In the year 1856 A.C. (After Core) apocalypse is imminent as the long feared big crunch is starting, luckily, in the year 0, humanity was able to extract the energy in a black hole to build The Core: A giant construction that is able to expand the universe by shooting out a massive wave of energy, the only problem is that, now that it's needed, it's also out of fuel (how convenient) your goal is to bring aboard the remaining life in the universe to gather enough oil to power The Core. Good Luck.
_Controls:_ Left and right key to turn; Space bar to release from orbit, allowing you to fling yourself to another planet;
_Fuel:_ You can release collected crew members on green planets to gather oil, when the oil is collected, it goes directly to your fuel tank. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR FUEL, turning uses a lot of it and when you're out, you can only hope that you enter an orbit.
_Crew:_ You can add lifeforms that are found on planets to your crew. Click the plus symbol in the top right corner to add lifeforms to your spaceship and the minus symbol to release them onto a planet to gather that precious oil.
_The Core:_ In the middle of the universe there is the core, when orbiting around it, you have the option to deposit fuel, when you have deposited a certain amount of fuel, the core will activate and re-expand the universe (this means you win). The core has a self-defense mechanism that destroys anything but authorised spaceships (against meteors and stuff) this means that any planet that touches it gets destroyed.
_The Crunch:_ While flying around, the universe is shrinking around you, anything that goes beyond it get's destroyed. Your goal is to stop this from happening. (touching it means instant death)
_Planets:_ There are random planets scatterd around the universe, these planets can contain lifeforms to help you gather the oil on green planets. Planet's will get absolutely annihaliated when they come in contact with the border or the core __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Team: - Rik ProAFKBoy Fabri (Programmer/Music) - Max MutsKun Mouling (Artist/Thinker of Ideas/Motivator of the Programmer/Writer of the Description/Tired)
Special Thanks: - Annemie Rik's Mom Bossaerts (Provider of Nutrition) - Youtube Autoplay (Music While Working for Distraction)
@g4mr@johnyf@hi-irie@wrexialmt@thomas-den-hollander yeah sorry guys, my bad... you don't seem to be able to remove something after it's published, but anyway, the download is available now. sorry for the inconvenience OwO
Intersting idea, I like the jumps between planets and the very little fuel we have. Would be nice to see the size of the universe on minimap like vekstr said.
I really liked the concept and story for the game, though the game itself felt less fun than I expected. The tradeoff between delivering fuel to the core and using fuel to find more fuel was a really great idea, and I enjoyed exploring the universe and finding planets.
The fuel consumption and scarcity felt unbalanced to me; I was always running out of fuel even if only had to do small course corrections. I didn't really hit a situation where spending the time to drop crew members on a planet helped me in the long run - it would take too long even if I had a decent number of crew members there. I also never had the opportunity to worry about the space in my ship. If the fuel was balanced better (perhaps if turning cost less fuel, to make discovery more fun and less frustrating) this could be a really great game.
It would be neat if the HUD could distinguish planets with lifeforms and oil from those without - I sometimes felt like I would waste time investigating a planet which turned out to be unhelpful. Also, once I saw a planet on the HUD that was outside of the crunch; that was a surprise!
Great work on this! Despite being unbalanced I still enjoyed it. I often felt like I was rescuing people from annihilation as I took them off planets just about to be crunched, which was neat. With some more balancing it could be spectacular!
@fractalsunrise thank you for the review, it really helps. My friend and I also weren't sure about the amount of fuel spent when turning so now we know we should increase it.
Also (I think that) the planet you saw outside of the crunch is the point where all planets go if they die... I asked Rik if this couldn't be avoided but he said it was most time effective, before the release, the point was located within the crunch so you would at times fly into a random invisible planet xD.
Hey ! I didn't see the map on my first test and well.. I got lost in space xD After seeing it, it gets better, you start paying attention to your fuel and such, and it's cool ! However, at one time, the music went ULTRA LOUD for a few seconds, it was weird !
@raivk Hi, i'm glad you liked it! the music was supposed to be quite silent and have a crescendo now and then but i'm really crappy with music software. I already changed the volume to not destroy your headphone tho, so it should've been okay (by which i mean, you don't need a hearing-aid because of it) or i uploaded the wrong file xD.
I really like the concept for the game and I think it has some potential - I think my primary complaint is that I have to go back and forth from the keyboard and mouse to control everything. That and I have to manually click for ever oil I want to deposit into the core. Maybe a click and hold would work better there? Seeing which planets have life on the mini map or starting out with a couple lifeforms would really streamline the early game as well.
All in all, cool concept, and well done for such a short time period!
@max6333@awix Thank you very much! @johannimations I hope you do! @cromo yeah, with the shortage of time we really didn't have time to test playability all that much (seeing as the game is randomly generated), we're lucky that players are able to finish the game as it is! but still thank you very much!
Interresting game, a bit hard to take in hand, you ran out of fuel very easilly and i missed a better visual representation on the minimap of the crunch. Anyway it's a cool concept, nice work!
I like the concept, it's challenging to plan your trajectory towards planets and hope to find fuel and crew members. Would be nice if there were ways to transport without using fuel.
I like the base idea of the game. Probably I'm too bad at it though - couldn't get very far after a lot of tries. But the game sets me in a certain mood, which is great!!
Wow, great game ! The concept is good, so is the realisation :D Some very little issues : at the beginning, I was wondering about how to get on the orbit of a planet, because I was afraid of crashing on it ^^ may be it would be easier if the trigger zone was a little bit bigger ! Also it would have been great to see the shrinking zone on the map ! Anyway, great job guys :D
This is a very nice game! I love the music, and how it changes when you're flying and when your at a planet. I like how little fuel you have, so you are forced to be very conservative and smart with how you use it. It's also pretty cool how your ship circles around the planet that you are at, allowing you to launch off towards a nearby planet to preserve fuel. More sound effects, such as one for flying, would enhance the atmosphere of the game. A background could also work pretty well. I loved the story, though! Great work! :)
Hey there great job! There's some nice ideas here. As others have said the balance of fuel consumption could maybe do with a little work, but it is pretty good considering the time limits; It's certainly playable as it and makes it a challenge at least!
Aiming your ship when you fling off planets can be kinda hard as you're mostly going off the tiny minimap. If you do any more work, maybe add the ability to zoom in and out so you can judge distances that aren't too far just in the main screen.
Yes we know that the fuel consumption is pretty high but my friend tried to shift some variables around and it became almost too easy, planets would spawn with lots of fuel and there would just be no challenge.
wow! Without a doubt the best score I've heard this LD.
The game is really hard, I only veeery barely won on my 3'rd try, and it was SUPER FUN. I was originally a bit skeptic of the game when I the LD page, but oh my was I wrong. 5/5, keep it up guys!!
@drikdrok@holdthabass it's supposed to be hard, we tried an easier version but you'd be able to find planets that spawned with enough people to make more than 100 fuel when you found them (basically an insta-win).
Comments37
Oh and I believe the minimap can still be improved by showing the universe boundary.
The fuel consumption and scarcity felt unbalanced to me; I was always running out of fuel even if only had to do small course corrections. I didn't really hit a situation where spending the time to drop crew members on a planet helped me in the long run - it would take too long even if I had a decent number of crew members there. I also never had the opportunity to worry about the space in my ship. If the fuel was balanced better (perhaps if turning cost less fuel, to make discovery more fun and less frustrating) this could be a really great game.
It would be neat if the HUD could distinguish planets with lifeforms and oil from those without - I sometimes felt like I would waste time investigating a planet which turned out to be unhelpful. Also, once I saw a planet on the HUD that was outside of the crunch; that was a surprise!
Great work on this! Despite being unbalanced I still enjoyed it. I often felt like I was rescuing people from annihilation as I took them off planets just about to be crunched, which was neat. With some more balancing it could be spectacular!
Also (I think that) the planet you saw outside of the crunch is the point where all planets go if they die... I asked Rik if this couldn't be avoided but he said it was most time effective, before the release, the point was located within the crunch so you would at times fly into a random invisible planet xD.
But anyway, i'm happy you liked it!
After seeing it, it gets better, you start paying attention to your fuel and such, and it's cool !
However, at one time, the music went ULTRA LOUD for a few seconds, it was weird !
All in all, cool concept, and well done for such a short time period!
@johannimations I hope you do!
@cromo yeah, with the shortage of time we really didn't have time to test playability all that much (seeing as the game is randomly generated), we're lucky that players are able to finish the game as it is! but still thank you very much!
Anyway it's a cool concept, nice work!
Some very little issues : at the beginning, I was wondering about how to get on the orbit of a planet, because I was afraid of crashing on it ^^ may be it would be easier if the trigger zone was a little bit bigger !
Also it would have been great to see the shrinking zone on the map !
Anyway, great job guys :D
Aiming your ship when you fling off planets can be kinda hard as you're mostly going off the tiny minimap. If you do any more work, maybe add the ability to zoom in and out so you can judge distances that aren't too far just in the main screen.
Awesome work folks!
Yes we know that the fuel consumption is pretty high but my friend tried to shift some variables around and it became almost too easy, planets would spawn with lots of fuel and there would just be no challenge.
But anyway, glad you liked it!
Keep up the good work fella's!
The game is really hard, I only veeery barely won on my 3'rd try, and it was SUPER FUN. I was originally a bit skeptic of the game when I the LD page, but oh my was I wrong. 5/5, keep it up guys!!
Anyway, thank you for playing!
I have rated your game, but all of my feedback was captured in the stream. It was close to the end.
You can hear my comments in the archive at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/299357576?t=09h26m15s