Airlock Gridlock

by hyprgloo

co-authored: @basset, @haveaniceday, @jktransformers, @os-reboot

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.68

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.47

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.46

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.52

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.45

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.28

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.27

►► Description ◄◄

You are the space-traffic control operator of an overcrowded trade station. Your job is to process as many trades as possible, while at the same time keeping docking ports clear and preventing merchant vessel collisions. Constantly manage ships of all different shapes and sizes, fend off raiders and evenly distribute resources to stay in the game!

►► Controls ◄◄

- [Mouse] → General interaction
- [LMouse] → Select/Deselect ship
- [RMouse] → Send ship movement instructions
- [Space] → Advance tutorials
- [Escape, P] → Pause/Unpause

Music, sound effects, tutorials and the custom mouse cursor can all be disabled in the options menu.

►► Programs ◄◄

- [Java] → Programming Language
- [Eclipse] → IDE
- [LWJGL] → Engine
- [Ridhvl] → Engine
- [GIMP] → Art
- [Photoshop] → Art
- [Piskel] → Art
- [Caustic] → Music
- [BFXR] → Audio
- [BeepBox] → Audio
- [Audacity] → Audio
- [JarSplice] → Packaging

►► Authors ◄◄

- [Graphics] → JKTransformers
- [Code/Audio] → Basset
- [Code/Graphics] → HaveANiceDay
- [Code/Audio/Graphics] → os_reboot

►► Details ◄◄

Made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 42. All assets, including font and music, are original and were created within the allotted jam time. Original soundtrack is available on SoundCloud. Source code for this project can be found here. Custom engine can be found here.

Please message us here on or twitter with questions/concerns hyprgloo or visit our github profiles at osreboot basset10 haveaniceday33.

Genres: simulation

Tools: Audacity, BeepBox, Bfxr, GIMP, Piskel

Comments37

levlaj14 Aug 2018, 08:28

Cool game, I really enjoyed it! :)

vfabien2114 Aug 2018, 08:45

Nice. Trafic control around a space station was concept I wanted to explore since a long time. good job

Rawrasaur14 Aug 2018, 08:49

Very enjoyable little game. I played the tutorial, level 1 and a bit of level 4. The concept is great and definitely fits the theme well. Cool audio/art too. Many ships didn't make it...

Scott Purcival14 Aug 2018, 09:39

Great concept. Shame i couldnt play it at full screen, game comes up very small on 4k monitor :(
Would have loved a story to keep me engaged, but game jam obviously :) Great entry. Impressed you made an exe for a java game.

dmtroy14 Aug 2018, 09:53

I really like the game, I think the concept is fun, and both graphics and music are very good.

The only criticism I had was the pacing, even on level 4 I didn't really feel much pressure to do things quickly and could just take my time instead which I feel goes against the point of the game but overall I think it's great.

Chao14 Aug 2018, 10:01

Cool idea, fit the theme very well.

The decision to let the player control when ships came to the station (since you could choose not to take them out of the transit lanes) kind if broke it a bit though, as the player could choose whether or not they were going to run out of space.

Other than that fairly minor design flaw though, the art and sound were both great, and it was overall a solid entry.

Good job!

Azo14 Aug 2018, 10:28

I like the idea and it was well executed. Suitable level scaling although if you played it safe there was not too much difficulty. I feel like a time limit would add to the pressure and therefore reward of winning. Great sound and solid graphics!

Nam Nguyen14 Aug 2018, 20:09

Whow very well made. Excellent job! The game feels very polished and finished. I love the tutorial, really makes you practice what has been guided. You have limited number of stations and you need to manage that before running out of stations - an interesting take on the theme. I thought that it would be a bit more convenient to drag and drop the ships, but after I get used to your designated control, it did the navigation quite easily. I love the music as well, really go with the content of the game, and it does sound outer space. Probably my game needed something like that, not a fast paced music T_T. Again, great job!!

BarkerGames14 Aug 2018, 23:15

I really liked this one, I just wish there were more levels. Hint, Hint... :)

huskitch14 Aug 2018, 23:36

Love the mechanics, as said above could use some more levels

FelipeAllmeida14 Aug 2018, 23:57

Really loved the atention to the tutorial and tips to the player!

Elemental Zeal Game Studios15 Aug 2018, 00:40

It was really nice you had a proper tutorial with this kind of game. :thumbsup: Game itself was also a lot of fun and really well done overall. :)

Carlos Giraldo15 Aug 2018, 01:45

Love the tutorial! Gameplay felt polished and there is some good amount of content! It was sometimes hard to know when ships would dock as it seem they crashed when they should have docked.

Arqcenick15 Aug 2018, 08:18

I liked this game a lot. The controls are very smooth for a management game. The crash was a bit buggy perhaps, nevertheless a very solid entry!

AwiX15 Aug 2018, 08:26

A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good.
Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)

Beelzeboss15 Aug 2018, 09:08

Great execution. Feels really good to play. :)

Inferture15 Aug 2018, 13:01

Cool soundtrack, I liked the graphics and the game was polished !

monetai15 Aug 2018, 14:41

Exellent!! I want more levels!! the intro of one of the music seem a bit off but it's a minor issue the game is realy good!

Cassio Eduardo15 Aug 2018, 22:19

Pretty nice concept and very well executed. I felt the games was to easy, maybe adding some sort of event would make things more chaotic. Also, the java requirement is a let down (I personally haven't installed it in years).

SeaBlu15 Aug 2018, 22:23

Wow this is great! I thought the difficulty curve was perfect and the tutorial covered all the details. Many management games in Ludum dare seem to expect you to be a pro before you start playing, but you seem to have balanced it well. It was cool to play a game in a similar vein to mine but still completely different! Definitely one of my favorites so far too.

Langotriel16 Aug 2018, 07:38

You deserve high praise for a simple tutorial for what seemed at first like a relatively complex LD entry. I also especially appreciated the visuals; they remind of the old Escape Velocity games :smiley:

Good work!

SpicyRhino17 Aug 2018, 00:41

Amazingly well done tutorial, the only thing I would change about it, would be to introduce the concept that the ships can be destroyed. I had to restart the tutorial because I assumed the ship would be smart enough to go around the station lol. Also really impressed with the graphics, especially the background. Great job!

Echo Team17 Aug 2018, 00:57

Java, nice. Eclipse, even nicer XD

The Triumvirate17 Aug 2018, 01:33

This is one of the rare LD entries I'd love to see as an complete game on eg steam! It was so fun to play, I was almost sad when the warpfuel was full and the level ended. Keep up the good work!

Jakier17 Aug 2018, 12:42

Cool concept and lovely graphics, love the cargo ships design. Could probably turn out really great with some more time in development.

At the moment it's a bit easy, supply ships seem infinite and there's little reason to rush or hold ships at stand by.
It seemed to me you're laying the ground for some tower defence elements. I think it's a great idea to use it as a subgenre in the game.
I'd like to see this game going forward and evolve.

CristiHKJ18 Aug 2018, 08:45

Great game! Very cool and interesting! :D

Megalink18 Aug 2018, 09:36

A very fun, unique and polished game! The tutorial was very helpful, and once I started playing it got incredibly fun! I loved having to time when you moved each ship to prevent potential crashes. Art and music were also great. Good work!

RavenFlame18 Aug 2018, 10:25

Really good game, solid work.

JLV18 Aug 2018, 12:23

Woaw, super polished entry ! There were a ton of varied and fun challenges hidden in this gem of yours !

Pros :
- Easy to learn, hard to master : the tutorial gives you all you need to start, and the game further builds on these concepts to build something quite complex and unique
- Crisp pixel art and great sound design make for a great space merchant mood
- Clean UI (the transit zones are great), controls and balanced difficulty curve

Cons :
- It would be nice to teach the player of to manage disasters as soon as the tutorial

All in all, great work !

ZuhairGhias20 Aug 2018, 13:25

Tutorial was great. Game play felt a little relaxed. I actually didn't use queuing. I think it's because if the abundance of ships, and the fact that you can ignore the ships in the transit zone.

Balance68620 Aug 2018, 15:48

This is excellent! Great design! The graphics are pleasing and audio is pleasant. The mechanics are well thought out and implemented and the game makes great use of the theme. I also like that you included a playable tutorial. My only gripe (a small one) is it looked really tiny on my 4K screen. Resolution scaling would be icing on the cake. This is a stand out game of the jam imo. Great job!

chadrbanks21 Aug 2018, 00:30

Tried to rate, but no Mac or HTML version.

Mowztouch21 Aug 2018, 13:04

Hey very good entry here. One of my favorite of this jam. I really liked to manage spacecraft traffic, and trying to not becoming a space serial killer :)
Gameplay is good, i enjoyed it.
Very well done !

Noxbuds26 Aug 2018, 22:56

Awesome game. Good graphics and audio, a nice UI and simple controls which are easy to use. The ships crashing was a bit annoying, since I'd send a ship away from the station and it'd immediately fly into a solar panel :| It wasn't too bad, but it was unfortunate that the tutorial immediately stopped when a ship crashed, despite not explaining it. Might be a nice addition to zoom in and pan around, but overall a very good, polished game.

Ratherjolly1 Sep 2018, 04:34

Wow! Great attention to detail on this. Well done!

Ace173 Sep 2018, 20:29

This looks super nice ... would love to play this one ; but alas, no Linux/Web version ; which is a pity, considering this is Java code. Tried running directly the jar file ('java -jar AirlockGridlock.jar') but without succces!
Very nice job on the graphics, though (telling from the screenshots!)

HellSquirrel4 Sep 2018, 14:01

cool game!