SpaceLyft by atomicdad

Description:
A spaceman drank a little too much and needs a ride. Luckily his SpaceLyft is ready to save the day. Watch out for space mites and keep an eye on that power meter! And remember... death is inevitable.
Check in-game instructions and have fun!
Credits: Pixel Art - crashtest abel.korsmit@gmail.com
Music/SFX - Subspace Audio juhani.junkala@musician.org
Lead Programming - Jeron Paraiso jeron@twistingpath.com
Lead Programming - Bas Korsmit
Support Programming - Kyle Eppard atomicdad16@gmail.com


Ratings
| Overall | 220th | 3.68⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 96th | 3.8⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 138th | 3.6⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 352th | 3.6⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 364th | 3.68⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 170th | 3.6⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 65th | 3.792⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 293th | 3.458⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 27🗳️ | 22🗨️ |
Congratulations on making a complete game!
I found the controls to be a bit hard to wrap my head around. I kept getting confused about which set of keys corresponded to what. Have you considered getting turret input from the mouse instead? Like the turret always points to the mouse cursor, and you shoot with left click? It might be easier to keep track of what's doing what if the inputs are different.
Also - is there a "win" condition? I wasn't sure if there is actually somewhere to bring the astronaut, or if it's a planned feature. I flew out far (or at least, what I felt was far), started seeing big alien ships and looooots of aliens. I might also just have not been very good at this game. :-D The poor astronaut may have been torn apart by the limbs once or twice... :'( :-P
Having said all that, I had fun playing this game. Overall great job!
A very solid entry all around, well done!
Two issues stood out to me. Firstly, it wasn't clear where to even take the astronaut to get them home, while randomly bumbling around was a surefire recipe for running out of power - a little direction would've helped. Secondly, I thought the twin-stick control approach was just a little too fiddly and awkward. It made navigating the field a choice between punching it and just hoping the astronaut wouldn't take too many hits or creeping along clearing the way and almost certainly running out of power.
On the plus side, at least it's not SpaceUber! Did you hear their CEO was on the Star Emperor's economic advisory council?
I think we need to update our description, as it's a little misleading. There's nowhere to actually take the astronaut. His demise is inevitable. You just survive, and try to shoot stuff, haha.
We are tinkering with ideas about having to pick up these astronauts and take them home, in a similar style to "crazy taxi" if you've ever played that game. The
existing "time pressure" mechanic is already there. Perhaps after the jam we will update and try something like that out for a quick publish somewhere.
As for the awkwardness of the controls, we did sort of mean for them to be a bit uncomfortable; it's partially inspired by Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. Although now that so many people have commented about this, it's making me think we should code to allow for alternate control styles.
-m