Ludum Dare #39compo

Cannon Ships

by chuckeles

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.42

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.68

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.53

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.47

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.90

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.07

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.56

About

You control a ship in the space. The only way to move around is to shoot. But shooting also depletes your energy so you have to take careful and precise shots. Your energy is limited and the only way to replenish it is to kill enemies. Survive as long as you can.

Links

- https://github.com/chuckeles/cannon-ships
- itch.io/cannon-ships
- https://www.twitch.tv/videos/162813881
- https://www.twitch.tv/videos/163072353

Behind the Scenes

Hey guys! So for this Ludum Dare, I wanted to stream the development process for the first time. I also wanted to *finish a game* so I knew I had to keep things super simple. Focus on the mechanics and polishing the game. I also wanted to try to make a game mainly using visual scripting. For this I used 2 Unity3D plugins – FlowCanvas and NodeCanvas. Besides Unity3D I used Aseprite, Rider for C#, Bfxr, and OBS for streaming. I had fun... mostly.

In the end, I was working too slow. For one, OBS was eating 2 CPU cores for the whole time so my computer was super laggy. For two, I discovered that using visual scripting for everything is pretty limitting. I'm a lot faster in C#. On the other hand, visual scripting was amazing for the AI behavior tree and small scripts like quitting the game when ESC is pressed. All in all, I managed to learn a lot during this Ludum Dare. The game turned out pretty fun but missing depth and replayability. The graphics are very basic (I'm a programmer lol) and I didn't have enough energy to improve the sound system. Next time...

Feel free to check out the videos of the stream to see how I made the game and how I used visual scripting in Unity3D.

Screenshots

Tags: #space, #top-down, #unity3d

Genres: shooter

Tools: Aseprite, Bfxr, Unity

Comments15

Mr.McGibblets1 Aug 2017, 04:10

Killing the other ships was so satisfying. Wish we had some music.

🎤 chuckelesauthor2 Aug 2017, 06:48

Thanks! I tried Bosca Ceoil but failed to create any music lol :D.

Simon Millard4 Aug 2017, 16:59

Fun little game! I agree that some music would have been cool. The sound effects are nice though. I like the idea of controlling by shooting, but I feel like it costs too much power to shoot and doesn't make you move much. I found myself just drifting around and only shooting when I absolutely had to, in order to save power. Perhaps moving shouldn't be quite so costly?

However, the idea is very neat, and I enjoyed it. Well done :)

jahndis4 Aug 2017, 17:01

This was really fun. Having the window size affect difficulty was pretty interesting. I thought the graphics worked as a style. You definitely have to be moving around alot to dodge anything. Nice work!

EShudra4 Aug 2017, 17:03

Very interesting mechanic! I like this game. Nothing unnecessary-)

Nostalgic graphics

:metal: Overall: 4; Fun and Mood: 5

fusionnist4 Aug 2017, 17:12

So, apart from the sound that destroyed my ears on fullscreen, this game is really good! Nice concept and overall pretty challenging, especially when trying to master those ultimate movement techniques! Good job!

I really wonder how hard this would be on 4K ;) Recorded some gameplay as well, can I upload it? (and link back to you of course ;)

azlen4 Aug 2017, 17:17

At first I was shooting at the blue squares and I was like "this game is hard, how do I gain energy". Once I finally stopped being dumb, I managed to survive much longer and I found myself in-between like 10 enemies trying to dodge their shots with only a few energy left and I was like "this game is hard, but fun, time to play again".

🎤 chuckelesauthor6 Aug 2017, 11:48

@fusionnist of course you can upload it! Thanks for playing man :smile: if you want, you can link my Twitter account @9chuckeles9.

Thanks for playing guys :ok_hand: :video_game: love the comments!

KabalaTrance6 Aug 2017, 14:01

Fun game!

I played it on full screen, and it was meyham and i loved it!

I have nothing insightful to add, you made the game you wanted, and you did it good!

smbe196 Aug 2017, 14:46

Solid game with very nice graphics effects. The idea that you only can move with shooting is very interesting.

SaraMartins6 Aug 2017, 15:02

Really interesting mechanic, also the fact that you change difficulty by resizing the screen is cool. The graphics and sounds were really nice, reminding me of some shareware games I played in the 90's. Great job ;)

🎤 chuckelesauthor6 Aug 2017, 19:44

Thanks guys! :heart:

TheFlyingKeyboard15 Aug 2017, 12:59

Really fun game to play, with fun mechanics. Really nice paricle and trail effects. Good Job!

Odd1In17 Aug 2017, 11:55

The audio was really nice.

Marcenat17 Aug 2017, 13:56

Probably the best idea I have seen so far. Do you know the youtube channel Game Maker's Toolkit ? Last month he created a jam and the theme was pretty much much what you are doing here : combine mechanics to do more with less.

So moving by shooting is a nice idea, and the energy depletion forces you to behave agresssively and destroy other ships to get their power.

I have some remarks though:

- The ship doesn't move much when you shoot so you can't really control it, it is for instance nearly impossible to go on the oposite direction.

- Taking power supply makes a collision and changes your trajectory, maybe it is intended but I found it a bit strange (I would have use triggers instead of plain collision)

- The bullets gets their parent velocity, which is physically acurate but not pleasant in game, it makes aiming at other ships very hard.

I think those little changes would make the game a lot better to play.

Anyway, great job :)

Other games by @chuckeles

★4.07

★3.73

★3.58