Kessler

Enjoyed exploding the trash. Found I could spam the rocket as more of a close range defense to delay the inevitable even longer. Keep building games.

cool game, i liked it, especially the graphics

A very stylish looking game. I like the shadow effects and minimalistic visuals! I also destroyed a star which was cool.

Some feedback: I think it would feel a bit more responsive if the missile explosion started at max explosion radius and then shrank, instead of slowly growing and then shrinking. And having some explodey sounds would make it feel more powerful.

Nice work!

Neat game! Minimalistic and essential, I loved the one-button controls. Keep up the good work! :v:

Interesting game, I wanted the sun to be destroyed but no, he, he. Nice game!

Oops... Fun game though, great job!

The graphics and the gravity-simulation are excellent! Spamming close range rockets is a little bit too good, but it's still fun and the game loop is sound. The SFX are very pleasing.

Really interesting game! I've never seen a shooter with gameplay mechanics quite like this and it plays beautifully!

The lighting tho ! The shadows from explosions really impressed.

Simple idea executed beautifully.

This looks great and I really like the sounds effects. Very nice job for a first released game, and made in only 48 hours! Congrats!

This is one of the more unique games I've seen so far. I like how you incorporated gravitational physics into the gameplay. Adding the ability to change the trajectory of the missile adds a bit of depth to the gameplay. The graphics are simple but effective, and the sound effects help convey what's going on (though I'd like to see some background music added in the future).

Also, adding feedback for shooting the star is a cool little easter egg.

I enjoyed killing the stars too much. I enjoyed the minimalist aesthetic and the font is very fitting. the small bleep... bloop when firing is also great. Good Game!

This is really cool! Unique and interesting mechanic, and the graphics while simple work really well.

A few ideas for improvements:

- Drawing a line from the planet to the cursor might help guide the eyes when targetting
- The controls were a bit difficult to get the hang of, although maybe that's intended? Releasing to fire then clicking again to detonate might be more familiar.
- I missed that you could guide the missile after launching until I read @jsmitq's comment. Drawing a line from missile to cursor might help with this too.

Also congrats on your first released game, nice work!

First released game? Well done! I was also kicking around a "Missile Command" idea for a bit. It's fun to see other folks go in a similar direction.
You made nice the use of the camera to get in and out of the game.

Also, I think our games used the same cool font :)

Lovely minimalist feel to it all. I also found that spamming close range was too effective, so some distant threat could be a nice addition to mix things up.

Fun game. Liked the minimalist graphics/presentation.

Took me a moment to figure out how to play it properly, noticed that blowing up the rockets close and not caring about the other planets at all was the best way to go.
Enjoyed playing the game, great job creating this in a jam!

I like the exploration of the space garbage, very current topic.

I really like the clean and simple design. In terms of gameplay it's a bit tricky to get the mechanics right on the first try (you have to predict a bit all the trajectories) but it feels great once you "master" all that.

Great job!

Really unique mechanic and the graphics were really good while remaining simple! I like that.
Wish there was some music.

Interesting mechanism but it took me a while to fully understand how to play. Maybe add some tips or tuto?

So the explosions of probably nuclear missiles are throwing a shadow on the planet. mmmmhhhh. Besides that, you did a really good job on designing the colors and look of the game. The rockets could be a bit more effective, i think.

Did not understand what to do at first, but later i understood. Pretty fun game

Cool concept, the artstyle is really good and the gameplay is unique, well done!

This game tells us so much... Take care for planet! Good work!

I like this style. A hot topic.

I love graphics like this because it proves that we don't have to be super talented artists to make something beautiful. The color choices and simple shapes made the game so clean, and the 2D shadows added an extra level to it, nice job!

First Ludum Dare and you went straight in for Compo? That's an impressive feat alone, and even better that you finished something so original like this.

It's awesome that you put a ton of audio cues in everywhere, but I would offer some critique on your choice of said audio clips. Especially the rocket explosion. It still worked in an abstract art kind of way, but I think I would have enjoyed the sound design more with something a little more in line with "explosion".

I like the abstract graphics. The way to shoot (click and release) feels a bit unintuitive. Also I expected a bold first letter to be like a hotkey or something. Good job on the compo!

Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for feedback! If you’d like to revisit the play and commentary you can view the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1448957655

We didn't need that sun anyway.

Interesting and thematic gameplay. The way the click-hold-release control worked was an interesting challenge, although I felt like in the end it pushed me to a kind of degenerate "always detonate in quick low-altitude bursts" strategy which was less fun. I wonder if click to commit a target and your bomb flies to that spot and detonates when it gets there would work out better?

Hi @jcg, thanks for inviting feedback! First of all, welcome to Ludum Dare and congrats on shipping!!

As you could have predicted, I really appreciate the lighting effects in your game :) The bloom-ey low-key visual style you put in is perfect. Ordinarily I like having a star field in a game like this, but here it would have been way too cluttery and confusing with trash, so going with light and shadow instead was a great choice. Gameplay-wise, it feels like the only winning move is to not generate trash, which given the name of the game, feels extremely consistent with the message you're trying to convey :) I like how you tease the other star and yep, turns out you can destroy it, but it generates a lot of trash at you, because of course it does, which all felt super good. Having played a bunch of Kerbal, I see you really polished the orbital mechanics, which mustn't have been easy to do in a compo! Ditto the way a bomb pushes the nearby trash into a different path which looks visually interesting and impacts gameplay. And the menus and such feel extra polished - love it!

Here are some thoughts I had about how you might improve your game. Take it all with a grain of salt because shipping anything approximating a polished game in 48 hours is already a lot!

- The ding dong sound effects actually drove my dog a little crazy thinking it was the doorbell :) That was clearly an intentional artistic choice so I can't presume to say any other approach would be better… all I can really say is it's not one I'd've chosen :)
- Some light music with classical instruments, a la 2001: A Space Odyssey, might further emphasize the vibe you're going for.
- Communication-wise, as the player, I never felt confident I was doing the correct things. Especially because I could only survive like at most like 30 seconds. I ended up watching @marcmagus's playthrough just to see if I was missing something, and it turns out I wasn't. I wonder if slowing down the game loop just a little bit (generating fewer trash particles, smaller/slower bombs, etc) would help the player feel like they're getting the complete game, with the added benefit of adding more planning and strategy to the game.
- Since you have precisely one in-game HUD element, I wonder if removing that health bar would be an improvement. Instead, is there a way to communicate "in the universe of the game" your health? The obvious ideas that come to mind are color/shape/texture of the planet, but maybe there's something else creative to do there.
- For me, toggling fullscreen during the gameplay froze the game and I had to refresh. Might be specific to Chrome and/or MacOS.

Finally… to reiterate, I left suggestions specifically because I promised you I would, but don’t let any of that diminish my actual feedback: I am very impressed. This is an extremely polished compo entry with a strong, carefully-curated identity. Great job!! I look forward to checking out your future games :)

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my stream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450143040?t=2h39m35s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

A very cool little game!

I really liked that your game wasn't complex, but deep, that's top game design!


So you just need one input - left click, but that left click makes for a rather complex gameplay, where part of it was figuring out how to do it - the secret imo is to quickly look for signs and find out where the next trash explosion will be and them aim where they will go - which left you equally desperate and excited, haha! (Maybe implement a few signs that when the player catches it he gets rewarded by mors acurately knowing where to shoot would be nice)

From a graphic design point of view this was really strong, I liked the minimalistic graphics together with the font - a clean, unobstrusive, pleasant look! Would work well for a mobile game I think

Good job on finishing your first gamejam :)