In 1927 Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaitre theorised that the expansion of the universe could reverse, eventually resulting in the collapse of all matter into a singularity triggering another big bang.
This theory later became known as THE BIG CRUNCH.
This is my first ever Ludum Dare project. I created the whole game and all the source code, shaders, graphics and sound effects from scratch in 48 hours. Please don't judge the sound effects too harshly, they were made in a rush in the last hour of the game jam. There is no music, sorry I ran out of time before I could make any. The Big Crunch was made using Unity 2018.2.3f1, visual studio community, gimp & sfxr.
The concept of The Big Crunch is quite simple. Collide matching planets and stars to compress them together as the universe shrinks. Its basically match 2! With the gameplay itself being quite simple my priority was to make a more well rounded and polished looking game. I have a title screen, in game UI and even a small tutorial. A lot of my time went into making the planets and collisions look as good as possible, not so easy for someone like me who isn't very artistic.
During development I wasn't sure about the shrinking mechanic, I had 2 different ideas: The planets and star shrink towards the centre and you lose when 2 collide OR the planets and stars stay in the same place and you lose when the edge of the shrinking universe hits them. In the end I implemented them both as Mode A and Mode B which can be selected from the title screen.
In a rapidly collapsing universe smash and compress planets and stars together before running out of space.
UPDATE: I've added macOS & HTML5:WebGL builds created from the same source code as the windows version so more of you can play my game.
UPDATE 2: Now that the voting is over I have released an updated version of The Big Crunch with bug fixes and visual improvements. From now on the game will continue to be updated here: https://psjuk0.itch.io/the-big-crunch
Good game! It's awesome how you really have to think ahead to make sure bigger stars are still able to fuse. It happened to me that I had two white stars blocked by a black hole so I lost. Very good take on the theme, the 3D space works really well.
I really like the scientific base of your game. You did really well on these graphics and the gameplay surprisingly did not feel repetetive. Good Job :)
I really like the scientific base of your game. You did really well on these graphics and the gameplay surprisingly did not feel repetetive. Good Job :)
Cool game. I couldn't figure out how to beat level 2. I do have a question -- am I not allowed to merge planets that are inside the radius of the black hole? At first I thought it was a glitch -- there was no way to select the planets inside the black hole because the black hole would be selected instead. Later, however, I couldn't merge two planets *across* the black hole, so I thought maybe you weren't allowed to intersect any part of the black hole (even though planets are already inside it)?
@themonsterfromthedeep Ah ha! you found a bug...my bad :( the black hole is supposed to disappear at the end of stage 1 but somehow gets stuck on. I think this bug only affects game mode A so mode B should work beyond the first stage.
I do intend to put out a new version with some fixes and improvements when the rating period is over.
@wolderado I generated a Mac build from the same source as the Windows build. No idea if it works as I have no way to test it. I would appreciate if you could let me know if it works for you.
@psjuk0 Yeah that build worked. It a great game I really liked it. When I run out of time there were 1 black hole and 3 neutron stars that can't collide :D I didn't realize that the universe is closing in :D But sometimes a red warning sign appears on stars whats that about?
@wolderado Glad you liked it and thanks for checking the Mac build for me. In mode A the red warning signs appear on planets or stars that are about to collide and in mode B the red warning appears on planets or stars that are about to hit the edge of the collapsing universe. Either way the ones with the red warning are the ones you need to deal with quickly before they cause you to lose.
@andrey-ugolnik@awix Yes, I absolutely intended to have more variety in the planets and some music but I just ran out of time before I could get those done.
This was interesting and fun! Definitely spent more time playing it than I had thought I would. lol.
The only improvement I would make would be some particle effect near the edge of the universe, just to remind the player that the universe is shrinking. I had forgotten and thought it was kinda turn based for a minute.
Thats was a different kind of entry. The graphics are well done and i dont really find the sounds bad for a game made in 48h, it just laked some music in fact. Also, the controls work very smoothly. Good job!
I liked the matching idea, but there was a technical thing that was really bothering me, perhaps more than it should have. When you merged two bodies, the animation leads them to the center of the universe, as opposed to the centroid between them. What you can do to fix this is:
@mike-inprinciple I think you may have found a bug there, normally the planets and stars will collide at the point directly in between them (see the youtube viedo in the description). Which version and game mode were you playing?
Wow I played this a lot longer than I anticipated. Fun and very well executed, especially for a first time (48 hours is short!). Involves a lot more strategy than I initially thought it would.
Took me a while to understand it was in 3d and I could actually rotate around XD. Interesting concept, I like that it gets harder as the planets you combine become bigger. Simple yet effective, very well done!
Awesome game! It's crazy that you thought of and then implemented this idea in just 48 hours.. While the shrinking is slow, it's just the right speed to keep the intensity going. I feel like I didn't take a breath until after I lost. Great work.
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I do intend to put out a new version with some fixes and improvements when the rating period is over.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l4gvfu92jt8q262/TheBigCrunchMac.zip?dl=0
Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)
The only improvement I would make would be some particle effect near the edge of the universe, just to remind the player that the universe is shrinking. I had forgotten and thought it was kinda turn based for a minute.
Very good :D
Vector3 centroid =
((planet[0].transform.position + planet[1].transform.position) / (float)planet.Length);
Then you can lerp to that position.
great game. love the take on the classic 2048. great graphics and cool audio.