Core Collector by mystakin

[raw]
made by mystakin for LD29 (COMPO)
My second Ludum Dare project! You must get beneath the surface of the space station to retrieve the hidden gold/core/important item!

I am very happy with how this turned out. Every hour the game kept getting better and feeling more complete, and I'm quite proud of the final result.

This is my first project since learning about object pooling, though I was bad and didn't make use of it in the project. Every couple hours I would think to myself "man... this feature would be perfect for object pooling."

Anyway, I hope you find my game as fun as I do! :)

Controls
------------
wasd or arrow keys = movement
space = fire

Supports 360 controller. Controls should be relatively obvious.

Ratings

Coolness 50% 3
Overall 3.89 70
Audio 3.92 40
Fun 4.04 23
Graphics 3.79 198
Humor 2.73 368
Innovation 3.50 260
Mood 3.41 249
Theme 3.68 194

Feedback

liamtwose
28. Apr 2014 · 12:19 UTC
Great game. Even more so after I realised you could HOLD to shoot. Would be cool if the asteroids also did damage to the space station.
eugman
29. Apr 2014 · 23:55 UTC
Great idea and good execution. I definitely like the style and it seemed well polished. I may have to try it with a controller to see if the movement is more intuitive.
gettothechapel
01. May 2014 · 09:35 UTC
very fun to play, you hit a good balance between too easy/too hard. nice progression.
Geckoo1337
01. May 2014 · 15:23 UTC
Great game and good execution - fun to play ++
Penguincat
09. May 2014 · 23:14 UTC
I really like the overall concept, the art, the music and sound, and the gameplay is pretty solid too. My main problems were that the differences between each level were too small; it should ramp up more quickly because it feels too much like playing the same level again. I also don't like that it restarts from level 1 when you die.
porglezomp
09. May 2014 · 23:53 UTC
This looks really great, but it doesn't work for me. None of my input seems to register (except for space on the start screen.)
borrismoose
10. May 2014 · 00:03 UTC
You've done a fantastic job with this, I really enjoyed a lot of different aspects.

If I was to offer any advice, it would be to make the player feel more powerful. The basic laser feels puny against the inner segments. If you scale the obstacles along with the players power it could still balance well.

Otherwise it's a great entry, I hope you take it further.
XenosNS
10. May 2014 · 01:03 UTC
Enjoyed that. Reminded me of Gyrus. Great job
slumber
10. May 2014 · 01:05 UTC
Very Enjoyable- good level progression- makes you want to play more. Good Job- Excited to see more of this in the future!
Managore
10. May 2014 · 01:31 UTC
This game has a really well executed idea and is loads of fun. Well done!!
jacklehamster
10. May 2014 · 01:54 UTC
The entry doesn't run for me (config = Mac, Google Chrome or Firefox).
I can't control the ship, I just see the green thing in the middle animating.
🎤 mystakin
10. May 2014 · 02:02 UTC
@Penguincat Perhaps a difficulty mode that adds specialty tiles at a faster rate would work. I believe it should only restart from level 1 if you game over... There's no limit to the levels, so once you reach around level 8 you've seen it all.

@borrismoose I had originally planned for powerups but ran out of time. I suppose I could drop the health of the inner tiles but I felt the early stages went fast enough.

@porglezomp & @jacklehamster Not sure what's wrong. :( If input isn't working on the web version clicking to a different tab and clicking back sometimes works for me. Unfortunately, I don't have a mac to test the game on so I'm totally in the dark there.
porglezomp
10. May 2014 · 15:08 UTC
@mystakin It's strange, because it's unity. How are you handling input, are you using GetAxis?
🎤 mystakin
12. May 2014 · 03:41 UTC
@porglezomp I am. I believe the only edit I made to the default input settings was renaming one of the "fire"s to "shoot" and adding a "pause" command.
UltimateWalrus
12. May 2014 · 04:39 UTC
Solid entry. I liked this one, I tried multiple times to get farther and farther so obviously it was fun. It feels complete, which is always a challenge with gamejams, so you should be proud :]

The programming and music were solid so I'd focus on building your sound and art skills for the future. The space station looked a little bland. Remember if you don't want to draw something you can always try to make it look cool procedurally (such as with a shader).
MidCry
12. May 2014 · 05:19 UTC
Some kind of hard to spine around and avoid obstacles ...
But generally funny game that suits mobile devices ...
louis.denizet
12. May 2014 · 06:13 UTC
great use of the theme, great composition, good job! =)
misterwalter
12. May 2014 · 06:34 UTC
Great job!
My only real criticism is that I think the controls for the ship should have been a little juicier, moving it was pretty sterile. And perhaps allowing steering the ship via the mouse, to avoid the awkwardness of sometimes having to hit left to go right? Just a thought, probably not a good one. It's a someone intractable issue.
copain
12. May 2014 · 08:19 UTC
Nice arcade game. Love the start music.
Maybe if you want to extend your game, in addition to powerups you can make a bigger space station with an intermediate shell to destroy.

(level 7, 37300)
kunzbe
14. May 2014 · 20:32 UTC
Really fun game!
jujule
14. May 2014 · 20:42 UTC
I'm on a Mac and I can't play it either in the browser (Safari, Firefox or Chrome). It's a pity because the game looked really fun and polished. If you're using Unity, why not make Mac and Linux versions available? It's takes just one click.
ALobker
14. May 2014 · 20:46 UTC
Really gave me an old DOS-feel! I loved it!
🎤 mystakin
14. May 2014 · 20:53 UTC
@jujule I always go back and forth on the Mac/Linux versions because I have no way to test or support them, since I don't have a Mac or Linux box.

I'm torn because I don't want to exclude non-windows users, but I also don't want to potentially provide a bad or broken experience for them without knowing it. If the Unity exports are generally stable/consistent, though, maybe I should throw caution to the wind and just include them.