My submission is a space combat game where you can steal spaceships and blow stuff up.
I didn't get all of the features I wanted into the game, and I didn't have time to add any sound at all, but I still feel like I accomplished a lot in 48 hours!
My goals at the start of this project were to have fluid-feeling movement and combat for your ships, to give the enemies satisfying flocking and steering mechanics while they fight and chase you, to make stealing ships satisfying and rewarding, and to really give the game a sense of scale: your starter ship should really feel tiny compared to the larger ships, and once you are in a bigger ship everything else should feel tiny in comparison to you. While a ton of features and ideas were cut due to time constraints (like sound... oh well, there's no sound in space!), I really think I succeeded at all of my most important goals.
I am really happy with how the game turned out.
NOTE: When the deadline was approaching I started to get paranoid that the game's difficulty after a few levels didn't ramp up enough to keep it fun, so I made some last-minute tweaks to the difficulty calculation and I think I definitely overdid it a bit. Now the game is a little too hard in the early game. Sorry about that. I guess balance issues are unavoidable when you only have 48 hours to work with.
Screenshots
Mechanics
Complete the objectives of the room to move on to the next one. Objectives can be seen at the top left of your screen.
Get larger ships below 25% hull to cripple them. Crippled ships take damage over time, and with every tick of damage they have a chance to become disabled. When a ship is disabled it will stop moving and you can fly over to it and press [E] to enter it. If you capture a ship, when it explodes you eject back into your small starter ship. When your starter ship dies the game is over.
Difficulty scales up over time, but I didn't have time to balance it well. It might be too hard in the beginning, and too easy later on. You can see the current difficulty rating at the top right of the screen. Your ships get bonuses to hit points, speed, damage, rate of fire, etc. as you level up. You can see your current level at the bottom left of the screen, next to your health.
Controls
W, A, S, D to move. E to perform an action (use an exit, or enter a ship) Left Mouse to fire.
Tips
Keep moving. Dodge incoming fire. Ships are fragile, but deal a lot of damage. Capture ships. Stealing ships helps you survive longer. If you're having trouble finding the exit, it always spawns on the right-hand side of the room, right of the center.
Tools
Made using Game Maker Studio 2, Aseprite, and with the help of more caffeine than should be consumed by the average person.
Good stuff! The floatiness in space of the ship felt right, and I was able to have some good dogfights. What I particularly liked was the way you introduced mechanics slowly with an in-game tutorial of sorts.
I had trouble finding the exit personally - I think it's supposed to be hard to find so I understand if you don't want to put an arrow or something pointing towards the exit, but maybe at least having a minimap so I can tell where in the circle I am would be useful.
Additionally, maybe the player and enemy shots could be different colors? They were kind of hard to tell apart.
The UI and aesthetic of the game were simple but I think still showed some polish. Grats!
Nice work, I got through the tutorial but died in the second stage afterwards. Felt a little underpowered in terms of the players weapons, and sometimes the player moves off screen entirely; but solid effort overall.
I liked this. Taking over big ships is a pretty innovative take, and it really gives the universe a sense of scale. I think the shooting was a little tedious. I would have preferred bigger bullets or less HP on every thing (my ship included). But overall there was a lot to like here. Great atmosphere!
@ldd Yeah, sorry about that. I spent WAY too much time playtesting the game and started to feel like the difficulty after several levels didn't ramp up enough to keep it challenging, so I made a last-minute change to how the difficulty scaled. My changes were a bit heavy-handed and I accidentally made the early game much harder than I intended.
Pretty addictive! Great idea with capturing ships! I think it would be more fun if it was possible to capture different enemy parts (weapons, engines etc). Very nice game!
The combat was really well executed, though sometimes it felt a bit too easy. The absence of music and sfx was a shame but I understand there is no sound in space :P Great entry anyways!
Cool game bro! Good fights, its fun to keep the balance betweeen orbiting an enemy and keep the shots in line. Excellent work. The capturing ships mechanic has great potential!
@macdoom Thanks! Yeah, that capturing ships mechanic was the idea that kept me motivated throughout this project. It was a rough 48 hours, for sure. If I wasn't in love with the idea of the game I never would have gotten as far with it as I did, that's for sure.
Made it to the space shuttle thingie. Really loved abusing the gravitational pull to predict movement of enemies :D
I did not realize up until now when reading your description that you can actually steal ships, which of course makes all the difference in regards to it's rating, so I'll take a second look at your game later.
All in all though, impressive task you accomplished for the Compo. Thank you for your game!
/edit (04/26/2020): Played it again a few days ago and made it to the last level with the knowledge of pirating ships in mind. As predicted, it was thousandfold as enjoyable. Thank you again!
Cool game! Just want to mention that I really like the Gamemaker engine. The movement felt really good, if anything a tad too heavy, but it was all so smooth and enjoyable. Fun to play but some more player feedback (screenshake on hits taken, more of a feel) would have been nice (obviously there was a restricted time frame). Overall, good job! The game had a good feel and kept me entertained, you should be very happy with it!
Edit: I just wanted to mention how I admired the physical, visual spacing of the ship, UI and objects on the screen, it was really good! It felt open and empty with just enough stuff on it, just like space! (ie, you spaced it perfectly!) I think this a superb quality of the game that I haven't seen on other games.
Man, that's really hard to steal the first ship. The movement mechanic are really nice, it certainly gives the space vibe. Other than that, only the lack of sound (ok, there's no sound in space) makes me feel something was missing. Really good job on this game, congrats!
@ursagames Hey, thanks so much for playing my game, and for as long as you did! I watched the whole playthrough and threw you a follow on Twitch. I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I only managed to get to the level after the tutorial, but what I played was interesting! I liked the unique capture and explode mechanic and wished that it was easier or made a bigger impact because I thought that it was really clever. In some of the tutorial levels I had to keep moving until I found the enemy ship, it felt slow because there wasn't any indication of where they were and the space (heh) was really big. The regular shooting and combat felt quite slow because I ended up just circling around the enemies and waiting until they died, it takes a while because their shield and hull seem to be really high. At the end of each level I also found myself just waiting for the shield to regenerate before going to the next, so a lot of the game was just waiting until the short-lived and more cooler capture and explode parts. Was a bit confused about why the enemies looked the same as me. I hope to see this project continue post-jam because I think you've got something with that capture and explode mechanic! Good job!
I had trouble finding the exit personally - I think it's supposed to be hard to find so I understand if you don't want to put an arrow or something pointing towards the exit, but maybe at least having a minimap so I can tell where in the circle I am would be useful.
Additionally, maybe the player and enemy shots could be different colors? They were kind of hard to tell apart.
The UI and aesthetic of the game were simple but I think still showed some polish. Grats!