ARM: Alien Research Mission by Hume

[raw]
made by Hume for LD25 (COMPO)
Flight, unethical experiments and wanton destruction.

It's A.R.M., the Alien Research Mission for purely peaceful purposes.*

**** Controls ****
* Up propels you in the direction of the top of the UFO, like a helicopter.
* Left and Right rotate you left and right. Once you start rotating, you need to thrust the other direction to slow down. Go easy until you get the hang of it.

**** Tips ****
* Fly your UFO around and level up by reaching the end of the level without crashing or earning too much notoriety. Each human left alive increases your notoriety. (Humans on screen when the level ends don't count.)
* Destroy buildings for bonus villainy.
* If you can't figure out how to gargle a frotz, just try something random.
* If you go off the left or right edges of the screen, the game will nudge you back on. If you go off the top, don't panic! You'll come back down...eventually.
* Low and slow is the easiest way to cause maximum chaos.
* If I had another 10 minutes, there'd be goats.

I've provided an .app version for OSX and an .exe version for Windows. Unzip the file and run. On other platforms, you should be able to run the JAR by double clicking.

If you only play games on the web, make a big fuss and I'll see if I can figure out the GWT backend for libgdx.

Ratings

Coolness 56% 3
Overall 3.31 190
Audio 3.18 125
Fun 3.14 223
Graphics 2.68 475
Humor 3.11 173
Innovation 3.39 142
Mood 2.88 315
Theme 3.29 326

Feedback

donmilham
17. Dec 2012 · 04:41 UTC
Great game. Fun physics associated with abduction. Controls were novel yet a little frustrating. I can totally see how you would have insert the goat into this one. :D
loren
17. Dec 2012 · 06:57 UTC
I liked the physics a lot, was glad you could pick up the buildings.
ix
17. Dec 2012 · 07:05 UTC
Nice take on abduction. I felt like a graphical indicator for the tractor beam was missing, but otherwise the game felt complete.

Controls could maybe use another round of tuning (make everything except rotation happen about 1.5x faster + add some inertia to rotation might be a good start). I feel like catching the humans could be a cool little mini-reaction-game with a faster ship.
Crowbeak
17. Dec 2012 · 07:07 UTC
I found this game very entertaining, but not, I think, in the way you intended. I cannot for the life of me figure the controls out. But I am definitely enjoying the endless barrel rolls.
vrld
17. Dec 2012 · 07:22 UTC
Very entertaining. Reminds me of Kill all Humans - definitely a good thing!
Dr. Mo
17. Dec 2012 · 07:24 UTC
This game is loads of fun. I couldn't stop until I had over 1000 buildings "examined," and things finally started to slow down. This game has a sort of Katamari quality of picking up bigger and bigger buildings.
leothecool
17. Dec 2012 · 07:28 UTC
Fun game, I liked the crazy controls. I think the sound might be buggy in the windows version, it was just a super loud reverb.
apophenia
17. Dec 2012 · 17:34 UTC
I developed some sort of a QWOP-like rhythm and was able to successfully propel myself forward the first time I played this, but was unable to do anything besides immediately crash and burn on subsequent plays.
🎤 Hume
17. Dec 2012 · 21:14 UTC
@apophenia, @Crowbreak, I should have explained the controls better (although they were never intended to be easy). QWOP is a little harder than I intended, although I still crash regularly.
oldtopman
19. Dec 2012 · 04:44 UTC
Fantastic! I have nothing bad to say about this game! I love the feeling of destruction you get when you go through some of the later levels.
johndb
19. Dec 2012 · 04:50 UTC
Fun! Wrecking the buildings was a blast, and difficult controls kept it interesting.
Remblej
19. Dec 2012 · 21:24 UTC
It's very cool game
Klakwa
20. Dec 2012 · 13:52 UTC
It was kinda hard to control, but I really liked the idea! Cool game overall!
Crowbeak
20. Dec 2012 · 14:06 UTC
With the additional movement information, I'm not endlessly spinning, but there's still something off and it's too hard to control. I feel like this really needs animation to give a visual indicator of what the saucer is doing.
🎤 Hume
20. Dec 2012 · 19:12 UTC
@Crowbeak It sounds like you're not getting much of a response from your actions, which makes me think that there's something in your environment I didn't see in testing.

I apologize for the frustration, and thanks for giving it another shot.
ceronman
21. Dec 2012 · 14:25 UTC
Interesting! It fits well with the theme. Controlling the ship is really hard!. Nice music and sounds.
DustyStylus
21. Dec 2012 · 14:46 UTC
Quite fun controlling the ship. Nice music as well!
Birchmountain
21. Dec 2012 · 15:05 UTC
I really liked the controls, challenging yet fun! Great job.
Ysty
21. Dec 2012 · 17:55 UTC
That was great. Felt like QWOP in a spaceship.
zkenshin
24. Dec 2012 · 02:19 UTC
Felt a bit slow, but fun game, and nice take on the theme.
jmaasing
27. Dec 2012 · 21:10 UTC
That was fun :)
GameRespect
01. Jan 2013 · 05:32 UTC
Interesting aesthetics, but frustrating controls. Could use a little polish, but overall, a nice game!