Growing Spaceships
Growing Spaceships
==================
By Lasty ( twitter: @tristan_lasty )
Game made in 72 hours For Ludum Dare 34 Game Jam. Themes were "Growing", and "Two Button Controls"
Unzip the entire folder, then run "ld34.exe" to play.
If windows SmartScreen complains, click "more" then "run anyway".
- Update 1 fixes some critical issues
- Update 2 (Post-competition) adds a lot more polish (Sounds and a Tutorial)
- Update 3 (Post-competition) fixes a crash bug
Synopsis
--------
- A a 2D top-down space shooter.
- Shoot enemy ships which explodes parts off.
- Attach parts with your tractor beam to upgrade your ship.
- Survive as long as possible.
Controls
--------------
(Update 2 includes an in-game tutorial covering this)
- WASD (Or arrows) to move
- TAB to change modes (Combat, or Salvage)
- Left click, Right click: Depending on mode: tractor beam, or shoot
- Mouse Wheel (Or Keypad +/-) Zoom camera
- ESC Quit
Developer/cheat keys are:
- N : Spawn new random ship
- J : Spawn random part (Space Junk)
- F5: Save current ship to ships/custom.txt
- F9: Load the custom ship
- F1: Toggle AI processing
- F2: New game with a random ship (Also skips tutorial)
Update 1:
--------
Some post release tweaks:
- Better starting ship, a 10 second calm before enemy ships spawn.
- Fixed disappearing player ship bug.
Update 2:
--------
(Post competition update)
- Added in some sounds. (Really wish I spent some time during comp to do this,
because it really helps with the game immersion)
- Some bugfixes:
- Fixed Camera tracking slightly off center, and not following mouse
- Could Destroy enemy ships, and player's ship core with "scrap" in salvage mode
- UI Tweaks:
- Added more audio and visual feedback to attach mechanic. Should be more obvious now.
- Easier part selection
- Better and more visible cursors, and selection markers
- Gameplay changes:
- Changed "scrap" function to "detach": easily remove parts from player ship without destroying them.
- Implemented the Armour block, will take 2 shots to destroy.
- Implemented a Tutorial (You can press F2 to skip).
- Starting ship is randomized.
Update 3:
---------
- Fixed a crash bug (invalid memory dereference which was causing other random memory issues)
Planed features that were cut
----------
Cut features due to time or complexity:
- Music
- Connect more than 1 piece at a time, and angled connections (eg at 45 degrees)
- More part types, including shield pieces, thrusters, turreted weapons
- Energy management (Reactors, capacitors, can only shoot when charged)
- Damage/Repair mechanic
- World map, Space dock, buy/sell ships, economy, Cargo, Trading
- Better GUI, AI
- Particles, explosions
==================
By Lasty ( twitter: @tristan_lasty )
Game made in 72 hours For Ludum Dare 34 Game Jam. Themes were "Growing", and "Two Button Controls"
Unzip the entire folder, then run "ld34.exe" to play.
If windows SmartScreen complains, click "more" then "run anyway".
- Update 1 fixes some critical issues
- Update 2 (Post-competition) adds a lot more polish (Sounds and a Tutorial)
- Update 3 (Post-competition) fixes a crash bug
Synopsis
--------
- A a 2D top-down space shooter.
- Shoot enemy ships which explodes parts off.
- Attach parts with your tractor beam to upgrade your ship.
- Survive as long as possible.
Controls
--------------
(Update 2 includes an in-game tutorial covering this)
- WASD (Or arrows) to move
- TAB to change modes (Combat, or Salvage)
- Left click, Right click: Depending on mode: tractor beam, or shoot
- Mouse Wheel (Or Keypad +/-) Zoom camera
- ESC Quit
Developer/cheat keys are:
- N : Spawn new random ship
- J : Spawn random part (Space Junk)
- F5: Save current ship to ships/custom.txt
- F9: Load the custom ship
- F1: Toggle AI processing
- F2: New game with a random ship (Also skips tutorial)
Update 1:
--------
Some post release tweaks:
- Better starting ship, a 10 second calm before enemy ships spawn.
- Fixed disappearing player ship bug.
Update 2:
--------
(Post competition update)
- Added in some sounds. (Really wish I spent some time during comp to do this,
because it really helps with the game immersion)
- Some bugfixes:
- Fixed Camera tracking slightly off center, and not following mouse
- Could Destroy enemy ships, and player's ship core with "scrap" in salvage mode
- UI Tweaks:
- Added more audio and visual feedback to attach mechanic. Should be more obvious now.
- Easier part selection
- Better and more visible cursors, and selection markers
- Gameplay changes:
- Changed "scrap" function to "detach": easily remove parts from player ship without destroying them.
- Implemented the Armour block, will take 2 shots to destroy.
- Implemented a Tutorial (You can press F2 to skip).
- Starting ship is randomized.
Update 3:
---------
- Fixed a crash bug (invalid memory dereference which was causing other random memory issues)
Planed features that were cut
----------
Cut features due to time or complexity:
- Music
- Connect more than 1 piece at a time, and angled connections (eg at 45 degrees)
- More part types, including shield pieces, thrusters, turreted weapons
- Energy management (Reactors, capacitors, can only shoot when charged)
- Damage/Repair mechanic
- World map, Space dock, buy/sell ships, economy, Cargo, Trading
- Better GUI, AI
- Particles, explosions
Comments10
If I were you, I would focus on balancing gameplay. I would love to make a huge ship (Death Star :D ) and destroy everything, but those small ships are still harassing me and destroying my ship, so I can't really grow. And it would be wonderful, if the game generated the enemies the same size as I have - then I would really like to enjoy a big-ass combat between huge ships. Also I think the missiles need cooldown.
So to sum it up - I really like the gameplay, but it needs a little bit of polish.
I played patch 2.
I like how there are emergent, dynamic tradeoffs from the seemingly simple mechanics. For example, do I blast this ship and destroy its weaponry (thus leaving me without good salvage), or do I angle around and core-kill it in order to take its weapons?
I think there is a lot of good fruit to be bourne from expanding this out with and adding more mechanics.