Space Captant

by norgg
Travelling with urgent supplies from the Potato Zone, the Space Captant makes a mistake.

An exploration game featuring an extremely accurate simulation of potatoes in space.

Things which aren't intentionally confusing:
The arrow shows your velocity, not where you're meant to go.
The objective involves bringing things home.

Made with Haxe, NME and Nape.

screenshot

Comments35

B
B29 Apr 2013, 10:34
OMG! Star Potato :-0

Great game! Loved the fact that you can interact with the surface of each potato :P
kannas
kannas29 Apr 2013, 10:48
Though the goals of the game are not very clear, i i found that going crashing to planets ( potatoes?planetoes maybe) and starting to eat them is hilarious :D you should explain the game controls a bit more, but i liked it! cool work :D
netguy20429 Apr 2013, 11:12
Love it. Feels good to bash my spaceship into potatoes every now and then.

Controls feel good. Music is nice and appropriate. Good fun.
San
San29 Apr 2013, 11:52
Very fun, the controls when the ship has an important speed is hard though.
Merkoth29 Apr 2013, 15:13
Nice work, it's kind of confusing at first but it's pretty fun :)
folmerkelly29 Apr 2013, 21:59
I wandered, I bashed, I crashed, I became a better person.
gilmore60629 Apr 2013, 21:59
I thought "this is pretty neat" as I walked around the planet flipping myself over. Then I fixed my rocket and...my mind was BLOWN. Nice work. :)
Masadow29 Apr 2013, 22:21
Erg, I made the mistake to go out of my spaceship during its flight .... lol Funny game :D
ataxkt29 Apr 2013, 22:52
Uhuh, space captant made another mistake! Ejecting in the middle of space.
minism
minism30 Apr 2013, 01:37
Holy crap this game has a great uniqueness to it. I mean, icouldn't really figure out what to do for most of the time. But i love flipping over ants and crashing into planets.
TheThirdOne
TheThirdOne30 Apr 2013, 07:22
I love how the game works. My only problem with the game is I don't know how to win.
Jubjub.30 Apr 2013, 09:32
Oh my goodness this was amazing. At first I was skeptical. Then I gathered enough supplies to repair my starship. I was lonely and battered, but started my journey into deep space. Then accidentally pressed space and wandered aimlessly in space...forever. The horror! 5/5!
Ragzouken
Ragzouken30 Apr 2013, 19:45
The greatest science fiction ever written
PTSnoop
PTSnoop1 May 2013, 19:01
Newtonian physics? Deformable terrain? Interplanetary orbital mechanics? This game's got it all. And that moment when you repair your ship and the *whole Potato Zone* opens up for you is classic. Loved it!
PsenFilip1 May 2013, 19:28
Pretty fun little game. I would really appreciate more if there were more clear goals and objectives on there. Other than that it was a good experience
Uhfgood1 May 2013, 19:35
It was a bit hard to control. Kudos for putting in Potatoes :-P
jackspinoza
jackspinoza1 May 2013, 23:03
what a fantastic game. Lets just get this straight: at last I can explore potato space as an ant! great work.
Argembarger2 May 2013, 14:53
I crashed my ship so hard that it blasted a spaceship part onto a different potato and I was stranded.

I love this one.
mortl83242 May 2013, 14:57
Cool mechanics, a bit confused about what to do though...
Markavian
Markavian2 May 2013, 15:16
Really simple concept. Liked the mechanics and control system, the fact it was "open world" with the ability to travel between potatoes.
Jellycakes2 May 2013, 20:22
Pretty nice game, I liked the exploration part and how you incorporated potatoes in your game that actually act like potatoes. Nice work!
AaronYip
AaronYip2 May 2013, 23:30
The tech for this game is really impressive. (: Not sure whether this was intended, but my crashes with the green planet has all resulted in my ant flying off into space, drifting, drifting, drifting, until I press R.
Hume
Hume3 May 2013, 12:59
"Loyal crew, our rocket is inverted very near the minor axis of this Chopin. We can't rotate enough to get a usable thrust vector. We are going to have to eat our way free."

"Yay!"

Much fun playing this. I wasn't quite sure when I would win, but it became clear how to win after I understood that the rocket can carry two types of cargo.

Appreciated the music, the potato stats, the undamped thrust, the playfield zoom, the seemingly perfect gravity implementation, the terrain deformation, and good use of potato.

Was surprised by the location of the terrain deformation under the center of the Captant -- I thought it would occur under the head.

Occasionally frustrated when the rocket or the Captant overturned and I could not eat my way out of the situation.
sboerwinkle3 May 2013, 21:27
So dang good. Definitely grabbing the source. Here's a list of things you might could fix (but it's awesome now):
1. Occasionally ants will try to pilot your ship. It's rare, but it happens. It's easy to regain control, but they don't fill your gauge or hop out at the colony.
2. Separate buttons for eat/fly ship. Would be very useful for getting unstuck.
3. More game play after the colony is content. I want to get all the ants back home!

Keep in mind I'm only mentioning these things because it shows such promise. And I'm sure you want to move on to other things. But... this game could be really good... maybe even multiplayer?
dcarogame4 May 2013, 01:50
no entendí bien al principio
goerp4 May 2013, 11:36
this Space Captant did not make one mistake, but actually quite a lot. Crashing a lot, crashing so hard not all parts came back on the potato, getting stuck with the space ship, getting stuck on his back . .

But it had a great sense of exploration, also because I did not know how everything worked when starting. I would like to see a lot more of this game!

Also a different music on surface would be nice too.

Loved it! (I checked out your previous entries and recognized the Kittelutioning, which I liked too).
pighead104 May 2013, 11:45
Cool game, pretty fun. Confusing as to what you're supposed to do at the start.
ashdnazg5 May 2013, 09:36
Even though the game could help me a bit more by explaining what I can do, it's extremely original and quite fun!
MinionStudios
MinionStudios5 May 2013, 17:55
I love the space captant. I forgot to rescue the other guy, tho. He died alone and bloated on carbs in the potato zone.
recursor
recursor5 May 2013, 21:23
This was pretty fun. I hope you keep working on it. The thrust arrow confused me a bit and I thought I was supposed to follow it, so I did and I ended up in deep space. A costly mistake for the unfortunate captain.
Beldarak
Beldarak6 May 2013, 23:42
The worst captain ever :D

Nice game !
Norgg
Norggauthor8 May 2013, 12:15
Thanks for all the feedback everyone! :D

I'm going to gradually carry on work with this, probably with the aim of doing a sequel with destructible potatoes that you can burrow into, a bunch more stuff to do out there and (hopefully!) multiplayer. I'll also be trying to fix up some stuff that people find confusing without ruining the feeling of exploration in this thing.
sorceress11 May 2013, 00:10
I enjoyed the feel of this game greatly: It is gentle yet mesmeric, with a surrealist layer from this being an ant inhabited potato galaxy. All in all it reminds me of the Clangers, which is awesome. :D

And if only these ants made discoveries and had adventures like the Clangers... you would have something very special.

The graphics do feel over simplistic however - I think the game could retain it's feeling and benefit from more detailed art. Sound effects too - although the music you have made is perfect for the game,
Typedeaf
Typedeaf13 May 2013, 05:27
Very enjoyable little game =)

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