A Pale Blue Dot

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.86
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.57
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.46
Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.96
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.55
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.52
Humor★★★★★★★★★★1.95
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.54
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★71%
XNA 4 game , requires the redistributable from
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27598

Recharge your fuel by flying over the sun, but be careful as it also damages your shield or health. The shield recharges, health doesn't.

W = forward
S = backward
A = turn left
D = turn right
F or Enter = select
Left mouse or right control = Fire Gun
Escape = In game menu
Mouse wheel = zoom camera

Bug Fixes
1.0 Initial submission
1.01 Quick fix for non default decimal seperator bug
1.02 Proper fix for non default decimal seperator bug
1.03 Attempt to fix slow game exit due to media player

screenshot

Comments43

Budda23 Apr 2012, 06:08
Unable to rate as it does not run on my machine.
Orni
Orni23 Apr 2012, 06:16
same here, wasn't able to run it
@ Win7 64bit, Core2Duo, nvidia 9600m gt
icefox
icefox23 Apr 2012, 06:19
I like the recharge-in-the-sun mechanic. Sort of wish I could take the battle to the enemies and shoot up their homeworlds though.
icefox
icefox23 Apr 2012, 06:20
Might need XNA and the .NET runtime installed.
ronkmonsterauthor23 Apr 2012, 08:13
Budda and Orni: Did it give any error messages?
It does need dotnet (already on win7) and xna redistributable which i linked above. 2 friends have tested it working just by extracting but they'd already have xna installed from other games.

icefox: Thanks, I was running out of time so didn't get to do enemy planet defenses. I would have liked to do planetary guns when you get too close, the ability to repair the home planet and some manually placed towers to help later game.
De10ter
De10ter23 Apr 2012, 11:15
Hmm, I liked it but 2 things:
It could have used some inertia like classic asteroids and I think the difficulty should have scaled up rather than starting at full throttle.
Jan Willem23 Apr 2012, 11:30
It doesn't work here. I do have XNA installed (made my own game using it), but the only error I get is "This program has stopped working".
SBareS23 Apr 2012, 11:34
Doesn't work. The process started, but no game window showed up.
ronkmonsterauthor23 Apr 2012, 13:45
Which version of xna and dotnet are you using? What OS are you having problems with?

I was going to add inertia but I was running out of time and it was my first time doing rotation in 2d so I was just happy it was working

The difficulty comes once you need to refuel and balance enemy levels, but there are also features that I just didn't have time to add in.
cakemonitor
cakemonitor23 Apr 2012, 13:53
This is a very fun game - and it made me want to keep playing more which is a great achievement! ... only, I eventually found out that I could just leave the ship centred and weigh down my [d] and [ctrl] keys and it spun around killing everything without need for me to apply any skill whatsoever :/

Still, great work! one of the most fun I've reviewed so far :)
ronkmonsterauthor23 Apr 2012, 14:01
Thanks :D
Yeah the turning not using fuel was one of the changes in last few hours - I'll take a look at game balancing for next version.

You'll eventually run out of energy by shooting anyway and then fuel (which is converted to fuel when it's low) which means slow moving and slow shooting at that stage.
Canard Sauvage23 Apr 2012, 15:00
System.FormatException @ Win7 x64 / Intel i5

System.FormatException was unhandled
Message=Die Eingabezeichenfolge hat das falsche Format.(= 'wrong format' in german)
Source=mscorlib

StackTrace:
bei System.Number.ParseSingle(String value, NumberStyles options, NumberFormatInfo numfmt)
bei PaleBlueDot.states.MainMenuState.Load(GameEngine engine)
bei PaleBlueDot.engine.GameEngine.ChangeState(GameState state)
bei PaleBlueDot.engine.GameEngine.LoadContent()
bei Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.Initialize()
bei PaleBlueDot.engine.GameEngine.Initialize()
bei Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game.RunGame(Boolean useBlockingRun)
bei PaleBlueDot.Program.Main(String[] args)

InnerException:
Suese
Suese23 Apr 2012, 15:19
Could not run it.
uprightpath23 Apr 2012, 15:29
Fun, but the motion seems a little weird.

Were you trying for some sort of 'time dilation' effect when you're moving? By that, I mean the way that motion seems to change the scale of things, which can make positioning, planning difficult. Heh.
ronkmonsterauthor23 Apr 2012, 15:35
The motion seems weird because of the star field in the background :) It's linked to the player speed. Myself and a friend noticed early on but I liked the effect so I kept it. It's almost like it's 3D behind a 2D world.
DoktorAce23 Apr 2012, 15:46
Can't play because I have a mac :(
ronkmonsterauthor23 Apr 2012, 15:48
Install bootcamp to play my one game :D
Hazard
Hazard23 Apr 2012, 16:45
Doesn't work for me either. You are parsing a float without usage of CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, causing the game to fail on all machines where the dot in not the default decimal seperator.
Hazard
Hazard23 Apr 2012, 16:49
Ah, saw the fixed version now.
omaha23 Apr 2012, 18:23
xna doesn't seem to play nice with wine/linux.
lifenoodles
lifenoodles23 Apr 2012, 18:24
Cool little game, maybe could have had the ships vary their position a little bit more. Star mechanic adds a nice tradeoff.
CaptainAwesome23 Apr 2012, 18:36
This game is like a freight train of awesome ramming straight into my balls
cadin
cadin23 Apr 2012, 18:53
Sorry, I can't play since I only have a Mac. Your screenshot looks interesting though.
jeroenimooo
jeroenimooo23 Apr 2012, 19:37
Works for me :) Had fun playing it :)
Naouak
Naouak23 Apr 2012, 21:29
Couldn't run it. Crashing after selecting "new game" option.
ronkmonsterauthor23 Apr 2012, 21:39
Naouak: Can you try download the 1.02 release and try again
Gremlin23 Apr 2012, 22:08
Worked for me after installing XNA (Windows 7 x64). (Though I had to kill the process to get it to stop playing the music once I was done.)

Interesting take on the whole space invaders scenario. Would have liked to be able to attack the other planets, or something to have a reason to get away from home. Seems like to dominant strategy right now is to hang around the home planet...
ronkmonsterauthor23 Apr 2012, 22:22
I had originally planned a bigger randomised galaxy but time mean dropping that and focusing on getting something finished.
It would be easy enough to make more levels and spread features out. Further distance to star for fuel etc.
I was thinking of missile upgrades also to allow the player to attack the enemy planets along with enemy planets shooting at the player.

I'll have a look into that music issue. It does end just a bit slow. Looping music was on my final checklist so wasn't tested as much.
ronkmonsterauthor23 Apr 2012, 22:41
I've put a new version up that seems to exit faster on my PC, can anyone else confirm?
piman25 Apr 2012, 12:15
I can't rate this because I don't have a Windows system. Sorry.
KevinWorkman
KevinWorkman25 Apr 2012, 22:09
I guess I don't have xna on my machine. I wanted to place this because we named our games the same thing!
ronkmonsterauthor25 Apr 2012, 23:32
Install XNA, It only takes a minute :)
Topaz27 Apr 2012, 07:47
Cool. i liked how smooth it ran.
Topaz27 Apr 2012, 07:48
Cool. I liked how smooth it ran.
davidwparker28 Apr 2012, 15:25
I'm sorry, I can't play your game because I don't have Windows (OSX).
Raptor8530 Apr 2012, 22:32
can't test, no windows box and XNA4 crashes in WINE
robcozzens
robcozzens5 May 2012, 20:55
I would play it, but I'm on an iMac.
JellyFame13 May 2012, 15:51
Unfortunately cannot play, don't have access to windows box.
HTML5 :)
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