Tumblenaut

by kelbg
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.35
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.52
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.88
Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.33
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.57
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.08
Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.17
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.14
tn3.png
My original idea was to make a sort of zero-g platformer, but it wasn't quite working as I had expected (as you can imagine) so it turned into this instead. I'm still not sure what it is, but here it is, nonetheless.

Your objective is to reach your spaceship before your oxygen runs out. Use your mouse to point in a direction and press LMB to fire your thrusters. Try to avoid the asteroids, if possible. You only have a limited amount of fuel, so try not to waste it too much or risk drifting forever amidst the asteroids (press space to restart the game, if that happens).

Controls:

Mouse: Direction

Left Mouse Button: Fire thrusters

Space: Restart game

M: Toggle music on/off

screenshot

Comments17

corc0
corc023 Apr 2018, 01:34
Played on web build.

This was great! Challenging enough to keep players engaged, but simple enough to pick up quickly and even win. The challenging part is when the sprite goes to the far frame and the mouse can't rotate the thruster to get out of the edge — shrinking the playable area, but having the mouse register to a larger area might help? I'm sure there are lots of ways to solve that one.

Sound was great, though a little repetitive.

The physics were fun :)

Great submission!
kelbg
kelbgauthor23 Apr 2018, 01:53
@corc0 Thanks.

The sprite disappearing off the left side of the screen is probably a minor bug with the resolution, as it doesn't happen when you play it in full screen nor did it happen in the unity editor, but I'll see if I can get it fixed soon. If you click and drag your mouse off of the game screen to where the character is hidden it should still register though.
Potondo
Potondo23 Apr 2018, 02:13
This game was pretty fun, and the graphics are pretty charming. Challenging too. Almost got to the end but lost oxygen at the last stretch :(

I do think the game would be better if the camera was zoomed out a bit more though. Right now it feels like if you're going max speed you can't really react to anything coming your way, which makes the game feel a bit random at times.

Nice work overall!
kelbg
kelbgauthor23 Apr 2018, 02:25
@Potondo Thanks for the feedback!

I agree, if you're going too fast it's hard to avoid a collision. As you said, I probably should have added an auto zoom out (relative to your speed) feature to the camera. I just kept playing around with the physics values to get the movement right which at first was a little too slow, so I bumped them up but totally forgot about the camera. Sorry about that!

@corc0 I just tested it here and it does seem to be the weird unity default resolution that's causing the sprite to disappear around the left edge of the game screen. I'm not sure I'm allowed to upload another build, but in any case, if you or anyone else is having this problem just click the full screen button and you should be able to see your character.
IDidGame
IDidGame23 Apr 2018, 16:05
good job, quick little fun game
dont know why but spaceman uncontrollably bouncing off an asteroid is really funny to me ^^
LegionGames24 Apr 2018, 19:17
My personal winner of "so dumb it's great" & in the humor category. :D Was very surprised to realize that you can't just boost forward to win & you have to actually use the game's physics to your advantage to beat it; there's definitely a layer of depth to this game I didn't expect when I first saw it. Also I absolutely love the graphics. :)
agar3s
agar3s24 Apr 2018, 21:56
its a starman...
mikedirl25 Apr 2018, 20:57
Fun game, took me a few seconds to figure out I was making progress going to the right as the background starfield wasnt moving (I know in space it doesnt but in games it normally does to convey motion). The game was very enjoyable, took a while to get the hang of the controls but when I did it was great. Your graphics were very nice as well, especially your starman.
Smooth27 Apr 2018, 19:45
This was neat... I'd like to see if you make version 2
Spiffy27 Apr 2018, 19:45
A small arrow pointing to the right to begin would help. Was confused for a short period just spinning around. However the game feels very polished. A simple concept executed pretty well. Lovely music, lovely art and lovely spinning astronaut.
tweedle
tweedle27 Apr 2018, 19:49
enjoyed this one, good thing for the boundaries top and bottom! made it to the rocket on my 2nd try 👨‍🚀🚀
mrspeaker
mrspeaker29 Apr 2018, 14:09
Yeah great effort - I thought it was going to be stupidly easy at first, but it turned out to be quite well balanced! Choosing to go fast (and pinball hilariously), vs low-and-steady and run out of oxygen was really cool because you'd have to change strategy half-way through. I found it hard to reliably win - which made me want to try "just one more time". Good stuff.
AllesKapaul29 Apr 2018, 16:31
Nice entry, it was pretty hard to win though. Although I initially thought it was way to easy, but I couldn't make it to the end. I think you balanced this aspect pretty great! Not too hard and definitely not too easy.
unfinished
unfinished3 May 2018, 20:33
I made it :).. first I also thought "where is the challenge?".. but the mechanics are really nice.
LMB
LMB3 May 2018, 23:58
A nice, fun little game. Nice graphics and sound. My only suggestion would be to make that starfield in the background to move slowly to indicate that the poor astronaut is moving. Ragdoll-like physics for the astronaut would perhaps be fun to see (but I guess this wouldn't add anything the game itself).
MacDoom
MacDoom4 May 2018, 04:30
HAHAHA! Had a blast playing your game!
Played several timed and realised that going at the top of the screen is a sure win.

I think that the genres mixed here are lander / racing. Super fun mechanics and great music. I think that the *thump* noise could have been other more aligned with the overall aesthetics.
Original and fun! Thanks for creating this piece!
jackrugile
jackrugile4 May 2018, 04:58
I had a great time playing this game! I especially liked the astronaut art and particle system for the thruster. I would have loved to be zoomed out a big more and have the stars parallax slightly to give you a sense of direction. Also, it would be cool if every once in a while you run into asteroids that have a slight magnetic pull that suck you in :) Nice work!

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