Space Snake by Hunter Loftis

[raw]
made by Hunter Loftis for LD 38 (COMPO)

space-snake.gif

Start your life as a humble Space Snake, barely the size of an asteroid, floating by a huge world. Consume the mass of other celestial bodies to grow, evolve, and experience the relativity of size and speed. Eventually, you'll find that it's a small world after all.

Play!

  • PLAY in your browser (theoretically anything modern, built in Chrome).
  • Controls: Left & Right arrow keys

Links

  • SITE: https://hunterloftis.github.io/space-snake/
  • TWITTER: https://twitter.com/hunterloftis
  • SOURCE CODE: https://github.com/hunterloftis/space-snake

Ratings

Overall 52th 3.96⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 27th 4.04⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 263th 3.16⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 135th 3.76⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 3th 4.64⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 195th 2.85⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 72th 3.739⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 3🗳️ 3🗨️

Feedback

Belin Fieldson
24. Apr 2017 · 01:34 UTC
Wow, that's a lot, and I mean a lot of wiggling back and forth! It's fun too. I didn't get any sound in the web version.
GamingDudester
24. Apr 2017 · 01:40 UTC
Good.. but the death is just "you died :(" in the top left which is kinda hard to notice but the gameplay is amazing! It's like slither.io X spore or something.
🎤 Hunter Loftis
24. Apr 2017 · 01:46 UTC
Thanks both! I only had about half of the compo period to hack on this, so I had to cut anything I wasn't sure could fit. We're on the same page re: death animation and audio, check out the final list in the upper right of my "design document:"

![space-snake-sketch.jpg](///raw/d34/6/z/d9c.jpg)
joozey
24. Apr 2017 · 02:51 UTC
Been playing for a while. I won! That was amazing, well done!
BoltKey
24. Apr 2017 · 03:42 UTC
This game is beautiful. I loved how my worm got some additional features as it grew.

Reminded me of Tasty Planet. I just love that series.
cosine
24. Apr 2017 · 03:57 UTC
Super juicy! Loved the flat color art style.
Daniel Alhadeff
29. Apr 2017 · 23:00 UTC
Beat the game - really fun. I love how the tentacles started growing out from the snake. I shared this with several friends who liked it too.
TerraCottaFrog
30. Apr 2017 · 02:45 UTC
Love the art style!

Missed the sound, though. I saw that it was under heavy time constraints, though, making what you have even more impressive!

One of the things I noticed was that it was difficult to see how much the enemy ships were hurting the player. I didn't realize I was about to die until I did. Particles (and sound, of course) would help this, but again, the time constraints.

I loved the gradual growth of features on the worm, really added even more sense of progression aside from the worm's growth.

In terms of subtle tweaks I think that the snake speed should be closed to the speed of the planets. It is a little bit frustrating trying to get them. Being able to go straight would have helped too, maybe with a sine pattern to maintain the bending of the snake, while making the game a little nicer to control.

PLEASE work this into a post-jam version! :D

I'll be checking :)
spacedoubt
01. May 2017 · 04:40 UTC
That is really cool. It just looks good. Great take on a classic. I love the movement of the snake. I was dying for some music, though! The art has so much atmosphere, it really needs it! For another take on the same game, check out Snake on a Plane: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/snake-on-a-plane!
Dejvo
02. May 2017 · 18:32 UTC
Pretty nice game! you should build up on it and call it worm.io :D final score: 1003
TehT
02. May 2017 · 22:59 UTC
Good fun! the start was a bit wiggly and aiming for planets is a bit of literal hit and miss what with the orbits and wiggling, but got into a groove after a while. Was not expecting the space fighters :)
Vidinu
03. May 2017 · 00:08 UTC
I like colorful art. It´s a little difficult to control, especially to combat spaceships but I always want to be bigger and bigger! Nice job ^^
icxon
05. May 2017 · 16:33 UTC
Snake in space -- this is just brilliant. I was thinking about Osmos, Spore, but this has quite different mechanics. Planet guards, HP bar, snake growth, controls, color palette - excellent. Planets movement a bit hard to predict, but I really love it.

3271 score. It was fun to play, thank you.
Luis_Antonio
06. May 2017 · 14:17 UTC
Very funny, but i dind't like the controls. 8/10
Elemental Zeal Game Studios
06. May 2017 · 17:30 UTC
Simple idea, but great execution. :) Really liked the graphics. If expanded to be a full game, I would probably lean away from the always turning controls though they were fine over a short play period.
Flipsy
09. May 2017 · 23:48 UTC
Looks fantastic, audio would obviously help a lot. Some impressive physics going on. I wanted to love this game but found it a bit tough to get into the swing of things, just a little to tricky to control. I kept trying but not getting very far and then getting frustrated. I think you need some easier gains in the early game / adjust the ramping. Great job all up, I love the colours and smoothness of everything. Could be a very strong mobile game with some fine tuning.
joatski
10. May 2017 · 01:27 UTC
Nice little game. Took me a few goes to realize that the black dot on the head is the damage meter, ended up winning on my 3rd or 4th try with the head almost fully black :) Simple controls but still some depth there in feathering back and forth to go nearly in a straight line and move much faster than a more wending path would be.
PeachTreeOath
10. May 2017 · 01:44 UTC
Really good take on the genre. I actually liked the controls, otherwise it'd be a pretty trivial game. This is probably the first snake game I've played where I had to deal with an orbit, so that + the controls made it feel very good. In addition, the fact that you actually looked different, and not just grow in size and length made me want to keep going.
Certainly Canyon
10. May 2017 · 03:06 UTC
Realy interesting, just needs some calming music and 1,000 achievements and it will be a very satisfying and calming game. It is also a little hard to tell how close you are too dead. But it is a very fun game in general! I also love the satisfaction of going back to eat a planet I had to carefully avoid a minute ago!
seth
10. May 2017 · 06:15 UTC
great game!! really needs an arrow or something pointing back to the sun, though.
nonameghost
11. May 2017 · 02:00 UTC
Love the flat yet colorful graphics. Was fun and zen until I was murdered by space triangles instantly. But definitely on the right track!
Tetristar-Interactive
11. May 2017 · 23:14 UTC
Great game. Absolutely love it!!
5Mixer
12. May 2017 · 13:01 UTC
The graphical style was on point - I feel like this would have been ruined if you tried to go for something somewhat realistic? Super minimal fitted great. I kinda wanted to go straight at some points, and unless I missed something I had to spam left and right - I get that this is a super super minor thing lol but it'd drive me crazy if I played more than five minutes haha. Good job!
jebouin
12. May 2017 · 14:48 UTC
I really like the little details like how the health is displayed and the simple color scheme. The controls are a bit frustrating, but the game is fun and I kept playing for a while until I won. That was fun to play!
🎤 Hunter Loftis
13. May 2017 · 22:28 UTC
Thanks so much everyone for all the constructive feedback, themes emerged which I'll use when fine-tuning the next version - very kind and very useful info from everyone.
matita
15. May 2017 · 13:16 UTC
Love it!

The art is minimal and essential, the fact that the worm grows appendices when it is growing is great, looking like a scolopendra is terrible, but that's just because of my fear :D

To make it even more minimal you could have used just one button to control the snake: basically it just switches direction to move forward, plus make it mouse-down or tap and you have a fully functioning mobile interface without the needs of any graphical button in the interface on a touch screen.

So bad it doesn't have audio, maybe it doesn't need a soundtrack, but some echoed sound.

I also wanted to play it forever, make me follow a caravan of escaping ships that lead me to another star and make me swallow the whole galaxy! (I know, maybe it is too much for a compo entry...)

Great job, really!

Edit: I forgot to add, Vanilla Javascript? You're my hero
joemid
21. May 2017 · 01:53 UTC
Love this! So simple and eloquent! The scale is intense!