Space Jalopy
See the Itch.io page for screenshots!
Click here to play in browser!
> Note: Music was made before jam, sound effects were generated using jsfxr
> Woah there partner, I know that you're rearing to get out into the vastness of space to claim your title as a bounty hunter, but that ship is a hunk of junk! I know it has sentimental value being your great uncle thrice removed's, but that think just *looks* unstable! This isn't exactly the friendliest start system you know, what with the pirates and unstable local government and all. Ah well, I guess if you get yourself into too much of a jam the local rescue teams can put you back together. You remind me of your siblings, more can-do attitude than brains...
> Note: Due to a Unity bug, menu inputs in WebGL are inverted along the Y (up/down) axis
Your ship may not be quite what it used to be. The weapons and thrusters have a tendency to overheat, and using salvaged guns means that they are quick to break down! Watch the meters at the bottom of your screen to manage your heat buildup and check the status of your weapons. If a weapon overheats, but isn't destroyed, it will be operational again once it cools down. You can speed up this process by moving bot-o to the corresponding node to help cool them down. This also applies to cooling down your thrusters! The nodes are scattered around the ship, but follow a mostly logical order. Left weapon on the left, right weapon on the right, thrusters at the rear. bot-o just needs to be standing on the node for their repair to take effect, simple! Note that if a weapon breaks completely, it will start smoking and not be repairable, you're going to need to replace it!
You may find weapons in the field, or simply wish to swap out a broken weapon. Thankfully bot-o has your back! There's 2 steps to swapping out a weapon:
1. Select the weapon in the cargo bay
2. Swap the weapon out at the corresponding node
To select a new weapon, move bot-o to the cargo bay at the center of the ship. Moving against the node there will cycle which weapon will be fed to the turret when you swap it out. The cargo bay will even show you what weapon is currently selected! May take some time to learn what each weapon looks like though... thankfully the kind folks at Big Gun Co.™ were nice enough to color code them!
One you have the gun picked out, move bot-o back to the turret you want to replace, then move them against the node. If the weapon is destroyed, bot-o will eject the debris into space, otherwise they'll put that gun back into your ship's *limitless* inventory. After a quick wait, your new weapon should appear and be ready to fire! Note that this doesn't fix your weapon's durability, and most salvaged weapons have some wear and tear on them already!
Sometimes you can take a beating out in space! In the event that your ship is looking worse than it normally is, bot-o can make some repairs for you! Move bot-o to the very top node (labelled "REP"), and they'll slowly restore your ship back into working shape. Note that this is the only place on the ship that bot-o can access the systems they need to make repairs. If bot-o isn't there, your ship won't heal itself!
People say space is vast and empty, but not here it 'aint! You can find all sorts of goodies and baddies scattered around. If you see a crate, simply fly over it and your ship will store it for later. Baddies are also prowling around, and will start to shoot at you if you get too close! But that's what you're here for, isn't it!? Blasting these baddies back to Betelgeuse will earn you plenty of bounty bunce! Note that if you're blown up yourself, your currently collected bounties will go towards your career total, minus some handling fees for picking you and your ship out of the debris field and re-assembling you.
Click here to play in browser!
> Note: Music was made before jam, sound effects were generated using jsfxr
Background
> Woah there partner, I know that you're rearing to get out into the vastness of space to claim your title as a bounty hunter, but that ship is a hunk of junk! I know it has sentimental value being your great uncle thrice removed's, but that think just *looks* unstable! This isn't exactly the friendliest start system you know, what with the pirates and unstable local government and all. Ah well, I guess if you get yourself into too much of a jam the local rescue teams can put you back together. You remind me of your siblings, more can-do attitude than brains...
Input
> Note: Due to a Unity bug, menu inputs in WebGL are inverted along the Y (up/down) axis
Tutorial / Gameplay Hints
Heat and Durability
Your ship may not be quite what it used to be. The weapons and thrusters have a tendency to overheat, and using salvaged guns means that they are quick to break down! Watch the meters at the bottom of your screen to manage your heat buildup and check the status of your weapons. If a weapon overheats, but isn't destroyed, it will be operational again once it cools down. You can speed up this process by moving bot-o to the corresponding node to help cool them down. This also applies to cooling down your thrusters! The nodes are scattered around the ship, but follow a mostly logical order. Left weapon on the left, right weapon on the right, thrusters at the rear. bot-o just needs to be standing on the node for their repair to take effect, simple! Note that if a weapon breaks completely, it will start smoking and not be repairable, you're going to need to replace it!
Weapon Replacement
You may find weapons in the field, or simply wish to swap out a broken weapon. Thankfully bot-o has your back! There's 2 steps to swapping out a weapon:
1. Select the weapon in the cargo bay
2. Swap the weapon out at the corresponding node
To select a new weapon, move bot-o to the cargo bay at the center of the ship. Moving against the node there will cycle which weapon will be fed to the turret when you swap it out. The cargo bay will even show you what weapon is currently selected! May take some time to learn what each weapon looks like though... thankfully the kind folks at Big Gun Co.™ were nice enough to color code them!
One you have the gun picked out, move bot-o back to the turret you want to replace, then move them against the node. If the weapon is destroyed, bot-o will eject the debris into space, otherwise they'll put that gun back into your ship's *limitless* inventory. After a quick wait, your new weapon should appear and be ready to fire! Note that this doesn't fix your weapon's durability, and most salvaged weapons have some wear and tear on them already!
Healing
Sometimes you can take a beating out in space! In the event that your ship is looking worse than it normally is, bot-o can make some repairs for you! Move bot-o to the very top node (labelled "REP"), and they'll slowly restore your ship back into working shape. Note that this is the only place on the ship that bot-o can access the systems they need to make repairs. If bot-o isn't there, your ship won't heal itself!
Loot, Enemies and Bounties
People say space is vast and empty, but not here it 'aint! You can find all sorts of goodies and baddies scattered around. If you see a crate, simply fly over it and your ship will store it for later. Baddies are also prowling around, and will start to shoot at you if you get too close! But that's what you're here for, isn't it!? Blasting these baddies back to Betelgeuse will earn you plenty of bounty bunce! Note that if you're blown up yourself, your currently collected bounties will go towards your career total, minus some handling fees for picking you and your ship out of the debris field and re-assembling you.
Comments12
Unfortunately the controls as they are currently feel very disconnected, because you can't really keep flying the ship properly while moving the bot. This could be an amazing game with some polish if you figure out a control scheme that doesn't interrupt the game flow as much.
Alternatively, if you're feeling really ambitious, you could even turn this into an asynchronous coop experience, where one player controls the ship and the other keeps fixing the issues with some kind of minigames (among us?).
The game has very high potential and I hope it gets some love and attention.
i do think that weapon durability and healing take way too long to complete- my weapons could quickly cool but i never really saw my durability go up, and healing just took too long for me to care. also, it seems that my drone always has the ability to swap weapons? not sure how that works.
the micromanagement of everything combined with the wonky motion made this surprisingly fun. i do think the enemies should have been a biiit more responsive, they are defenseless until you bonk into them, in which case they will gun you to hell.
also, mouse/kb controls are super advantaged compared to keyboard, as mouse could instantly aim the weapons while i had to rely on a slow turnrate for controller. i do feel that the slow turnrate would have been a better option rather than trying to make controller aim just as well as mouse, as it adds to the nonsense of everything else happening.
i think enemies should spawn a bit more, i spent a lot of time looking for enemies rather than fighting them.
It's certainly a very intriguing game. Great job, both of you!
I’ll admit when I began I jumped straight into it, didn’t read the description, so I was a bit confused [and tbh even after reading it, it still was a bit confusing].
But once I got the general jist of it, it was fun!
I love the mechanic of moving two characters at the same time, one as the base ship, the other as the robot that helps the base ship.
The art style, while simplistic, is cool too, I love the colors in particular.
I suppose really the only complaint would be the confusion which I do admit was my problem for being too hasty but I think if you plan on making this a full game, an interactable tutorial in-game is a definite must.
A few other things: I think this game could use a bit more polish, mainly when attacking the enemies, a sound effect when you hit the enemies, not just shoot/kill the enemies would be cool, and maybe the enemies flashing white when you hit them [the first time I was killing an enemy I thought my guns did no damage!]
and the sensitivity was a bit much too, I get that’s part of the unstable theme, but I would lower the sensitivity just a tad bit.
The menu’s really cool too, it’s a small detail but I like the background, very cool!
Overall ultimately due to my lack of time I didn’t try out the game to the extent it deserves, I still don’t get what the boxes do or what the money’s for but I’m sure if I continued playing I’d figure it out!
A cool game, only main complaint being no in game tutorial [which is totally understandable, it’s a game jam after all], and I think if polished, with the unique game mechanic and cool art style it could be a real awesome experience!