Space Drifter TD

by skosnowich

co-authored: @matjes

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.98

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.66

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.83

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.89

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.59

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.19

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.03

Controls

W, S, A, D - control your spaceship
Shift - Afterburner (short boost)
Space - brakes
F - transmit power to a tower
N - mute/unmute sounds
M - mute/unmute the music

Description

You live in a habitat Station somewhere in the space.
It was a calm life, until now. You detected some asteroids targeting your and the neighbouring stations. An easy task for the defence towers. If they only would have power...

Gameplay

Your goal is to protect the stations. To achieve this, you have to power the towers with energy. You get energy by finishing rounds on the racetrack. The faster the better. If you finish enough rounds and there are at least some stations left, you're victorious.

Technical Details

The game was made in Unity (https://unity3d.com/). This was our second time with Unity. We made all the graphics and models ourselves, using GIMP (https://www.gimp.org/) and Blender (https://www.blender.org/). All the sound effects were created with assets of the ‘The #GameAudioGDC Bundle’ (Part 3) (http://www.sonniss.com/gameaudiogdc2017/) or by ourselves. The music was created using Cubase (https://www.steinberg.net/de/shop/cubase.html).

Made by

Skosnowich and Matjes

Video of the first level

Screenshots

Download

Tags: #space, #tower defense

Genres: racing

Tools: Blender, GIMP, Unity

Comments19

Meijerson24 Apr 2018, 02:29

I enjoyed playing this game! The controls were strange at first but then I re-read the title and realized it's supposed to be like drag racing, so then it made sense. I liked the graphics a lot! It felt nostalgic in some way.

remusnomos25 Apr 2018, 19:25

Cool game! Liked the graphic style, liked the music, liked the setting. Maybe a few things to improve: Before i could reach the first tower, two of the nodes already were destroyed. Maybe a little delay or different starting point would be helpful. The second thing was, that i think it would be nice to get a little bit of refill energy by every checkpoint and to speed up the refill time. For me it was impossible to give energy to every tower and it took very long to transfer the energy. But besides that, it was a great experience, its just always the balancing things. :D

Skosnowichauthor25 Apr 2018, 21:39

@remusnomos Yes, sadly the difficulty of the levels is a little bit too random, because the asteroids spawn randomly. We should have implemented some rules, so that the difficulty would be a little bit more predictable. I agree with you, that it would be nice to get energy by passing checkpoints, rather than only getting energy by passing a full round. Thank you very much for you feedback. :)

Darby Costello26 Apr 2018, 11:26

This is a great entry. Once I got my head around the controls, this played really well. I suppose it could easily be expanded to provide a more puzzle-like aspect to which towers require power etc, which would help flesh out that aspect of the theme a little better. But hell, you made a space-sim for a game jam. Sold.

TWCROCKETT27 Apr 2018, 20:14

Really cool. looks very professional. The designs of the spacecraft, structures and levels are simple and effective. It's a great entry.

gi1127 Apr 2018, 20:46

That was pretty good. The music and overall feel was solid but I had some issues with the controls. Not sure if it was my PC but they seemed super sensitive and I would end up spinning in a circle, kind of tough. It was also laggy on my machine, but I guess that's a me issue.

Overall enjoyable. Good job.

visumecadroide27 Apr 2018, 21:11

Unfortunately, it's not playable for me. When i turn i that's rotate too much and it's lagging. So i can't play correctly.

Keep working on games to make even better ;)

My game

Skosnowichauthor27 Apr 2018, 22:28

@gi11 @visumecadroide Hmm, that's strange. Didn't hear of that issue before. Sounds like a timing problem, but we do use delta time properly. Do you guys mind to share which build you used?

visumecadroide27 Apr 2018, 22:49

I used the https://skosnowich.github.io/LD41-Game/ version

CalebLewis28 Apr 2018, 02:26

It's an interesting game but the ship feels too hard to control. Could be a good concept for a multiplayer game.

krasse28 Apr 2018, 20:11

Nice game that was surprisingly fun to play for me. I didn't think that the ship was difficult to control like I see some complaints about above. Very satisfying that the physics works the way it does. Tested to fly close to the rotating portals and got a satisfying and surprising smash :) Liked the music and graphics, although the particle effects marking the track were a bit disorienting since they (I think) moved in the wrong direction sometimes? Music, Sfxs and graphics were all good.

Skosnowichauthor29 Apr 2018, 09:31

@krasse Thank you very much for your feedback. You can travel faster than the particle effects marking the track. Maybe the disorientieng feeling originates from that, because you might have the feeling they travel backwards. :)

Jupiter_Hadley29 Apr 2018, 09:55

Neat game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 41 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOCRSij5jBI

MacDoom4 May 2018, 05:10

Super cool game!
The drifting mechanics were a bit hard to get but then it's really exciting!
Thw tower defense part was confusing. It was hard to tell wich one was being attacked, just saw the destroyed ones.
Excellent gameplay!

Come and try mine! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/tactical-hydra

blubberquark4 May 2018, 14:13

I expected the controls and the track to be in 3D at first, and was confused by the space setting. A plane over a flat world might have fit the gameplay better.

blobo6 May 2018, 01:09

nice music! this is my jam.

LeonLaci6 May 2018, 09:55

I really liked the game. The physics are interesting but not hard once you get in the flow. But I wasn't sure how to transmit power to a tower. Clicking F did nothing.

Good job! :smile:

cristiano.m.garcia7 May 2018, 00:12

Good job! Cool game!

I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.

I hope you continue with the project.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape

Ellian15 May 2018, 19:54

The drifting is real! It drags so much, but it's a kind of inertia that's really interesting to learn to master. Congrats, it's quite the neat game you have there :D
I wish the powering stations up was faster/instant so it wouldn't pause the "racing" component of the game, though

Other games by @skosnowich

★3.80

★3.63

Enchanted Scarecrow Gone Wrong

★3.78

LD52