Fun/classic game, great job, hope you enjoyed partaking in ludum dare :)

Great game! I like the idea that I can turn to the stronger enemy which I can't beat.

Awesome, great work! :smile: :top:

Well done! The graphics were nice, they were simple but it really suited the game well and the shapes of the spaceships were very imaginative as well, I liked that. The difficulty increased at a good rate.

Cool concept. The controls were a little weird at the begining since you do not move following the direction of the ship.

Details appart, great job!!

Nice game, congrats ! Wish the game area was a bit bigger though. Hope you add some good game feel elements for later :)

Very nice concept and you can be an asteroid, that's perfect :-)

Nice game. I had some problems with the controls in the beginning. After figuring the dynamics out it worked well. I like the atmosphere of the game and the spheric background music.

@fenixdev Could you elaborate. The ship to rotate in the direction of movement and shoot in the same direction or shoot in the direction of the cursor? It's a twin stick after all and this seems to be the cannonical way to deal with controls for this kinda game.

@beardmage Thanks. What do mean by *good game feel elements*? Something along the lines of game-juice/feedback/polish?

@sargonius Thank you, though the ability to hijack an asteroid is mostly just a joke.

@shito Thank you. Could you please tell me more about your issues with the controls? I've started on a postjam version, so I'm glad for any feedback.

As for the rest, praise is good and all that, but unfortunately not very helpful as we really need proper feedback, at least I do.
Also, at the time of the 3rd or 4th, the win version had only 1 download and the WebGL build hasn't been availble yet. Either Itch is buggy, or some people haven't even played the game. Shame on those petty liars and thanks to anyone, who actually played the game.

@secretpocketcat
Could be a problem on my side but the ship felt heavier than I thought when I tried to rotate it/turn it around. Apart from that everything was smooth.

@secretpocketcat Exactly ! Like, making the bullets feel more deadly, adding little animations to the score when the player is doing good (Quick upscale that lerps towards normal size over time, it really feels good)

Hey. This is awesome!!! The game idea is great. The graphics are clean and nice. And The amount of detail that the game has is amazing. Love the screenshake, particles and effects you implemented :)

Also the game is thrilling and makes you feel great when you hijack a better ship than your current one. Congrats on your game!

This reminds me of the old "Asteroids" game from way back when:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZfsnA7dAHI

One possible bug I should point out: I hijacked an asteroid early in the game but nothing else appeared. I was hoping to smash some of the enemy ships. I like the concept though — being able to hijack is an interesting twist, and it seems to work well with enemy ships.

fun fun fun!! Clean and the idea of hijacking is pretty intersting

Thank you, guys or gals, for putting up with my incessant questions.

@shito Which ship exactly? I tried to make them feel different, so their max rotation speed, movement and easing speeds (in and out) are different. For instance the starting ship is midtier, sligtly floaty, the 2 gun small ship is more precise (but has the least HP to compensate) and the big shield ship (I call it Turtle) is supposed to feel really heavy, so it's slow to move, rotate and get moving. I haven't had time to balance the values though, so they might feel clunky.

@beardmage The bullets definitely need more work, but I tried to cram in as much polish as I could, but I managed my time poorly, so movement/engine flames didn't make the cut.
For score animations, I prefer a fade as anything else feels a bit too distracting and I want the the player focus on game.

@gamebuilder Asteroids was certainly an influence. I was actually considering adding in screen-wrapping (I think that was in the orginal Asteroids).
As for the bug/feature, I know about that, but left that in as I had more important stuff to add in. I call it 'Zen mode' :laughing: Thanks for reporting it, though.

@gerardb @acaral Thanks for playing. Is there anything you'd like to see improved/expaned upon?

@secretpocketcat A neat expansion I can think about is literally expanding the play field gradualy and having bigger and more powerful ships come into play as time goes by.

Doing this will give the player a real sense of progression and make it super satisfactory to grab a bigger/better ship.

Also if you wanted to turn this into a non jam game I'll implement a mechanic that only allows you to hijack a ship after taking them down to a certain amount of hp. By doing so you set some neat rules, a bigger strategy factor and also a bigger reward to the player when he manages to finally hijack a big fat powerfull ship.

It's quite ambitious, but hope you like the ideas or gives you something to think and/or improve upon. Good luck ;)

Very nice game! I loved the hijacking concept. The game was a nice difficulty—reasonable, but not easy. Great job!

really nice cool space game, very juicy !

I think you did a really good job giving the player a reason to keep playing in the form of introducing new ships as a progression model and then having them upgrade their current set. I think one thing you had a bit of was that ship choice was actually a decision to make, and that bigger wasn't always better. Sometimes you wanted the smaller ships to clear things out for a while, but when things got too messy you'd jump onto the turtle ship for safety. I think continuing to push that kind of game design will really make the game stand out some more for the post-jam.

Overall I think the game has a really good feel to it. The situations you end up in require a good analysis of what you should be prioritizing, because you have such a variety of enemies and obstacles. Things like where to move, what to shoot, are all basic twinstick concepts but when you add in the hijack, it adds another dimension of when to time it, and who to not shoot so that they are full hp when you jump on them. I wonder if it'd be possible to design some situation where you needed to repeatedly hijack/swap between 2 ships a lot to beat and encounter or boss, like if 1 ship had missiles and another had guns and for some reason you needed to keep both around. Could be tedious but could be a way to take the hijack idea further.

Love the retro art style and the main feature of switching ships

I absolutely love this. The minimalist look is great. The hijack mechanic and the ship variety provides a lot of freedom and strategic decisions. The particles and screen shake feel nice and juicy. I finally got to live my dream and play as an asteroid for a change (nice touch allowing that).

The difficulty is maybe a little on the low side--hijacking seems objectively quite powerful and feels more like a sweet thing to do than a sacrifice--but as a showcase for the mechanics, this is fun and polished.

@gamebuilder Yes, I had that same glitch as well. I hijacked an asteroid, and then nothing really happened. Some of the ship designs reminded me of diep.io, so I was hoping the asteroids would act like smashers.

@secretpocketcat, how did you make the graphics for the ships? Vector art? Also, what techniques did you use to make the glowing effect on all the game's graphics? It made the game feel extremely polished. I really love this game, and it is the first Ludum Dare 43 game that I think deserves 5/5 on each category! :star::star::star::star::star: I'm definitely going to play more of this game more later. :wink:

Sweet concept! Clean and nice graphics. My only complaint is that everything- the ships, asteroids, etc occupy a pretty large area on the screen, and after a while it becomes impossible to dodge anythning - perhaps smaller ships/lager play area would have helped, but I guess that's what adds to the challenge.

@gerardb Thank you so very much, those are excellent suggestions.
I've considered an increasing arena size for the jam, but scrapped due to time management issues. I'm planning to experiment with it for the postjam version. The area gets crowded fairly soon and as it is, the pentagun ship is pretty much useless. I'd like to play around with that, to mitigate those issues and to possibly introduce a few bosses.

As for the HP requirement, I've thrown that idea around as well. As it's right now, the damage taken carries over, which I quite like, but it wouldn't make much sense if I forced the players to damage the ships to hijack them later. I'm probably gonna try out adding in a 'hijack shield' - damage the enemy enough to hijack them, but they still keep their max HP, so you can steal the ship at max HP minus the shield. If I handle this properly, it could add an extra decision to make. I quite like the sound of that, but it might become too finicky. We shall see :sweat_smile:

Thanks again for your wonderful suggestions, it's duly appreciated.

I'm (mostly) finally done with rating the games published by the devs that I follow and/or that caught my eye, so now I'll slowly but surely look at the games of all the nice peeps that provided me with great feedback.

@peachtreeoath Thank you for taking the time write such lovely feedback/summary. I'm glad to hear it you as a player understood it the way I intended, though I probably wouldn't be able to put my intentions into words so eloquently as you have :smile:
The swap idea is great, though is goes against what I'm currently working, that is getting powerups which are lost on hijack. Though the gears are spinning in my head already as I try to put it in. I'd like it for a unique boss, but I don't want to force the player to give up their powerups etc. One thing I could do would be to keep the ship that the player has just left, so they could jump back into it, but they would have to be careful about not damaging it. That could be interesting. I'll ponder about that some more.

@justalocalhero Glad to hear that. Care to share your top score?
At thousands a lot more enemies should spawn, which should make it very hard to survive, but I haven't tested that much as I was suffering from the *'I've just worked on this for 3 days. I don't feel like playing it'* syndrome.
I'll try to balance it for the postjam.

@mertios I'm telling ya, it's a [feature](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/hijack/hijack-zen-mode) :sweat_smile:
Originally, I was being a dummy and created the ships in PS using bezier curve tool (pen tool?). I really should have done that in a vector-based editor. During the jam, I converted them into vectors in inkscape and tweaked what I needed (hence the opt-out from graphics).
The glow is just bloom from the [Unity PP stack](https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/PostProcessing-Stack.html).
Thank you for the praise, I'm looking forward to your game and I'm gonna try to remember to mention you if I ever release a post-jam version :wink:

Cool game! I had a lot of fun playing it. The art and mood are very good too. Good job!

Wow, I had a lot of fun playing this!! Also, so polished!!

@artur-hawkwing @gaming-night @kromeboy @pranjalbisht @theonethatneverwas @one-seed-fruit Thank you very much for playing guys and gals. Is there anything that bugged you or something you'd like to see implemented in a post-jam version?

Yeah, touchscreen controls to play on my phone!

Hijacking - good idea!

@secretpocketcat Sure hope there will be a jam version of this game! :smile: Perhaps a slightly larger (or possibly infinite?) map might be nice if you ever do a post-jam version of *hiJack*. I'm definitely going to check out Unity's Unity PP stack now. :wink:

@secretpocketcat I didn't take note of my top score. I'd guess I killed in the ballpark of forty enemies and stopped to play pong for a while with the ship that reflects shots back ^_^.

I thought I'd seen all the content when I didn't see any new ship types to try for a while. I guess I didn't notice them spawning faster or else I should have played farther first.

@secretpocketcat There was nothing that bugged me in the game, it ran very smoothly. In a post jam version (which I would love to see) I think that having a larger screen on which to play, and maybe support for gaming controllers, would be very nice. But nothing that I see is in need of fixing.

@kovareka That's the shortest feedback comment I've ever gotten, I'll give you that...

@one-seed-fruit That's flattering, but it's highly unlikely. I played around witch touch controls for my previous [LD entry Super Dashball](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/super-dashball) (shameless plug) which is fairly similar in nature and the whole thing didn't feel very good due the lack of physical response and this's a twinstick, so it would be even worse. Also, the screen is packed with stuff in this one, so no matter where I'd put the input controls, they'd get in the way.

@mertios See the reply above in regard to a larger map. I'm not sure about infinite as enemies are rather slow by design and the player could just run away, which would be no good.
I think PP stack v2 is in the works as well, a beta might be available as well :wink:

@justalocalhero Fair enough :smile:

@artur-hawkwing The idea of a resizing map was discussed above :wink:
Gamepad support is pretty much set in stone for the postjam version. I described the game as a twinstick a few times, so it's almost a cardinal sin the jam version doesn't support that :sweat_smile:

The controls of the ship where really buggy at some times. The game itself however is really awesome. nice addition the hijack system. Small and polished game which is awesome for a LD entry!

@alleskapaul Hi, thanks for playing. Could please elaborate on the buggy controls? WebGL build?

Twin Sticks would definitely improve the controls. I loved the variety of enemy attacks, when i hijacked the ships with the 3 turrets for example, I loved having to relearn how to drive and fight with the next ship

Great concept and well executed. I agree with others who said the map is too small and the objects are too big. It gets really hard to dodge after a certain point. I also really wish there were some invincibility frames when you hijack another ship, since I kept getting damaged whenever I did it.

I also wasn't clear about what the bonus does (it seems like it's just keeping score?) so I was hijacking willy-nilly.

@masterkrepta I actually prefer KB&Mouse, but gamepad support should have been baked in, sorry! It should be included in the postjam version, thoug :wink:
Thank you for playing and taking the time to comment on the game.

@evan-minto A map overhaul is in the works as is an upgrade system so the ship gradually improves so the player has to think hard before they leave a ship behind.
The Iframes on hijack are a swell idea and a silly overlook on my part. There're Iframes on contact damage, I'll add something similar for hijacking.
Thank you very much for the feedback.

Nice atmosphere in this game and really good feel in the sound and controls. The variety was high with different enemies (or ships to pilot) and the sound track really fit the game. Good job!

Great game overall. Quite fun and fits the theme well.

A glitch I encountered was that sometimes the default direction vector (when no button is pressed) was not Vector2.zero, meaning I had to hold the opposing button not to fly into the wall and die. This also meant I couldn't move in that direction.

Refreshing the page fixed it, however.

I enjoy the concept, though the screen space is definitely quite cramped. The hijacking mechanic is rather innovative and interesting.

It's a rough diamond in my opinion.

I rated it 4 stars overall.

For transparency: I played the web version.

This was fun. I really liked hijacking stronger ships. I also really like how you could hijack the asteroids too.

Looks really nice, really fun. I did not know a music generator could make such beautiful music! By the way, you are allowed to be rated in audio if you use a music generator or sfx generator.

Pretty fun, I like the hijacking thing, and thanks for the link to Jukedeck!

@wfmg Thank you for playing and for the praise. I haven't encountered that bug, but I'll definitely look into that.
Did that happen to you more than once and have you tried anything else besides the refresh? Was the game dropping frames (a lot)?

@ajayajayaj I'm fine with the SFX from a generator, but the music was created by an AI and I just picked a track and set the duration and where the peak/climax should be so I barely did anything in regards to music. I think not opting out in such a case would be dishonest.

@gettingrekt @great-bobleny @jotson Thanks for playing.
Can you think of anything you'd like to see added or impoved in a postjam version?

@jotson Jukedeck is pretty cool for this kinda thing, though the tracks are a bit samey.
I also hope they'll add a loop option. That'd be super nice.

@secretpocketcat Sure, but I should preference with, I am not a fan of arcade style games; I prefer my games to have a beginning, middle, and end.

First, I would prefer a linear map. By that I mean I would like to be flying in a defined direction (e.g. left to right or bottom to top). This would give the illusion of progress and give the character more purpose (i.e. the character is going somewhere). Spitballing: Fast enemies may come up behind you, or you may fly through enemy strong holds with stationary weapons or maybe even shields that must be destroyed before progressing. If your ship is fast enough, you may be able to just dodge and fly past oncoming enemies.

Second, as someone who prefers strategy games, I would like the ship swapping to be more integral to the success of the game (or continuation in the case of an arcade style game). To start I would say, instead of your ship blowing up the moment you swap, it should just become an inert object maintaining its momentum. Again spitballing: If swapping was faster, you could swap into an asteroid, send it on a collision course with an enemy (to damage or distract them), and swap back to or into another vessel. Swapping into an asteroid may allow you to go undetected so long as you maintain the original trajectory (As long as you don't touch the controls, maybe it would just continue on its original trajectory). Likewise, you could do the same with an enemy ship, though it should probably be discovered after a short period.

Third, again as someone who prefers strategy games, I think it would be fun if the ships had more capabilities. Spitballing: One might have no weapons, but a hyper-drive that allows it to jump wherever you click (probably with a short cool down in between jumps). A command ship, which doesn't have weapons, but can command all ships in the vicinity to attack a particular target (If you can swap without being detected for a short time, you could swap in and target an enemy vessel or two before detection).

Fourth, well that's all that comes to mind at the moment. These suggestions are major changes, and that doesn't mean your game isn't fun as is (because it is), but you asked for some ideas... These ideas may make the game more fun for me, but awful for you and everyone else (assuming they make the game more fun at all). So I won't be upset or disappointed at all if you don't like these ideas or if you just want to go in a different direction.

Very nice, the game felt smooth and the hijacking worked well. I like the little animations, good polish

@great-bobleny Thank you for doing such a nice write-up. It's great you don't like arcade stuff as I get to view through a different lens. I do love me strategy, but I tend to get my fix when boardgaming. I'm also suuper afraid of scope when it comes the LD and strategy. Arcade games lend themselves to the short format and that's why I tend to gravitate towards them with my entries. Though I'd love to make something that blends more strategy with a score-attacky game.

The first idea really just sounds like a SHMUP to me, which I'm not particularly fond of. I like the idea of the player having to deal with all the danger that comes at them instead of avoiding, though as many have mentioned, I should have at least make the playarea grow larger.
I'd like maze like levels where you have to find a core of a ship and destroy it or steal something etc. The hijacking could tie into that with some ship-specific gates etc, but I'm smelling scope-creep.

For the second one, there's a lot of cool ideas, but most of them don't gel with my current vision for the postjam version. I wanted the hijacking to be a last resort thing, though I could imagine this could be a really cool game. I'm not sure would I go around implementing the detection mechanic without it being too finicky. Pretty sure there're ways, I can't just think of any...

As for the third, you can be sure I wanted more ships, but you know how it's with time in jams and all that :laughing: I have an unused sprite for a glass-cannon ship with a massive laser that didn't make and the shielded ship is a taste of what I wanted to do with other ships (though that one is kinda unbalanced and boring I gotta say).
The commander ships sound particularly cool to me. I might repurpose that into a ship that gathers small asteroids in a ring around it to use them as a shield and later ships (/bosses) could actually command small ships. I'll play around with that.

@denzil-gomes Thanks for playing. Anything you would like to see impoved upon?

Great concept, yet very hard to master. I'm always kinda stuck after possessing the big-reflecting-shots ship. I wish the game would be a little much easier as I see that there is still new ships to control after my blocking point but I do not have the patience to beat it :) Very good job on the visual neon aspect of it, minimalist yet animated and smooth. Even if it is taken from another project congrats as this is looking good and well takin form together. Some ideas thrown at random to make it less frustrating: give full health when possessing, giving a small invincible time when possessing (spawning into with enemies ship or bullets colliding is so frustrating...), a bigger shooting rates with upgraded ships...

Also, I had several issues with slowdowns and controls playing HTML version, and I had really much fun with the desktop version.

Very nicely exectued and addictive arcade game overall!
Cheers!

@knarf Thank you for playing and leaving lovely feedback. I'm currently working on a post-jam version with an upgrade system, which will also include I-frames on hijack - those are both excellent suggestions.
I haven't tested the WebGL build on many devices, so framedrops are possible, though I haven't encountered that. Could You share your HW specs and what browser you were using?