planning to update the arrows substantially in a later release. I like the idea of a radar or minimap but I worry that it will take up too much of the screen and still be too small to have meaning.
@Squax: Thank you for the compliments. I'll have a think about using a previous type of motion for the enemies - it was a lot more "floaty" and could possibly be what you would like.
@stevejohnson: DISCOVERY!!! XD No really, half the game is kinda missing from this. I am going to have a plot line holding it all together in the end.
@r4m0n: Thank you for that point about the combat. I'm not sure how to make it more interesting besides adding in bombs and different weaponry and the like however.
@ranklar: Thank you for the compliments I'm glad you enjoyed the game ^^.
@huhwhozat: I did try to make it so the spawn points would vary in range so some would come from off the screen whilst others would jump you close to your ship. Perhaps you were just getting more of the later. I am surprised however that you found understanding the mining though. I thought that the instructions were clear enough. I shall look at them again and re-write them if needed.
Thank you for all the feedback, good and bad. It helps me make a better version of this game after the competition.
http://sarah.draknek.org/Games/CompactDiscovery/MostRecent/
I will be using this link to host the newest versions of Compact Discovery until the end of the competition judging. After that I’ll be merging the original LD submission with the newer copy.
Overall good game. The occasional planet ambush made for a nice twist.
One problem with the movement is that when fighting it would be nice to be able to move backwards which is impossible with mouse movement.
I'll be adding another to the list of bookmarks. Good Job!
Thank you k_wright for the feedback. You are right, the combat would be greatly improved by having a way to reverse at the same time. I'm not sure why I chose mouse input as a control scheme, perhaps no reason at all. I intend to experiment with the controls a lot and perhaps change it to arrow keys instead.
I think I can see where you are going with this and I hope you finish it. Nice.
The player ship doesn't seem to move exactly towards the mouse cursor which feels a bit weird. The combat is too easy, when the pirates appear you can just hold down the mouse button until they are all dead. Also, the pirates are really fast and swarm you way too quick so you can't really see what's going on.
Apart from those issues, the game is really good! It was fun flying around getting money to buy stuff. It could probably do with more stuff to do or buy because otherwise there isn't much to do.
@badlydrawnrod Thank you for the kind comment.
@Jerm I will address the combat and speed of the enemies asap for you. Thank you for the positive feedback as well.
The gameplay was quite fun at first but the lack of content made it quite dry quickly. Great job, though!
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YAY! enjoyed your game loads =)