Houston, We've Got a Problem by MrBadIvan
This is a space exploration manager.
And we are Houston, hi :)
What do astronauts usually find when they arrive on a different planet? Hardships.
Yes, in our game astronauts die: often. In different ways. Gracefully.
However, in process they collect precious scientific data, which we will then use to prepare for new expeditions.
Every expedition is a unique story about surviving in a deadly environment.
Now after each mission you can follow the expedition diary with every event about astronauts' lifetime recorded. All the results are a real match by game's mechanics of your expedition set up and dangers they face day after day.
You need to figure out what led them to death, and make a better set up for the following expedition.
This is a Ludum Dare theme game - you follow the gameplay on the Houston centre screen as the expedition operator.
---------------
How much scientific data will you acquire?
First, you should choose up to 8 modules for your ship.
- Use drag and drop to set them up
- You can zoom the planet screen using the mouse wheel.
- Scroll log by mouse drag (sometimes the wheel doesn't works properly)
In this version the top achievable lifetime is 730 days.
And the key metric is the amount of scientific data collected (more scientists means more data per day)
---------
This is all we have created so far in just 3 days of jam.
What we are planning to achieve:
- everything you read in the expedition diary will be respresented visially on the planet screen using animation
- "Houston, We've got a problem" events - you should tell astronauts which scenario they should follow to solve such issues as: 1) figuring out who is the cannibal-psycho; 2) defeating the monster that turns your astronauts into zombies. And like this - additional quest, detective, managerial elements
- a variety of planets
- more events and dangers
- research system and technological development
and much more, you know
And we are Houston, hi :)
What do astronauts usually find when they arrive on a different planet? Hardships.
Yes, in our game astronauts die: often. In different ways. Gracefully.
However, in process they collect precious scientific data, which we will then use to prepare for new expeditions.
Every expedition is a unique story about surviving in a deadly environment.
Now after each mission you can follow the expedition diary with every event about astronauts' lifetime recorded. All the results are a real match by game's mechanics of your expedition set up and dangers they face day after day.
You need to figure out what led them to death, and make a better set up for the following expedition.
This is a Ludum Dare theme game - you follow the gameplay on the Houston centre screen as the expedition operator.
---------------
How much scientific data will you acquire?
First, you should choose up to 8 modules for your ship.
- Use drag and drop to set them up
- You can zoom the planet screen using the mouse wheel.
- Scroll log by mouse drag (sometimes the wheel doesn't works properly)
In this version the top achievable lifetime is 730 days.
And the key metric is the amount of scientific data collected (more scientists means more data per day)
---------
This is all we have created so far in just 3 days of jam.
What we are planning to achieve:
- everything you read in the expedition diary will be respresented visially on the planet screen using animation
- "Houston, We've got a problem" events - you should tell astronauts which scenario they should follow to solve such issues as: 1) figuring out who is the cannibal-psycho; 2) defeating the monster that turns your astronauts into zombies. And like this - additional quest, detective, managerial elements
- a variety of planets
- more events and dangers
- research system and technological development
and much more, you know
| Web - please, check first screenshot above before play! It is quick and nice tutorial=) | http://sites.google.com/site/houstonproblemgame/ |
| Windows | http://drive.google.com/file/d/0B37f3gRwX-z_WDhNbl93VHk0UEk/view?usp=sharing |
| OS/X | http://drive.google.com/file/d/0B37f3gRwX-z_Z0FnWFJHTUc4ZVU/view?usp=sharing |
| Check our Steam Concepts Page - we are working on the full game now | http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=361635217 |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=44988 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.41 | 326 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.42 | 199 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.05 | 496 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 3.87 | 207 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.92 | 336 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.71 | 128 |
| Mood(Jam) | 3.40 | 252 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.14 | 822 |
In this version top achievable lifetime is 730 days.
And key metric is amount of scientific data collected (more scientist more data per day).
Also, seeing results on a separate screen is kinda... absolutely unnnecessary. It would've been funnier AND more true to the theme to see text immediately.
Done!=)
"more true to the theme to see text immediately."
We wanted so hard to show entire log Visually, animated, but we failed to do it in time =/
Too bad there isn't much to do beyond that though.
Nice effort.
Thanks.
Graphics and sound are awesome, good job!
Yes, further we will make that your colony may survive and prospere and this will be like you completed one planet.
LimeniusTeam - "I couldn't scroll to the last lines of the log, though, so I don't know the ultimate fate of my settlers."
Aaaaand they died =))) Try to drag logs by mouse - this will help you to scroll up to the end (yeah, we will fix this further)
Gungir - "Too bad there isn't much to do beyond that though. "
Yes, we just missed to make anything else in time of jam =/ But we looking up to make it later =)
Thank you very much!=)
Great graphics, music and story.
A few bugs here and there but a solid entry, Good Job!
There's no learning or meaningful decisions... I hope that you guys can figure out a way for a player to understand and learn from the experience to see how to improve future expeditions. Then it'll be a game!
Again, great premise and amazing graphics. But needs improvement as a game!
Yeah, we worked on such feedback systems, but failed to do it in time.
So I hope to help with this by text description at the topic.
And after your comment I added little bit more details:
"- red label - soldiers, they defend your base from local lifeforms (other people are most likely will be eaten without them)
- blue label - engineers, they installing your base systems and tools (each building take 10 engineer days to be installed; without it - farms will not produce food, armory will not provide ammo to soldiers (bare hands is not our friends in face of local guy named OhMyHeckinBud!), labs will not increase speed of research.
- green label - workers, they produce food (each colonist consume 1 ration per day, each farm produce 8 rations per day, if there are still workers alive).
- white label - scientists, they explore planet and get a scientific data for you - the ultimate goal of the expedition.
- yellow label - silo with food supply (initial and newproduced). Without it first days your people will starve and further you will not be able to store food."
I like the idea behind it, but I'm not sure what the end goal is? Maybe there isnt one given the amount of time you had to work on it.
Pretty polished though and funny.
Well made!
"but i don't think it made a difference"
Yeah, it will make difference in future version soon - predators will appear from different sides. But we cannot change it in build for LD of course =/
"I could not find the info in game what each color does"
We failed to include interface info in game in time of Jam =(((
So we made description in second game screenshot.
Also the planet view is kinda pointless, because everything happens in the log anyway?
A little hard to figure out how to better survive but it's a fun idea. I like mood. Well done ++
Спасибо!=)) Да, на ГеймсДжаме делали изначально на русском, а потом специально для LD перевели.
Thank you!=)
Anyways this is something I'd like to see further developed!
The idea is awesome, keep going! :)
Great game! I love it!
By the way, why wouldn't you make port for Linux? Remember that you are using Unity...
The graphics are really great, and the game looks very polished.
Chaoseed - in fact there are limit in 8 modules max=)
Edve98 - yeah, definitely you overtakes second place=)
I'll make linux build soon, sorry=)
Thank you guys for a very warm feedback! We love you)
A couple of points:
-I'm not sure what the scrolling did on the planet, except for allowing to scroll out and see the broken landscape
-The tutorial is only somewhat confusing
It's pretty cool to see the different outcomes based on the combinations of tubes! The soviet tubes are kinda funny.
Chaoseed - in fact there are limit in 8 modules max=)
Edve98 - yeah, definitely you overtakes second place=)
I'll make linux build soon, sorry=)
Thank you guys for a very warm feedback! We love you)
I made it to 713/8085 :)
If you'd make the gameplay on the planet interactive, you'd have a great post LD game I think.
I've encountered two bug you might already be aware of: On the planet, I could zoom out as far as I wanted using the mouse wheel. Scrolling through the result log using the touch pad of a mac book is hard. It almost always snaps back to the top.
But within the short time frame you had to work with, bugs are to be expected :)
Fun 4/5: It's fun, but a bit repetitive.
Theme 5/5; Great use of the theme!!!
Graphics 5/5: Great graphics!!!
Audio 4/5: So relaxing music!
Humor 3/5: The title is so funny, and for sadists it's fun how people dies.
Mood 5/5: I felt fatastic while playing!
Overall 5/5: Great game! I've survived 713 days!
expedition No.10
Looking forward to seeing this developed further!
I really like the graphic style and the deep mood that the log leaves! I reached day 713 a few times, it's the last day isn't it? :D
The music is perfect!
Well done!
Apart from that though this is a great looking game, audio is great too. Like you say in your description, it would be much better if events played out on the planet not in a message log (but keep the message log for reference).
But there is a nice start of something good :)
And with scroll - sorry for this=/ You may scroll to the end of log by draggin text with mouse, though.
But I like the art style and presentation.
Satisfying feedback when adding the modules.
In future versions, soon, my friend=)
Actions in the second phase would be cool (even simple text-box with choices - see hexadecima's game "1492" from the last LD, for example...)
The graphics are nice, the music is a bit annoying but fits the game. The gameplay needs some work. More configuration options perhaps, like defining a colony structure or plan of some sort, or some way to control the crew.
Nice game. Has potential, but needs some work there. Btw, my score was 713 days, 15365 data ;) http://i.imgur.com/CPokPGV.png
Overall the main issue is that there's such a lack of agency since you're just reading what happens and it appears to be quite random (whereas most of these games tend to have fixed outcomes). For example, one time I had 3 Defender guys.. I posted one on each end of the ship and one in the middle (in case positioning matters) and the first event to happen was a predator eating a worker. What can I do except roll the dice again?
The theming, graphics and sound are great and it's very dark in theme, which is great :) I made a similar game last year called Outdoor. Right up my alley. Can't wait to play the updated version!
Very solid!
The hardest part is figuring out how stuff works, then to come up with a spacecraft.
Because testing is mostly a hit in your face. You have to put in a lot of effort in order to become good, and that's not for everyone because for some is reading text not enough satisfication(don't know how to spell that).
The theme & mood feels really dark, mostly because of the text and music.
"{name} died of hunger."
Implementation of theme is unique, but it feels like it's not build around the theme. Very innovative thought.
Great work.
Would be nice to see what's actually happening on the screen.
I like the "search for the best combination" part of the game, especially since you posted a leaderboard in one of your posts, it'd be awesome if that was integrated in the game.
also instructions could've been put in the game, instead of a separate screenshot =).
Good job!
I dont think there is a real game play elements to this game, it let you experiment a little and thats it, and while the log was pretty cool; you dont actually get to know the people or see the results.
if you can make something around the idea with more meaningful choices and longer time playing; I can see how endless the possibilities are for this game, it could be really fun, or really big.
as I said it is really an interesting idea. I liked how the elements interacted with each other.
Really nice game. Cool graphics and background sounds. Gameplay wasn't what I expected from screenshots but I enjoyed it a lot. It's good concept but need... something. I don't know what exactly. Maybe it's a matter of randomness - when I found cool combination I was only rolling dices looking for better outcome (which didn't come). Maybe it's a matter of mechanics which could be more "open" - maybe less log observing and more observing of these landing animations? I don't know, but you did good job :)
Can't wait to see how engineers are buding stuff and predators are creeping to base (in future versions) =)
Some more controll over mission would also be cool. Maybe sone indirect control or something. The interface (like oone on the screenshot) is also a must-do thing!
There are one Houston wall screen, which shows us broadcasting from another planet =)
While I didn't really understand the point of the planet-screen (it is just a bunch of people running left and right...) the story that is generated is pretty nice. Some color codes highliting the usefull information would have been nice though, since it quickly becomes repetitive to read...
The screenshot however is NOT a nice a quick tutorial: even if it's indeed nicely structured and contains everything you need to know ... It just overwhelms the new players with a lot informations. The goal is clearly stated but statements like "but it requires [...] to work" are legion, and until I actually play the game I have no idea what you are talking about.
A better approach would be to take the player by the hand during his first playthrough and slowly introduce each component... or to just display those informations in the ship-building stage
overall, really good job with that one: it's one of the few games that I could see extended in a full release.