300000km At The Speed Of Light by Calahagus

[raw]
made by Calahagus for LD27 (COMPO)
This is a two-player game.

The idea came from thoughts about realistic space games (of which there aren't enough, I think), and I considered the delay in receiving messages for unmanned drones. If you've got a robot drone 300000km away, it will take 10 seconds to reach it with any light-speed signals. Thus came the idea for this game. The gameplay itself isn't as related to the theme, but it's the thought that counts, right?

The game is a mix of strategy and third-person combat. Each player has a frigate (their King, effectively), and a number of drones. You can move one of these on your turn, to any adjacent or diagonal square. If you move your frigate, you lose your next turn, however.

The goal of the game is to capture the enemy frigate, either by brute force or sneaky tactics.

When one drone collides with an enemy, you fight! It's a fairly simple, 1v1 system. However, there's a delay on the commands you send your drone, based on how far away from your own Frigate you are. Each square (not diagonally) adds 0.5 seconds of delay. Fighting across the map would be 5 seconds of delay. That's just painful.

There are also special squares as well, which are randomly placed when the game begins. Asteroids add impassable space rocks to the battlefield, and nebulas block a large portion of the battlefield. Planning your position can be important!

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the game, either playing head to head with a friend or just messing around with it on your own. If you've got feedback on the game, I'd love to hear it!

CONTROLS:

WASD to move and Space to Select/Fire for player one.
IJKL to move and O to Select/Fire for player two.

You can also edit the controls when you open the game, under the "Input" tab

Ratings

Coolness 40% 1404
Overall 2.50 1027
Audio 1.80 864
Fun 2.32 1003
Graphics 2.67 692
Humor 2.07 652
Innovation 3.00 521
Mood 2.69 585
Theme 2.33 1092

Feedback

Zephyr89
26. Aug 2013 路 06:21 UTC
The AI on the macbuild is a bit broken.
馃帳 Calahagus
26. Aug 2013 路 14:01 UTC
There is no AI, the game is two player.
kunzbe
26. Aug 2013 路 14:21 UTC
I loved the loading screen messages. I need a second player XD
eolhing
26. Aug 2013 路 14:23 UTC
I like the idea of the transmission delay, battles look more strategic this way. nice entry ;)
randomelginguy
26. Aug 2013 路 14:27 UTC
Fun little game, makes it quite interesting with controls having a 10 second delay, quite frustrating, but in a fun way :)
Wukkopi
26. Aug 2013 路 14:30 UTC
Very nice idea! I had a bit of trouble to find out how to control blue player (IJKLO if i recall correctly). Controlling own spaceship behind lag is hard. I didn't have a friend around so i had to play against myself, but i think this would be funny (or frustrating) as hell with friend.
stephan_h
26. Aug 2013 路 14:31 UTC
Nice retro style, Calahagus.
Control of the ships in battle felt clunky and random. And it would be nice if you packed the useful information (multiplayer, input keys for second player) into the game screens itself.
doctorscientist
26. Aug 2013 路 14:37 UTC
I can play reds turn but I was unable to play blues turn. I think its because the select button is not on my laptop key board. You should explain the controls in your entry(you can edit your entry ongoing fyi).
urth
26. Aug 2013 路 15:00 UTC
With all the description you did not mention the control keys.
It is WASD and SPACE for player 1
And IJKL and O for player 2
AdventureIslands
26. Aug 2013 路 15:53 UTC
Nice, I have no one to play with it, but I bet it's pretty frustrating but fun to play with all the delays in!
Jupiter_Hadley
27. Aug 2013 路 11:28 UTC
I had no one to play with, and was confused on that duel part, but I included this game in my video compilation of LD27 games, if you wanna check it out :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQmE1DEkQd4
vrld
28. Aug 2013 路 09:35 UTC
Very ambitious game for 48 hours.
foumart
30. Aug 2013 路 08:07 UTC
I was hoping for the kings to have battle engine too...
Sascha
02. Sep 2013 路 13:04 UTC
Nice game to have completed in 48h! The delay is an interesting concept. In-game explanations of objects/ships and controls would have helped immensely, though!
Anoarith
08. Sep 2013 路 13:25 UTC
I love the delay idea, however I'm afraid of a catch-22 situation. Maybe ships shouldn't be able to move back in order to avoid that.