Edit (7/8/17): Updated it to run through browser and stopped it from crashing at the end of the game.
Deliver good across space with the dodgiest spaceship around
You are the commander, or I guess more accurately the power distribution system, of the shoddiest, thrown together spaceship around. It is your duty to deliver your goods as fast as you can and in one piece.
Using your limited power you must juggle between powering your engines, creating ammo, building up your shield, repairing your ship and attacking incoming enemies who want to get their hands on your precious cargo.
_how to make gif smaller plz_
Drag power around to systems with left mouse button. Hold H to show the annotation of the systems. Press F to toggle fullscreen.
This was made in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 39 - Running Out Of Power. I had to start a day late so I'm only entering it in the Jam.
There are a number of systems that go cut due to the short timeframe. I had planned a whole system of selling your goods to unlock and upgrade your ship, you could catch debris flying past with your net, you would have to keep goods frozen or locked up with power, open your door to dock with stations to deliver the cargo, etc.
My favourite part of the game is the system of creating ammo then launching it by powering and depowering the net and the way I planned to also have it collect debris.
I'm going to try to get an HTML5 version running but initial signs didn't look promising.
The game is very fun and I didn't see anything like it on the jam soo that's a definite 5 star on innovation. Please continue the game as I'm sure it can get on a pretty high level!
This is a pretty neat take on the FTL formula. I like how the game is distilled down to the power management aspect, creating a larger focus on managing around those power points. Not providing that FTL pause button creates really hectic moments where I'm having to juggle around many different threats at once with a limited amount of power to go around, which is when the game is at its best.
My only real criticism is the fact that you basically have infinite time between combat encounters if you just turn off the engines. This does give some down time, but it also means I always have adequate time to repair, refill ammo, and put up shields between fights. Perhaps having some encroaching force you're running away from would've provided some tension even during downtime. Having an in game timer is a nice touch though, so optimization is at least encouraged, if not required.
Overall, this is a really great entry and I had a blast playing it. Excellent work!
This game is fantastic. I love it. I think that there could be a better visual indicator of if your ship is repairing though. You should also remove the "mood" and "humor" categories.
It was a fun FTL-like, even if quite easy to beat: enemies were quickly destroyed and I basically never ran out of ammo. Of course, given some additional systems, balancing them all might be more difficult (and more rewarding).
Anyway, the basic mechanics _works_, and it was interesting to figure out how fast your ship can reach the goal. I might give it another go!
It's a fun little game with a nice spin on the theme. I was quite confused at first at how to attack the ships but once I found out how it was quite cool how you had to depower and then power up the net again. Quite an interesting design choice! Great job!
Since I didn't play a lot of FTL I died a lot. I wish I could show the annotations when dragging energy since there weren't many other queues which systems were which. Really good job considering the time constraints.
I love the FTLesque stuff going on here and had fun playing the game trough to competition, i didn't really run in to that many problems though and felt the game could have been a bit more on the challenging side.
The only real problem the game had that I could criticize is that It didn't explain what half of the rooms did. Perhaps with some tooltip or even an icon on each room too signify what they did i would have been slightly less confused about it. :)
Excellent simplification of the FTL gameplay, I really loved playing it. While it's not clearly stated how rooms work, trial & error works well for figuring things out, so I would not consider it an issue.
The net weapon is a really weird weapon for a spaceship, but in terms of gameplay it's super clever, so nice job. I would have loved to see what you could come up with for the other rooms, but for an LD entry it's already interesting enough to play, and balanced enough to make it really fun.
So yeah, great mechanics and great balancing for a truly original take on the spaceship management genre. Too bad you could not submit it for the compo! I'm sure you'd have gotten super high rankings as a compo entry.
Made it to the end! Didn't realize the net was actually a launcher, lol. Pretty interesting FTL-like game, although once you know how stuff works its a pretty standard setup (power ammo, meet enemy, put up shields and click and drop the weapon x3 bam). some sound fx would make this feel more complete.
It's such a shame you didn't get the whole 72 hours! Oh, man, i would have loved to see a full version of this!
I'm a huge fan of Faster THan Light, and i'm getting it's vibes from this! Altough, it has it's differences, so it doesn't feel like a copy at all. Personally, i really enjoyed how the fire mechanism worked, having to wait for the net to actually pick up the ammo before firing... It was a simple mechanic, but it added a different feel to it all.
Keep it up! I got all the way through it, and my only complain is not having more. The lack of systems made the combat and the travel really easy to figure out and deal with, but i know it's just a time issue.
Btw, after ending the game, it crashed and threw an error window. When the time it took was displaying, i minimized the window to write this and then happened. "FATAL ERROR in action number 1 of StepEvent0 for object obj_win: Moving to next room after the last room. at gml_Object_obj_win_Step_0" I had already ended, so it didn't affect the feeling of the game... And we had similar issues with ours sometimes xD Hope it isn't anything too crazy and you can figure it out! I'd like to see a more fleshed out version of this.
Made it in 4 minutes 22.5 seconds! Took me a bit to figure out the grabby robot things were my repair and not the enemy hurting me. Pretty fun little game. Great concept that could be fleshed out more with additional systems like you intended.
It has its moments for sure. I definitely thought the repair bots were bad guys. I made it 89 % with out knowing what I was doing, but I think that might have been luck, because I couldn't get that far again. I'm glad you submitted it even if its missing some portions. It was fun and innovative enough! Great work! I guess I can see how power allocation leads to running out of power. Nice idea with the net! The engine looked good and the explosions fit!
I had great fun with this. At first it reminded me of FTL, but it's very different. I love the gameplay and mechanics, especially the ammo and firing mechanism which is really cool. It's rather unfortunate that you didn't have the time to finish everything, because with more balanced and unique modules this would be amazing. As it stands, it took me a few runs to understand that H reveals what everything does, and then I could find a basic strategy that was not hard to do that just led me through the game (when with enemy, 1 engine 2 ammo 1 shield 1 firing, when on the go 2 engine 1 repair 1 ammo 1 shield). I wish it would get more complex and I would definitely play it. You did a phenomenal job.
Great potential, the main structure is here, now it just needs for content. Unfortunatly, the lack of diversity and embellishments made the 5ish of gameplay minutes to complete the level slowly feel increasingly repetitive. Very good adaptation of the FTL genre to the theme. Maybe adding keyboard shortcuts could also make it more of a reflex and optimization game.
Aw yes, I love it. Love the concept and dig the execution. Unfortunately I can't say it was too easy since I only got 60% of the way the first try (I missed the H-key that round though, so I enjoyed exploring what the different slots did) but on the second playthrough I completed the game in 4 minutes and 18 seconds, with very little effort. 2 energy in shields, 1 in ammo and 1 in engine and then the last energy to manage alternating engine-boost/repair and shooting 3 ammo on enemy ships. Absolutely loved the concept though. May I ask how the game was created? Code & engine etc? Great work!
Very fun game i enjoyed playing it, thanks for making a web version as i wanted to play this before but windows only was not for me. I did miss the sounds it would have made it so much better. And i think it would have been better if you made h toggle the annotations as i noticed i was basically continuously pressing the h button.
Great concept and kudos on executing. It needs some more content to be enjoyable, but it's just a jam game so it's understandable. I played around 5-10 tries making it to 86% at most
Sucks that you weren't able to finish all of the systems in time because a few of them are just there doing nothing but I'm willing to look past that.