LudumData

Last Ark by Nuclear Napalm

[raw]
made by Nuclear Napalm for LD31 (COMPO)
Roguelike survival about artificial life in deep space after the end of the Earth.

:::HOW TO PLAY:::

This is a point & click game.
You manage oxygen consumption, energy, health and resources. Your goal is to find a planet suitable for living. When you have landed at the planet - the game is over. So choose wisely. Check planets info to figure out if it's good or not. The far you travel, the higher chance to find an appropriate planet.

Short explanation for planet info:
R - chance to find resources
O - chance to find oxygen
S - chance to survive on this planet

The game has 5 different endings.

:::FOLLOW ME:::

http://nuclearnapalm.com/
https://twitter.com/NuclearNapalm
https://www.facebook.com/nuclearnapalm
https://plus.google.com/+Nuclearnapalmofficial
Web (GameJolt) http://gamejolt.com/games/strategy-sim/last-ark/41082/
Web (NewGrounds) http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/650138
Dev-blog http://nuclearnapalm.com/
Twitter https://twitter.com/NuclearNapalm
Source http://nuclearnapalm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Scripts.rar
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=38866

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.72 113
Audio 3.33 197
Fun 3.33 330
Graphics 3.78 166
Humor 2.56 500
Innovation 3.48 313
Mood 3.69 72
Theme 3.78 330

Feedback

Winterblood
08. Dec 2014 路 03:33 UTC
Nice, enjoyed playing it! Not sure about the O2 ticking down even while you're just perusing the very small planet descriptions, think it would work better if it was tied to distance travelled. Also would be nice if there were more options within a sector - feels a bit dependent on luck ATM.
DevWouter
08. Dec 2014 路 03:49 UTC
Didn't rate, the page keeps reloading the ads (which I hate anyway). Too bad because it looks like a gem
tyty5949
08. Dec 2014 路 03:49 UTC
I liked the game. I'm not really a strategy gamer but still i just really enjoyed it. The sounds created a nice atmosphere and the graphics added to it. The game play was a little confusing to me but I'm sure if I had spent more time reading things it would make a lot more sense. Really good job!
sharp911
08. Dec 2014 路 03:53 UTC
I like it.
馃帳 Nuclear Napalm
08. Dec 2014 路 03:55 UTC
@Winterblood yeah, I didn't have enough time working on balance and difficulty curve. Right now there a lot of random.

@tyty5949 unfortunately, I didn't implement proper tutorial, so game a bit hard at the beginning and you really need to read info about objects and stuff.

@DevWouter I have no idea now to fix it. I test it on Win & Mac with adblock enabled and disabled and didnt encounter this issue. Try to use different browser or adblock plugin.
BaneStar007
08. Dec 2014 路 03:59 UTC
I Like it, matches the theme, cool idea. I think visited planets should show a different colour, stop me from visiting the same planets over and over..
karlipoppins
08. Dec 2014 路 04:10 UTC
Great entry. I love the atmosphere of the game. Made me think a bit of FTL. Didn't have much luck with the planets I visited, but I'll give it another spin.
OccamsRazor
08. Dec 2014 路 04:21 UTC
Excellent entry! I really like the mood, the music and style are perfectly suited I think. Very compelling.

I guess my only grip is a common concern, things can be a little unclear. Burned a lot of time trying to figure things out, but its understandable given the time constraints.
ENDESGA
08. Dec 2014 路 04:23 UTC
Wow, this is an interesting game! I like it :D
stephenhaney
08. Dec 2014 路 04:33 UTC
Very strong - I really enjoyed my time with Last Ark. I think I actually won? It said symbiotes are gone, and humans survived on the new planet? Either way, I found it very endearing.

One other thought - the beep boop boop beep beep sound is hilarious, but after a while could use some randomness or variation.

Overall a great entry!
MrSun
08. Dec 2014 路 04:45 UTC
Great theme! I like how you created an entire story for the game. The gameplay seems like it could be really deep with some additional tuning
Wezley
08. Dec 2014 路 04:50 UTC
Well done, nice job!
daviosmash
08. Dec 2014 路 05:45 UTC
A little hard to get into but a very solid game, love the style. The description made me laugh, as well. "Roguelike survival about artificial life in deep space after the end of the Earth." Haha.
JohnGalt
08. Dec 2014 路 05:48 UTC
Delicious!
馃帳 Nuclear Napalm
08. Dec 2014 路 05:49 UTC
@daviosmash yeah, I forgot to mention snowman ;)

@stephenhaney there are several endings. Also, there 6 beeps which playing randomly :)

@MeSun Thanks!
Broivula
08. Dec 2014 路 05:50 UTC
Holy shit this was awesome! It actually felt like a real game! A bit hard at first to understand what to do and so on, but you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly. I never managed to land on a planet tho, which makes me kinda sad.
5you
08. Dec 2014 路 05:53 UTC
Awesome ! you can sacrifice the embryos !!
tonypai
08. Dec 2014 路 06:18 UTC
I want to save every baby in the ship, is that possible? The resources requirement made me to do some tough choice, it's sad. Anyway, this game is good and nice graphic style. :D
馃帳 Nuclear Napalm
08. Dec 2014 路 06:31 UTC
@tonypai yes, it is possible, but depends on luck.
stevehb
08. Dec 2014 路 06:43 UTC
Really nice. Great atmosphere. Reminds me of FTL and 'Out There'. Love that the ship is the 'Snowman'.
spacedoubt
08. Dec 2014 路 07:01 UTC
I enjoyed that very much! Great story. Cool graphics. Nice sound. Just good all around. Great work! Also appreciated the name of the ship. :)
Maurogik
08. Dec 2014 路 07:48 UTC
Great game, even if it's really hard :D .
theholychicken
08. Dec 2014 路 08:08 UTC
Loving it!
I'm trying to play for all upgrades now but that seem to be insanely difficult without sacrificing embryos. I was forced to land again when the the o2 and energy both got too low.
Definitely reminds me of FTL as well!
lisac
08. Dec 2014 路 09:33 UTC
Excellent! :)
KedumeBits
08. Dec 2014 路 09:43 UTC
Nice, but dificult. It reminded me FTL, witch is not a bad thing :-)
indigofiz
08. Dec 2014 路 09:53 UTC
Neat game! I think you should exclude visited planets from destination though, it tricks me sometimes because the planet name isn't that easy to remember. Good job! :D
Groydis
08. Dec 2014 路 10:54 UTC
Excellent game, I really enjoy the fluid mechanics of the game and despite the system seeing complex it is incredibly easy to pick up and understand. Great Job
GreenyUk
08. Dec 2014 路 11:18 UTC
Great job, very polished for an LD entry. Story was awesome, music, graphics; A fast forward button would be good to speed up journeying, but great job. I think is the game i played the longest so far.
dannyhodge
08. Dec 2014 路 11:51 UTC
Calling it "The snowman" was a nice touch. Really enjoyed this, makes all the right throwbacks to FTL.
Jupitron
08. Dec 2014 路 13:30 UTC
Nuclear Napalm logo is awesome!
Didnt find a "resources" indicator.
Excellent game, really well crafted.
Franklin's Ghost
08. Dec 2014 路 13:32 UTC
The depth of play is great. Liked the look of the character and the colours you've used.
RyanNielson
08. Dec 2014 路 13:44 UTC
Great game, super interesting strategy mechanics with lots of depth, but they're also very simple. It also looks fantastic. Great use of the theme as well, there's a great about of planets to explore, but being set entirely in the ship is a fantastic idea to work within the single screen constraing. Overall, fantastic effort.
MaesK
08. Dec 2014 路 14:13 UTC
Nice game. I would not survive a lot at space, I think :D
paps
08. Dec 2014 路 14:35 UTC
Like the game but I think it should have been another way to get oxygen. like the story too, the music fit it well
Nice touch on the beep boop boop, reminds me of the old scifi movies
sirival
08. Dec 2014 路 15:13 UTC
Nice concept and implementation. I spent the most time on this game so far! Good job
wer2chosen
08. Dec 2014 路 15:20 UTC
It was not worth the 30 second wait, needed a little more info to see why I want to keep playing. It was kind of like a paled down FTL, but not as fun IMO.
ViliX64
08. Dec 2014 路 15:27 UTC
VERY nice style :)
Shampop
08. Dec 2014 路 15:58 UTC
Idea is cool. I like the difficult and the idea of the "embryo". Fun to play.
Anachron
08. Dec 2014 路 16:00 UTC
Cool game and great atmosphere. The music and sound really add to the mood!
sputnik
08. Dec 2014 路 17:57 UTC
Nice "survival" mood. And I have my brand new civilisation now!
Wakka
08. Dec 2014 路 18:35 UTC
Very well done, was really enjoying it!
AndresGames
08. Dec 2014 路 18:48 UTC
Enjoyed the game though it was tough trying to figure out what makes a planet good. The graphics were awesome! really liked the feel of the game.
taaboo
08. Dec 2014 路 19:36 UTC
Lovely entry. Nice and quirky game. Did 4 playtroughs. In the last one I tried to jump solar systems as much as I could but I couldn't figure out landing conditions. kept dying on planets :D. Loved the background music though. Gave off the All alone vibe
benmcnelly
08. Dec 2014 路 21:10 UTC
Whoa, this surprised me! really polished for such a short time-span and I love the art direction!
kato
08. Dec 2014 路 21:50 UTC
best game of all!
i love it
Cheshyr
09. Dec 2014 路 01:28 UTC
Interesting game. Stars seem to be very rare; every time I lost it was due to no energy. Good game; I enjoyed it.
KunoNoOni
09. Dec 2014 路 01:59 UTC
Very solid entry. Please polish this up post compo and put it out there. Great Job!
feizenbara
09. Dec 2014 路 08:17 UTC
Very Out there-esque, and I like it. Great work!
Phask
09. Dec 2014 路 08:56 UTC
Balancing is needed, otherwise it is a very good game. Thanks!
stasss
09. Dec 2014 路 11:07 UTC
Very interesting concept, small revisit of mechanic and completed game.
Crosstales
09. Dec 2014 路 12:44 UTC
That's a nice game and a good story!
Very well done!
2Bit
09. Dec 2014 路 12:54 UTC
Nice game, hehe, good ship name. It is just luck that you find a good planet to survive on, right?
馃帳 Nuclear Napalm
09. Dec 2014 路 14:02 UTC
@2Bit yes, chance is random but it increases each time you travel to next sector.
Otrora Games
09. Dec 2014 路 14:37 UTC
Cool idea, I'm not a fan of this type of games but I'm glad I try it. The name of the ship is a plus :)
2Bit
09. Dec 2014 路 15:07 UTC
Really fantastic game! Inspiring to see what you've managed to get done.
psychomonster
09. Dec 2014 路 15:40 UTC
Wow. That is cool. Nice artworks. Like the game very much... best I've played so far ...
hypnoticbytes
09. Dec 2014 路 18:00 UTC
Remind me FTL! Nice entry, good graphics, the computer sound is a bit annoying after some uses. Good one!
ghostinthesoft
10. Dec 2014 路 07:01 UTC
Pretty good game, I like it ! One of the best entries for me.
FergusonTV
10. Dec 2014 路 10:09 UTC
Great game, really hard, so much stuff to take care of :D
Good job.
pjimmy
10. Dec 2014 路 15:15 UTC
excellent, visually stunning, but you should add a Pause button. Well done :)
Newt_
11. Dec 2014 路 00:20 UTC
Didn't love the abrupt endings, but the gameplay was very fun! By far the longest I've spent playing a LD game!
thopis
11. Dec 2014 路 10:25 UTC
Very good entry!Music's great and very nice feeling!
cxsquared
11. Dec 2014 路 15:57 UTC
Really great atmosphere and story. The game was really well made.
drnick
11. Dec 2014 路 20:25 UTC
As some other commenters I am not a fan of this type of game, however I think yours is well executed and sets the atmosphere nicely.
recursor
11. Dec 2014 路 23:41 UTC
Very interesting game. It reminds me a bit of the old space quest games. Quite enjoyable.
andreaswitzen
12. Dec 2014 路 05:54 UTC
This was really cool! Challenging but not impossible. My only beef was the sound of the cockpit, made it hard to concentrate before learning the mechanincs of the game. Would play a full game :)
Wir
12. Dec 2014 路 06:30 UTC
noooo i was on my way to a planet with a chance of 95% for surviving with 3 embryos... and then the battery went out -.-
Larzan
12. Dec 2014 路 08:49 UTC
Great game and concept, impressive. I had some problems of reading everything on my "13 screen, but this is well done, especially for the compo!
Jupiter_Hadley
12. Dec 2014 路 15:33 UTC
Really well done game. I Included it in part 9 of my Ludum Dare 31 compilation video series, if you would like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/08ofw2klihI
Elemental Zeal Games Studios
12. Dec 2014 路 17:37 UTC
Pretty neat little game, nice one!
Dietrich Epp
13. Dec 2014 路 01:57 UTC
Lovely game! I wish some of the waiting times were shorter (I spent probably an hour playing it). The difficulty was about right.
sP0CkEr2
13. Dec 2014 路 03:50 UTC
nice game - with some more tweaking this would be a great game to pass the time on - great job
1428156
13. Dec 2014 路 21:23 UTC
Took me a while but I found the perfect planet for my four embryos - chance of survival 108%.
tmpxyz
14. Dec 2014 路 11:04 UTC
nice work! space exploration is great.
nesis
14. Dec 2014 路 14:14 UTC
I liked the resource management idea, and the story behind it was intriguing, making me immediately care about the future of the characters in it.
Kimau
14. Dec 2014 路 18:24 UTC
Very interesting. Would love to see a bit of balance and polish on this as a future thing. Kept on getting sectors with no suns to charge from :P
PapyPilgrim
17. Dec 2014 路 09:17 UTC
Looks a lot like 'out there'.

I would say that the mechanics are there, there is certainly some challenge to it, BUT it is soooo sloooow! I failed twice and I just didn't want to go though it again.

I realise that the purpose of every action taking some time is to drain your ressources, but a turn-by-turn approach would have worked better here I think.

On the plus side, the graphics, audio and general atmosphere are great. I really liked the way you set up a complex background without using a huge wall of text. good job on that!
Paisley Games
17. Dec 2014 路 20:05 UTC
Nice and polished.
alyphen
20. Dec 2014 路 23:43 UTC
Pretty neat, there's a lot going on that it doesn't really explain - many subsystems that it just throws at you with little or no explanation what they do. I tried to "land" on a planet, and I immediately lost. Huh?
Music was great, graphics were pretty, sound effects were cute, and after getting the hang of it it was pretty fun - just needs some sort of tutorial or something, and needs to introduce the different subsystems one by one so you can get a feel for them.
joppiesaus
21. Dec 2014 路 14:00 UTC
Great game! One of the games you play for a long time... I really enjoyed it.
Really nice graphics and mood, they increase the gameplay. I didn't know how to charge my battery thought, I didn't find any star... :/
Music is great, but the beepboopbeep annoys me after a while.
Overall polished, but could use some more!

Great work!
dusho
21. Dec 2014 路 16:49 UTC
very cool game
pjchardt
24. Dec 2014 路 03:22 UTC
Enjoyed the experience. A few minor issues for me, such as text being hard to read and not exactly being clear on what to do at times. All in all, very impressive game for 48 hours. Nice work!
Chaoseed
25. Dec 2014 路 14:56 UTC
I like this! The graphics are quite good. The gameplay is a little confusing, but if you work at it you figure out what's going on. (It's weird that stars are so hard to find, though. I guess for game balance it makes sense, but...) I made it to a planet and...the symbiote pilot died, but the humans survived. Which is good, I guess? Anyway, I think it could use a little more polish, balancing...maybe a picture for each ending instead of some text, that'd be cool. And a little thing showing which endings you've gotten so far? Other than that it's pretty good!
martial_cantarel_games
26. Dec 2014 路 01:37 UTC
)))))))
Dans17
27. Dec 2014 路 03:05 UTC
Very interesting game idea and nice way to fit an exploration game entirely on one screen.
InfectionTeam
27. Dec 2014 路 12:16 UTC
Amazing game, one of the best of this Ludum Dare, we loved the atmosphere of this game, reminds me the best memories from Lucas Arts Adventures.
Yaroslav Kravtsov
28. Dec 2014 路 21:32 UTC
I played a lot of times and feel like I can play forever. Space travelling is my dream :o)
Yaroslav Kravtsov
28. Dec 2014 路 21:52 UTC
Wow! I just realized that you are the person I'm worked with. Nice to meet again, Andrey :o)
bitserum
29. Dec 2014 路 22:25 UTC
This was really great. Loved the storytelling and the overall mood created by the back-story, symbiot's thoughts and the music. The beeping wasn't that bad but it clashed slightly with the music - which is the only annoyance in the game for me. (The beeping itself is a great idea, just wish it was more refined)

I managed to land my remaining two embryos on a planet with 57% survival rate, just in time as I started panicking about oxygen.