Ludum Dare #50compo
Three Body
As gravity pulls the three bodies close, destruction is inevitable. Try to weave between the two celestial bodies that are hurtling towards you to score points and delay the inevitable.
Training video
Devnotes:
I spent wayyy too much time trying to figure out how to train a Unity ML agent to play against players as a 4th body. Unfortunately, training did not go so well haha :sweat_smile:Training video
Tools: Unity
Comments10
William Corrin4 Apr 2022, 05:14
You have a really interesting take on the theme here, using a 3 body system knowing that collisions will inevitably occur. I also think that the execution was really well done!
A few things I noticed when playing:
1. There is no indicator at the beginning telling you which planet you are in control of (not a huge deal, play once and you learn)
2. The execution was done really well, but there isn't really a ton to do. I see that you were experimenting with ML Agents, which probably explains the lack of other types of content in the game. If I were you I would have added maybe an easy and a hard mode, where there are 2 and 4 bodies respectively.
3. Going off point above, I don't really love the scoring system. I almost think that if you had changed it from points-based to instead "survive for x seconds", you could have added the leveling system from easy-medium-hard-xhard, and so on, so that there is more of a reason to continue playing the game after a minute or two.
4. Lastly - no sound!! I was sad because I think a soundtrack and some sci-fi synthy SFX could have brought up the polish on this project by a lot.
All in all, I think you have a really great concept here, and its also a really innovative take on the theme (which I know I, and a lot of other people, struggled with a lot). The foundation is 100% there, but I think it needs a fairly hefty boost in content and maybe a slight adjustment to the win conditions to bring it up to that next level.
Cheers mate!
A few things I noticed when playing:
1. There is no indicator at the beginning telling you which planet you are in control of (not a huge deal, play once and you learn)
2. The execution was done really well, but there isn't really a ton to do. I see that you were experimenting with ML Agents, which probably explains the lack of other types of content in the game. If I were you I would have added maybe an easy and a hard mode, where there are 2 and 4 bodies respectively.
3. Going off point above, I don't really love the scoring system. I almost think that if you had changed it from points-based to instead "survive for x seconds", you could have added the leveling system from easy-medium-hard-xhard, and so on, so that there is more of a reason to continue playing the game after a minute or two.
4. Lastly - no sound!! I was sad because I think a soundtrack and some sci-fi synthy SFX could have brought up the polish on this project by a lot.
All in all, I think you have a really great concept here, and its also a really innovative take on the theme (which I know I, and a lot of other people, struggled with a lot). The foundation is 100% there, but I think it needs a fairly hefty boost in content and maybe a slight adjustment to the win conditions to bring it up to that next level.
Cheers mate!
Delightfullymad4 Apr 2022, 06:57
Love these kind of games because yo ucan just stare at it for ages. Very pretty, good work!
pdotjpg4 Apr 2022, 10:09
Interesting take on the theme. Looks very cool, it's a shame there isn't some spacy music to go along with it.
Disagree with the person who didn't like the scoring system. I think it's clever, forces you into risk-taking. Otherwise it's easy to just go around in big loops forever. The scoring forces you to engage in the interesting dance.
Don't know anything about ML, but it's cool to see someone explore that in LD. Interesting video.
Disagree with the person who didn't like the scoring system. I think it's clever, forces you into risk-taking. Otherwise it's easy to just go around in big loops forever. The scoring forces you to engage in the interesting dance.
Don't know anything about ML, but it's cool to see someone explore that in LD. Interesting video.
jyumonji4 Apr 2022, 12:01
Interesting! I think it's always a good idea to use a simple system, just like this game.
Lawrence4 Apr 2022, 17:12
Pretty, simple and fun!
Jupiter_Hadley5 Apr 2022, 11:24
Quite beautiful game! I included it in my Ludum Dare compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/hRXrVepHVBk
velvetlobster6 Apr 2022, 17:06
so therapeutic, I could watch the movement of these particles forever, I used to spend long hours playing planet crasher just to see the gravity simulation. This maybe could become a sandbox type of experience where you could experiment with different physics settings.
Daniel Mak12 Apr 2022, 04:51
It really is an elegant and simple system for this theme. I do think the improvement that has the biggest impact is to add audio (background, collision, even when the balls are speeding next to you).
Avi13 Apr 2022, 11:58
Thanks all! @william-corrin , @pdotjpg and @daniel-mak I actually cant hear too well -- hence lack of audio :) maybe i should add some visual SFX haha
(Currently, ML agents are not in use in the deployed game because I was unable to train the agent well enough)