Polar Conflict by Jaenis
Polar Conflict

You are brave fighter pilot protecting your home world from vicious invaders.
There are many of them and you are alone, how many you can finish off before succumbing to the odds?
That is for you to find out!
Controls:
- wasd / arrows - Movement
- space - shoot
Links
Download from itch.io (Windows,Linux): https://jaenis.itch.io/polar-conflict
Music credits go to: NoSoapRadio
Ratings
| Overall | 238th | 3.4⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 73th | 3.75⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 295th | 3.05⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 77th | 3.95⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 140th | 3.8⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 359th | 2.188⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 195th | 3.3⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
I think it would benefit from some visual tweaks to make things clearer. For example:
- Enemy ships are exactly the same as yours. It makes it look like a free for all, but in fact it's everyone vs you. It would be nice if enemy ships were a different colour.
- A visual indicator of how much damage your ship has taken would be nice.
- It might be good if the explosion/damage colour was different to the ships trail so that it stood out a bit more.
That might all be stuff you would have done anyway given more time! Overall I thought it was fun and each part came together nicely to fit the aesthetic. The planet generator is a nice touch :)
With that said, I'm very impressed by what you have created in 48 hours. You've done a great job!
Also, who are you trying to fool with the story intro?! The enemies are clearly the same ship as me, so I'm clearly a rogue pilot who went on a rampage and had to be taken down.
ps. you have to create your own music in Compo
The aesthetic was great. Thanks!
I did feel a bit dizzy after a while, which is funny because we have the same problem in our game with the planet :)
Unique spin on a very established genre. I felt like I had to learn an entirely new skill here, trying to track enemy movement over this round surface. Had lots of fun with this simple little game.
My highest score was in the high 4000s, which I'm quite proud of.
The controls feel perfect (except for 1 small issue - see below), and it's really satisfying to see your shots fly off over the horizon. The music is great, and the low-poly visuals are awesome. Love the random world generator.
The fact that your fire rate goes down as you hold down fire is a great idea, I would've just held down fire permanently like I usually do, otherwise. in response to @hampst 's comments, I actually like the fact that there's no health bar. After a few playthroughs you start to get a feel for how much damage you can take. I do agree that it would be better if the enemies looked different to you though, but I'm sure this was just due to time constraints.
One of my favourites of this LD. I do have some criticisms/comments though:
- I was about to take a screenshot of my score when I noticed a bug - the high score keeps increasing while I'm on the menu screen! So it's currently in the high 7000s.
- a small control issue that got in the way of maximum-awesomeness was that I couldn't hold down fire, up, and left at the same time. Other combos seemed to work though, not sure how one can get around keyboard jam issues like this.
Thanks!
- [+] Very intuitive, controls are nice and simple
- [+] Loved the random world generator - it may seem like aesthetic fluff but its a nice touch.
- [-] Enemy ships could use distinction, could get a touch crowded at times.
Congratulations on your entry, great job.
I love the simple controls.
I love the unique mechanic, and the fact that your shots "orbit" the planet.
I love that you can take a few actions as you're going down in flames before you crash and burn.
I think there should be destructible terrain, so you can "terraform" the planet and eat it away to nothing as you destroy enemy planes. And make the cities have some kind of function, they don't seem to do anything??
I think that the enemy planes should look different from you, maybe make them a different color?
Some good pew pew shooter sounds would be good, but I like the music too.
Really great entry. I'd totally play an expanded version of this, with some ground units (tanks? artillery?) and some UFOs with different flight characteristics. So fun.