Voidrunner

co-authored: @cresceda, @sam-minh
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.70
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.65
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.30
Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.99
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.10
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.62
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.65

BEYOND ENEMY LINES


SolarBeam.png

Key Features


- 🚀 Physics-based space combat: It's all about momentum. Orbit around enemies, lead your shots. Stay on the move to avoid fire.
- 💥 Destructible terrain: Asteroids crumble, ships turn into wreckage. The terrain works as cover... for a time.
- 🛡 Projectile piercing: Shots can pierce through objects, slowing them down. Projectiles inherit your ship's velocity: go faster and do more damage.
- 🏹 Every shot counts: Your targets aren't sitting still. Aim your shots carefully, and keep moving to avoid the return fire while you reload.
- 🏁 7 levels: Different challenges, from swarms of interceptors to long range rail cannons, presented roughly in order of difficulty.
- 🛩 3 unique loadouts: Choose what weapons to bring to the mission. Do you prefer sustained fire, or can you handle the destructive power of the _Solar Obliterator_?

How to Play


Mouse and keyboard required.

- Move the mouse to turn your ship.
- W/A/S/D to move.
- Hold left mouse to charge and fire your primary weapon.
- Right click to fire your secondary weapons.
- Left Shift to boost forward.

Credits


- Sam Minh Ly: System design, level design, balancing, audio
- Mika Molenkamp: Programming, UI, audio
- Jorrit Neslo: Environment art, UI art, visual effects, shader magic

Font is 'Ethnocentric' by Typodermic Fonts, 'Abel' by MADType, licensed under SIL Open Font License. Sounds from freesounds.org. Music is iX by cinameng, and Fate of the Irrbloss OST by xCirrex. Uses the Off-Screen Indicator package by Pixel Play Studios.

Changelog



We made a few post-jam tweaks:

- Improved targeting reticles and enemy markers.
- Minor visual, balancing and level layout tweaks.

(If you'd like to play the jam version without these tweaks, you can download the old version here.)

screen2.png

GOOD LUCK, PILOT


_(No web build this time, sorry! We found out at the very last minute that WebGL doesn't support Unity VFX Graph... sad times.)_

Comments33

Aashen
Aashen8 Apr 2025, 19:24
Amazing game, i was suprised by the amount of stuff that you managed to put into the game despite the time frame, great work!
DevilXrom
DevilXrom8 Apr 2025, 21:02
Hey there! Cool game — I’m really into it
Lucas Verardino
Lucas Verardino8 Apr 2025, 23:45
great game! it's incredible being able to put this amount of content in so little time! Great submission!
jetaimais
jetaimais9 Apr 2025, 14:45
That’s such a cool game! Can’t believe you managed to build such amazing and complex mechanics in such a short time!
MilkiWay9 Apr 2025, 21:47
Nicve VFX. I would make the controls more sensitive. Overall the game is good, it can be turned into something more
Wolfier
Wolfier10 Apr 2025, 01:17
The controls were messing with my head, I'm used to these types of games using tank controls rather then w always being up.
PopDaddyGames
PopDaddyGames10 Apr 2025, 04:48
Wow. Did you really pull all this off in just this weekend?

This is superb gameplay, very tight controls, and wonderful overall artstyle and aesthetic! Im surprised how fun it is to play!

Would you go back and change anything now that you've seen the outcome from the weekend's work?
Baldurs
Baldurs10 Apr 2025, 04:56
The effects go hard.
stormouse_indie
stormouse_indie10 Apr 2025, 05:03
This is really fun. I love the handling of the ship, mostly from the inertia. I think I'll keep playing it.

Tiny complaints:

- In some levels the playable area is a bit tight, would love a visual hint on the boundaries.
- Keep being shot at by out-of-sight enemy ships is a bit annoying. I don't feel I have enough time to dodge when the projectiles already entered my viewport.
BinarySpark
BinarySparkauthor11 Apr 2025, 19:02
@popdaddygames Yep! I'm planning to make a timelapse sometime soon (I always record the whole thing), but have a few IRL things to deal with so it takes time. What would I want to change? One big feature that we wanted to add but simply didn't have time for, was swappable loadouts. You know, the whole shebang with unlocking/finding weapons/other modules, slotting them into your ship, maybe applying mods. That would be cool. There's also some work to be done in general with onboarding/tutorialization, that's almost never something you have time for in jams.

Glad you liked the game! And thanks everyone for all the kind comments!
PopDaddyGames
PopDaddyGames11 Apr 2025, 22:29
@binaryspark i would love swappable loadouts!

yes please keep working on it, if you have it in you-- I'd love to see a full formal release even if its just a tiny game!
DrSmey
DrSmey11 Apr 2025, 22:33
Love this game, played all the missions. Starburster is the best, and it was so fun to try to snipe mission targets from way out of sight.

There is nothing bad I can say about this game, it was just a blast to play.
Tenzz
Tenzz13 Apr 2025, 12:21
Really solid game, I had a good time playing it
floppynub
floppynub13 Apr 2025, 13:19
Cool game, impressive VFX work for sure! A good amount of content and polish for a jam, very competently put together. I'm not too sure that it really follows the theme very much, but I could be missing something - going deeper and deeper behind enemy lines perhaps?

On the topic of controls, I think the general flight model for this is awesome. I also think the way you have it set up is really smart, where your directional inputs will always take you in the direction you are pressing, regardless of the orientation of your ship. That is definitely going to make this more accessible to a lot of people.

That said, I play a loooot of space games, and my brain defaults to inputting relative to my ships orientation. So while playing this game I'd see my ship is pointed to the left, press W to accelerate in that direction, but end up going up instead. Like I said, I do get why it works this way, and I think you have the correct default controls, but I would love an option to swap between that and a mode that does not take ship orientation into account! I crave ultimate control :P Hopefully that made sense.

Either way, cool game, great work, congrats on a successful jam!
Tayho13 Apr 2025, 13:21
Very nice game, just ship is pretty hard to control at the begining. The Graphics specially FXs are very nice. SFX and music are on point. Very well done
LDJam user 383241
LDJam user 38324113 Apr 2025, 16:14
This is one of those gems of a game from Ludum Dare that really just makes you feel hope for the gaming industry. The fact you all accomplished this in 3 days is astoundingly cool. Well done!
rainbeau
rainbeau13 Apr 2025, 16:14
This is one of those gems of a game from Ludum Dare that really just makes you feel hope for the gaming industry. The fact you all accomplished this in 3 days is astoundingly cool. Well done!
Ssebaaa13 Apr 2025, 16:50
nice game! i found it pretty har on the final levels but i loved it!!
someone
someone13 Apr 2025, 16:57
That was awesome. The gameplay was really smooth and the weapons felt weighty.
I had an issue at the start where my ship was spinning around and pointing in arbitrary directions, turned out it was because I had a controller plugged in.
I like how the charge bars are displayed on the ship itself, though I felt it would have been nice to have that on the reticle too.
I also suggest something so show which levels you have completed in the menu.
Great job. I really enjoyed playing this one.
Volkolak
Volkolak13 Apr 2025, 19:46
At first I was a bit confused with the controls, then I got used to it. It's cool that you managed to make such a variety of weapons, the game looks impressive! I don't quite understand the development of the topic, except that space itself is a deep thing...
LDJam user 395766
LDJam user 39576613 Apr 2025, 19:58
Incredible spaceship and weapons, maybe a bit hard to move (i played the jam version), i loved to try all the mission even if i died prety easly XD, nice game !
Leykal
Leykal13 Apr 2025, 19:58
Incredible spaceship and weapons, maybe a bit hard to move (i played the jam version), i loved to try all the mission even if i died prety easly XD, nice game !
SequoiaSan13 Apr 2025, 20:02
Truly amazing! Visuals, VFX, sound - all super. Gameplay very responsive, intuitive and fun to play. Thank you!
Also good design of the ships :)
LDJam user 383510
LDJam user 38351013 Apr 2025, 20:09
nice stuff, although movement is a bit unintuitive
kukaracila215
kukaracila21513 Apr 2025, 20:09
nice stuff, although movement is a bit unintuitive
LDJam user 321333
LDJam user 32133313 Apr 2025, 20:30
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I had no issue at all with the controls, so if you do change them, perhaps keep both versions as options.

This wasn't the type of game I expected going in--top down instead of first or third person, so more arcadey but because of the momentum-based movement it felt tactical too. Honestly reminded me of something from Ender's Game, if you're familiar, and as others have said, has an impressive amount of content and polish for a jam game. Well done!
oter
oter13 Apr 2025, 20:30
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I had no issue at all with the controls, so if you do change them, perhaps keep both versions as options.

This wasn't the type of game I expected going in--top down instead of first or third person, so more arcadey but because of the momentum-based movement it felt tactical too. Honestly reminded me of something from Ender's Game, if you're familiar, and as others have said, has an impressive amount of content and polish for a jam game. Well done!
K48UTO
K48UTO13 Apr 2025, 21:35
nice graphics and atmosphere. but i didn't like the controls and shooting, i couldn't get over it. too unresponsive controls.
ryusui
ryusui13 Apr 2025, 23:56
Spectacularly good-looking for a Jam entry - no idea how you got all those little animations working in such a short amount of time. My one big gripe with the controls is that the charge shot fires the moment it's fully charged, not when you release the mouse button (as is *usually* the case with "charge shot"-type weapons like the Mega Buster from the Megaman series) - a last-second bullet can throw off your aim and render your shot useless. This might lend verisimilitude to the space combat, but in practice it just makes your primary weapon much more finicky to use than it ought to be.
paulhocker
paulhocker14 Apr 2025, 03:10
really well polished looking game but i really feel like the controls needed some work -- it was way to hard to move around which made it a little frustrating and not fun at times -- in all a really great effort and i can see a lot of work went into it -- nice game
She Wrote
She Wrote15 Apr 2025, 16:30
It’s a game that’s tricky at first, but it gets more and more fun as you get used to it. The graphics are phenomenal, though they don’t differ much from other space games. There’s a lot of potential here, but what’s already there is quite fun. Well done!
PretendCoding15 Apr 2025, 22:25
This is super fun! Not only were there multiple ships to choose from, but the enemy variety was there too.
Fireye
Fireye23 Apr 2025, 02:33
Incredible stuff! Loved to see the how well tuned the movement was. Really well thought out stuff! Perhaps the big ship's shots should be a little easier to see coming and dodge, and you might want to consider a high entity framework, as the lag spikes when a bunch of bullets came in were pretty crazy. Still that was pretty irregular and the game as a whole was great.

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