LudumData

Alone in the Universe by KhaoTom

[raw]
made by KhaoTom for LD22 (COMPO)
Space can be a lonely, empty place. Especially when your ship is crippled and you've lost all contact with your people. You will need to control your ship manually while avoiding those dangerous gravity wells! Can you orbit the sun? How about finding all 8 planets? Enjoy.

Made with Unity, Paint.net, GIMP, Blender, sfxr.

Procedural textures created with tools available from:
http://donjon.bin.sh/scifi/world/
http://alexcpeterson.com/spacescape
http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2542

Also used some scripts available from the Unity community wiki.

Windows http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52817242/AloneInTheUniverse_ld22_win.zip
OS/X http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52817242/AloneInTheUniverse_ld22_mac.zip
Web http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52817242/AlonInTheUniverseWebPlayer/WebPlayer.html
Source http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52817242/AloneInTheUniverse_SRC.7z
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-22/?action=preview&uid=7425

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 2.48 444
Audio 2.43 275
Community 2.42 364
Fun 1.85 550
Graphics 3.18 175
Humor 1.29 575
Innovation 2.38 360
Mood 2.91 173
Theme 3.18 173

Feedback

AzP
19. Dec 2011 路 16:13 UTC
Is it possible for you to get a Web version up (using Unity's webplayer)?
馃帳 KhaoTom
19. Dec 2011 路 20:44 UTC
AzP, I gave it a quick shot, but it would require more than just exporting to the web player, controls would need to change, and I'd need to fix up some GUI positioning to accommodate a smaller resolution (unless 800x600 is Ok for a web game?)
馃帳 KhaoTom
19. Dec 2011 路 21:08 UTC
OK, Web version is up.
馃帳 KhaoTom
19. Dec 2011 路 21:15 UTC
Z and X decrease/increase Zoom level in the Web player version btw.
Ralkarin
20. Dec 2011 路 17:34 UTC
Pretty cool space environment. I had a hard time figuring out what my objective was aside from fly around and burn up in the sun.
If you continue with this project, I would add a few more objectives, and ease into the complex controls. Getting hit with a big block of text which explains every button is a little overwhelming.
caranha
20. Dec 2011 路 23:37 UTC
Hmmm, it needs some gameplay... But as a tech demo, it was nice! Gratz for finishing it!
Aaron
22. Dec 2011 路 03:15 UTC
Wowzers, that's a pretty space scene. :) While a bit more direction might also detract from the loneliness of space aspect, I also feel that a little more of something is needed.
summaky
26. Dec 2011 路 02:20 UTC
I too had a hard time understanding what to do. It is very well done, but lacks something to be a enjoyable game.
Make A Game
28. Dec 2011 路 15:30 UTC
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives." Carl Sagan, A Pale Blue Dot


=) I enjoyed the experience but I agree with summaky there is something missing. I didn't feel a sense of purpose. =) Full points for the breath taking solar system that you've created.
Winterblood
29. Dec 2011 路 13:50 UTC
Love the solar system model, but your ship has a ridiculously high velocity which made the planets seem tiny :) I flew by some planets very close but didn't seem to accomplish anything...

Spacescape rocks though, I'm using it too on my current project.
馃帳 KhaoTom
30. Dec 2011 路 15:18 UTC
Hey all! Thanks for trying this out. I might argue that the concept of objective or purpose (beyond survival) is absent when you are alone in the universe, and that this is part of the aesthetic here, however it was definitely a failure on my part to properly communicate the idea. I appreciate the feedback, my friends. As a tech demo, it does work too, which is very encouraging... I feel that I should definitely set some time aside to keep working on expanding this one.
eli
31. Dec 2011 路 10:01 UTC
The lack of music seems to work here. Love the atmosphere, very good mood and sense of being lonely/alone. Didn't like the control scheme, too many things and I wasn't able to move the ship the way I wanted. I guess that's part of "being alone", you only have the ship's manual to figure out how to survive.
馃帳 KhaoTom
31. Dec 2011 路 12:02 UTC
eli... How did you want to move the ship?
kato9
07. Jan 2012 路 17:56 UTC
I flew into the sun. I'm going to consider that a victory.
Raptor85
08. Jan 2012 路 02:21 UTC
does not run stable under WINE so unfortunately cannot rate :/
sagzorz
08. Jan 2012 路 02:22 UTC
Aweomome stuff!
Cosr
08. Jan 2012 路 08:33 UTC
It would be nice to have a bit more feedback from the game, particularly in terms of how you're moving, as in direction and what sorts of speed you've got (the sun as a reference frame would make sense). I think an arrow pointing in the direction you're moving would be more useful than one pointing at the sun. The sun's big and not that hard to find if you look around.

Basically, I think this needs more of a hud. Normally I like minimalistic displays, but it doesn't really work here.

Good job with the emptiness of space though.
wbobeirne
08. Jan 2012 路 19:28 UTC
Cool idea, but kind of rough. Wasn't sure what my goal is. And it's sort of hard to tell how you're moving. Some kind of movement lines or something that shows in which direction you're moving would be nice.
khakionion
08. Jan 2012 路 20:55 UTC
Personally, I had a blast. It was fun trying to find the planets and get close to them without crashing.
youdonotexist
09. Jan 2012 路 07:52 UTC
I loved the style. I think exploration has trouble existing by itself as a game mechanic without immediate feedback or metrics to let the player how much exploration they've done. In this case, it would have benefitted the player to know how far they've traveled.. or how close they are before they can no longer explore.

But, still awesome for a 48 hour entry. This has lots of potential!
voxel
09. Jan 2012 路 09:46 UTC
Anything that involves not smashing into things in space gets my heartfelt vote
SonnyBone
09. Jan 2012 路 22:47 UTC
The web version was acting up so I had to download the Windows version. This could definitely be expanded and would be very fun. Needs more sauce on the chicken as of right now, though.