Out There

I love the effect when you go out of singal range. Had some trouble building with 'F' and collecting some ores. Love the movement too.

@oasiss Thanks! I literally just realized I uploaded the wrong build for the 1.0.1 bugfixes, the real one I just uploaded (like a minute ago) addresses the ore issue. Building is definitely still a bit jank though lol.

Didn't run super well in the browser. I had some trouble getting actions to work. But really cool idea. I like the effect of losing signal.
Well done mate!

@aj-atkinson ah dang, sorry to hear that. We're investigating the remaining bugs as I type this. Feel free to check back later, we'll hopefully have the worst of them resolved within an hour or so.

@oasiss @aj-atkinson Just uploaded a 1.0.2 build that should fix the placement of objects on the heightmap and has some WebGL performance fixes, if you're interested in checking it out again.

I love the setting, look and the effects! It worked in the browser perfectly. The mechanics were a little clumsy though and the camera movement too erratic.

@fadex thanks! Good to hear the WebGL build runs a bit better now. We did want to add some sort of gimbal to the camera but ran out of time and had to cut it. :sweat_smile:

Well-executed, encountered no issues playing in browser. Straightforward progression with the use of the stakes giving the player extended range

Wow, this was very cool! I did get a bit tired of the gameplay loop about halfway through my playthrough, as it was a bit tedious to constantly be driving back, and I wasn't sure how conservative I had to be with metal, so I probably didn't place bases as often as I might have been able to. I also really would have liked to have some indicator of how far the signal poles stretch, as I made some pretty big placement mistakes early on that felt brutal given the small amount of metal I had by that point.

That aside: the aesthetic in this game is wonderful. The hard-mounted camera works super well to give a real feel of driving a fly-by-wire rover, and I absolutely love the way you nailed the feeling that you're watching a screen in-game. The little things in the periphery of the main view that remind you you're looking at a monitor with a video feed, the pan over to the map, etc. work really well. The static effects are extremely high quality too - I loved that the music fades out and is replaced by static.

Wonderful atmosphere, and a fun ending. Thanks for the game, and nice work!

@norseone thanks! Glad it worked well!

@justinmullin That's a good suggestion about the indicator. Originally we wanted you to be able to move the relays so they wouldn't be quite so punishing but uh, ran out of time on that one. :upside_down: Thanks for the kind words about the aesthetic though, and thanks for playing!

i imagine this is the experience of controlling the mars rover at nasa

@camden-obertop this is a totally 100% accurate simulation :laughing:

Amazing work! The screenshots promised a mars rover exploration game and the game delivered it as expected. At first, I tried the browser version and thought the input delay was a cool detail until I realized this is just WebGL issues, whoops.

I felt more interested in driving around and finding cool places on the map rather than reaching the target, though, I got there in the end and enjoyed it. The radar map looked really cool but felt a bit pointless (except for being a compass) because of how zoomed-in it was.

I forgot about switching building types seconds after the tutorial and realized only at the end, though, I liked the loop of going forwards to search and going back to find optimized paths. Also, I think it would've been nice to have an indicator that the antennas will connect.

Cool rover adventure game!

@marks huh, didn't realize some people would have input delay on webgl, but I suppose there would be some if this was really on Mars lol. Glad you were able to still experience it as intended though. Thanks for playing!

I like how you picked a mechanic and polished it through! The way you can only place antennas in direct sight to each other, the way the terrain impacts your signal strength and everything. I really like this short adventure :smiley:

I have one nit-pick though: I lost signal a lot because I tried to maximize my antenna placement and I would have liked the indicator of 'can the antenna connect if placed here' actually show the value for where the antenna will be placed and not the position of the car :sweat_smile:

@bumble thanks, and yeah, that would definitely make placement a bit easier. Glad you enjoyed it regardless!

Really cool game! Loved the aesthetic and shaders, the monitors were cool. Nice topographical map. I made it to the end! Makes me want to know what else is out there... could be cool to see more mars rover activities if you ever worked on it more : D collect samples with the 6DOF arm + drill, use your xray/surface radar, etc... throw in some spooky ancient civilization stuff or something... hah

It did take me a slightly embarrasingly long amount of time to figure out what was actually ore at the very start lol. And I agree with other folks, a little indication of if your next repeater node would connect would be awesome. Really great work!

@picross Thanks, glad you liked it and managed to make it to the end! :smiley: Was hoping the glow effect would make the ore obvious, but uh... I guess not lol. Thanks for playing though!

Love the vibe, and driving around. The graphics are great too.

@eloc Appreciate it! Thanks for playing!

the camera being so shaky was a great immersion but just made movement really hard to focus with.

@ljol3 Hope it wasn't too distracting. I mentioned it in a previous comment but we originally wanted to add some kind of gimbal to the camera but ran out of time to add it. Oh well. :upside_down:

Thanks for playing regardless!

I really liked the camera effect. As I kept playing, I got used to it, but at the beginning it gave me this physics-like feeling, as if the camera was hanging from a flexible antenna on the rover, which I thought was pretty cool.

I do think it would have been nice to have an option to reset the rover if you lose the signal, instead of having to restart the whole game. I lost the signal suddenly when I was only about 200 meters away, and having to start over was a bit frustrating. That said, I understand that time constraints during a game jam can make it hard to implement everything.

Overall, everything else works well. I think it approaches the theme in an interesting way and it was an enjoyable experience.

Congratulations! :blue_car:

@hagamosvideojuegos yeah, restarting is a bit punishing, glad you were able to enjoy the rest of it though! Thanks for playing!

Very fun. Great graphics and cool interpretation of the theme.

@ty1rl Thanks for playing! Glad you liked the graphics/theme too. :smiley:

The screen distortion camera affect was amazing, and driving around and exploring was really fun! Getting back to base was a bit annoying once I got farther out, but overall I really enjoyed this!

@artur-hawkwing Thanks! I'm guessing you missed that you could place new bases (using left/right to change what object to build) instead of always going back to the first one though. :sweat_smile: Glad you enjoyed it regardless!

Very nice idea. Camera vibrates a bit too harshly sometimes, but in general good mechanics and cool vibe.

@venomousmouse sorry about the camera motion, but thanks for playing!