NEXUS by brokenbeach

[raw]
made by brokenbeach for LD30 (COMPO)
The NEXUS; A mysterious alien planet shrouded by a thick, impenetrable fog. The worlds surrounding the NEXUS are connected by their beacons; ancient alien artifacts that are the key to unveiling it's secrets.

This game is an arcade shooter/platformer, focused on feel-good gameplay and terrain destruction.

This is my first time taking part in Ludum Dare. In fact, this is the first game I've ever completed. The code's a mess, and there are a couple of small bugs but nothing substantial. The hardest part has just been distributing it. Still working on an OSX and Linux wrapper. In the mean time, the Windows one should work, so long as you 'run anyway' when Windows tries to stop you. Apologies for the inconvenience.

I chose a simple 5-colour palette. And focused on "feel-good" shooting, platforming, and terrain destruction. It's pretty short, but the final level is something very different from the rest. And it's fairly challenging too!

I hope you enjoy it. If you do, feel free to follow me on twitter @brokenbeachuk or on tumblr at www.brokenbeach.com

* Someone mentioned being stuck on the menu screen. I can't seem to reproduce the problem after downloading and running the game. I'm still able to run it problem free. For those who may not know, you select a planet with 'ENTER'.

** I'd like to apologise to those experiencing crashes. I'm not entirely sure what could be causing them, but I'm looking into it right now, but I'm having trouble reproducing many of these problems. Please do try both the Windows wrap and executable jar file. Thanks for your patience and most of all, thanks for playing.

Ratings

Coolness 51% 3
Overall 3.50 269
Audio 2.76 522
Fun 3.34 314
Graphics 4.11 72
Humor 2.58 399
Innovation 2.79 833
Mood 3.35 257
Theme 2.86 813

Feedback

Retr0spectrum
25. Aug 2014 · 16:43 UTC
I seem to be stuck on this screen: http://i.imgur.com/tkZCnKT.png
4sap
25. Aug 2014 · 20:36 UTC
Im also stuck on that screen. Running openjdk on debian.
yodamaster
25. Aug 2014 · 20:38 UTC
Nice gameboy-style graphics. Game is quite hard to play, at least for me. Very challenging.
SaxonRah
25. Aug 2014 · 20:39 UTC
Wow awesome game. I love the look and feel. Great job mate.
Xgor
25. Aug 2014 · 20:41 UTC
Pretty nice game, unfortunately the game crashed when I completed the astroid level so I couldn't finish the game.
slowfrog
25. Aug 2014 · 20:54 UTC
Great little shooter/platformer. I've not finished it yet (only excavated three planets) but I'm impressed by its polish. It really feels great.
Graphics are simple but to the point, maybe a little too small.
I'm not too sure about the theme, but not having found 'the nexus', I can't say much.
Very solid entry.
Ramori
25. Aug 2014 · 21:07 UTC
Very nice game. Big bullets, lots of particle effects - you know what's good :)
I've also found bug, but I wasn't able to reproduce it. Once on meteor and once on final world (probably doesn't matter where) in the middle of a fight game screen froze. Nothing moved, but when I pressed the arrows I could still hear shooting sound.
Conk
25. Aug 2014 · 21:20 UTC
Quite hard, not entirely sure how to finish a level, did excavated mean complete? I don't know how I did that if so. Was very fun and looks awesome, love the style.
Zigsfi
25. Aug 2014 · 21:27 UTC
Great art, great gameplay. Very hard!
SteveSalmond
26. Aug 2014 · 07:50 UTC
Challenging, but really fun. Doesn't feel like a first game! Great job :)
ChuiGum
27. Aug 2014 · 00:32 UTC
Love the pixel art, awesome choice of colors! Cool innovation too
SaintHeiser
27. Aug 2014 · 01:47 UTC
Like the visuals. But game TOOOO hard for me =(
Victory Garden
27. Aug 2014 · 06:37 UTC
Wow, this was amazing. I really killed my hand trying to beat that last boss! It took a while to understand what I was supposed to do on the first level, but once I got it... wow. My favorite was definitely the asteroids level. Right when I started feeling really cocky and confident about my skills, the game would wipe the floor with me and make me work a lot harder. Awesome.
gwa
27. Aug 2014 · 20:03 UTC
Really cool Game I love the graphics and the generally style and shooting in 4 directions :)
IsaacL.Balogh
27. Aug 2014 · 20:04 UTC
Couldn't boot the windows file, it says that the main class main.game is not found
John Drury
27. Aug 2014 · 20:06 UTC
Feels great! Love the color palette, FIGGEN HARD!
MunkeeBacon
27. Aug 2014 · 20:13 UTC
Looks pretty good but I'm having menu issues.
spotco
29. Aug 2014 · 10:31 UTC
Great game, finished it pretty quick. Controls felt a little floaty+slippery (especially with the bit of precision platforming), but loved the (SPOILER ALERT) boss.
LeafThief
29. Aug 2014 · 13:06 UTC
It's really hard, but also really rewarding. This game is so well made. Congrats and thanks for this!
commodoreKid
29. Aug 2014 · 14:26 UTC
This is awesomely COMPLETE game which made it top on my list until I find a better game among entries.
CodeNMore
29. Aug 2014 · 15:25 UTC
Graphics are nice! Neat game!
Jod
29. Aug 2014 · 16:12 UTC
Love the gameboy graphics. Retro-time!
Pinqu
29. Aug 2014 · 19:09 UTC
Love the retro look, but the controls were a little hard to adapt to.
TijmenTio
30. Aug 2014 · 12:06 UTC
Congratulations on your first LD dude! ^^ For a first time this is really really good! I personally think that it's a bit too difficult. Especially the jump height bugged me out each time I fell into a little gap and got stuck. I can see you tried going for game feel but I think you can still learn a LOT on that part, here maybe this video helps if you haven't seen it yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg Because you know, in your game there isn't too much happening and it can get a bit stale. Add more different elements and exaggerate even more!
azidhouse
02. Sep 2014 · 10:34 UTC
Congratulation, the game is very challenging! BTW the source zip contains only compiled classes and not actual sources... Is it intentional?
Hypnohustla
03. Sep 2014 · 07:20 UTC
Really hard, but the controls were very responsive and the movement and shooting was smooth as hell. Great entry. :)