rovR by morrilet
The High Council of Earth has sent you to explore the outer reaches of the solar system (hopefully without blasting yourself off into space). They're expecting your report any minute, so get out there and do your world proud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B93oM7hN7w0
About
rovR is a casual puzzle game about exploring space as, you guessed it, a rover. The puzzles take an even mix of planning and skill, and the folks you meet along the way will bring joy to you for years to come.
Screenshots
User Reviews
Still not convinced that you would like rovR? Just read these glowing reviews!
My friend Dave:
I think you should put grass on the planets, but other than that it's pretty good, I guess.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson:
You don't have my permission to use this quote.
My girlfriend:
Dude, I f***ing told you to stop following me.
Controls
- 'A' and 'D' to move.
- 'Space' to jump.
- 'Shift' to zoom out.
- 'R' to restart the level.
Credits
Ethan Morrill-Ploum - Art, code, level design, sound effects. Catherine Maggiori - Level design.
Follow us at morrilet and catmaggiori.
Music used - Star Commander 1 - Calm Background Organ
Links
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/rovr |
Ratings
| Overall | 269th | 3.569⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 217th | 3.492⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 196th | 3.508⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 286th | 3.631⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 465th | 3.292⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 135th | 3.444⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 243th | 3.5⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 106🗳️ | 172🗨️ |
Interesting concept. The gameplay was a ton of fun yet really challenging what with the heads of the space babies. Ah, space babies. What a wonderful term.
Good job, you managed to make a fun game and freak me out.
Despite my ineptitude, I finished it to the end, and actually enjoyed it quite a bit! It's definitely a fun little concept while remaining deceptively simple.
The art's pretty funny too. You just now that this is a face that's been through a lot:
Like I said, my only criticism is that the game seems to recommend experimentation to solve the puzzles, but sometimes doing so can be pretty punishing once you're far in a level. Many tears were shed through hardship on the final level... so maybe there could be some kind of aid like trajectory lines. Maybe even quicksaving and loading?
Great game. I just wish the babies would let me maneuver just a little bit more easily!
Feel free to check out our game, which is set in space too !
@codyhansen :: I feel like "What the hell" is a pretty explainable reaction to space-babies. PS: I'm stealing that term from you.
@coleslaughter :: I'm glad to hear that you made it to the end, despite the difficulty. Designing levels that are hard to cheese (yet still beatable) was pretty tough for such a short time period.
@orbitalblueprint :: A trajectory line was one of those things I tried that turned out to be deceptively difficult to implement within the time frame. If I were to do a post-LD build, I'd definitely play around with that idea more.
@fufi :: I like to think that the baby would've been fine in the centrifuge, but NASA just **had** to put the kibosh on that. Your game was great by the way. I left you a comment.
@PixelFormedStudios :: As the artist, I'm really glad to hear that you enjoyed the art style! Thanks!
@MorbidCamel101 :: Thanks! And thank you for playing it on your stream. It was a total blast to watch.
I had a hard time at first but for some reason I didn't think of bouncing back and forth to manipulate things (being vague to avoid spoilers).
Once I started thinking in those terms it got a bit easier. I found a bit of frustration when I got myself 'stuck' a few times with no safe place to jump to and no way to realign things to where I needed them, but that's my fault - not the game's.
If I had one complaint it would be that the text appears juuuust a bit too slow. It's minor, but I wanted to give you *something* that's hopefully useful!
Nice sounds, graphics are special and entertaining.
Great LD game, really fun!
@aviv871 :: Thank you!
I love the title screen.
Good job!
@faemir :: Thanks for the praise. We definitely felt the burn of making a puzzle game when we went to design/test levels.
@neurohacker :: A sincere thank you from the artist!
@kalm004 :: Glad you liked the title screen :) I definitely wanted to do something more unique than I usually do when it came to the menus.
Really solid puzzle mechanics, I enjoyed myself with it. No real complaints and def. worth polishing up.
@yyam :: Thank you! Yeah, designing the puzzles was probably the hardest part of this whole thing. Spot on.
@huminaboz :: Yeah, sometimes playing with gravity is more fun. It was hard to make that reliable and maintain the puzzle aspect, though.
@occultone :: Wow, thanks so much! I really enjoyed watching you work through those early puzzles. And yeah, good call with the text speed. I believe that was brought up earlier in the comments as well. Notes for next time.
Good stuff...
I really enjoyed this!
@kristian-david :: Woo! Play away!
@squatch :: Yeah, with the way that final level ends, I could definitely see another set of levels. Thanks for the input, and I'm glad you liked it!
I think you made a cool game. It's a good idea with nice mechanics, nice music and funny graphics. Congrats!
Really liked the little faces on the planets, and conveying different planets personalities through them. I thought the core mechanic puzzle jumping was really fun and well thought out.
I liked the ramp up in difficulty, and the game became challenging after Jupiter.
"Uranus is pretty dirty!" *drum roll* lol.
I think it would have been fun to toy with the idea of planet orbiting a bit more, maybe some well aimed shots properly sending you into orbits around things to get you to your goals but it's a jam and time is a factor! Apart from that a solid little game with a fun core mechanic that works really well!
The ending text was cute. Was expecting 2001: A Space Odyssey quote :D
Thanks for creating and sharing. Good job!
@ethereal-psyche-games :: Hah, yeah I spent a lot of time trying to make the levels at least *somewhat* hard to cheat through ;)
@binaryferret :: Good input with the gravity-well mechanic. That's in there right now, but you've got to get *really* close to use it, so it's not really viable. Thanks for playing!
@those-30-ninjas :: Yeah, I've seen nearly every streamer do that so far. It's kind of funny to watch but I always hope they read the instructions...
@pyokoanarogue :: A more forgiving rotation speed could be interesting. Also, good call on the boundary reset. That was supposed to be in the final game, but I ran out of time. So far everyone has remembered 'R' resets. Knock on wood ;)
@merel :: Ah! I'm the goofy planet artist, so thanks! Yeah, some of the levels definitely don't require that you use all of the planets. That's part choice and part difficulty designing levels with this mechanic.
@geckoo1337 :: Thanks, and good question. The babies are actually a carry-over from the first idea I came up with during brainstorming. They somehow stuck with me... I'll probably go more in depth about this in the post-mortem, so keep your eyes peeled ;)
@codechomper :: Thanks! The sling-shot effect is a little unreliable, but it always makes me laugh when it works out. I've got your entry open in a new tab, so keep an eye on your comments!
Humor was alright, especially liked the mouth on Uranus haha
I think this would be cool as a speedrun game, trying to find the fastest route, maybe using blind shots over the whole level to finish as fast as possible :smile:
One thing that I think it needed is a prompt to press 'R' to reset once you break past the boundary of the system. I was reading the instructions on the start menu, hit jump, and promptly few off the screen never to come back. (The instruction for R was after the instruction for Jump). I had to alt+f4 the game and restart because I didn't know how to get back.
Other than that, well done. I had a lot of fun with this one.
@epicsoft :: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.
@archimagus :: Thanks, and I'm glad to hear you made it through! You're definitely not alone in shooting yourself off into space on the main menu -- I see that every time someone streams this game. Good call on the boundary based prompt, though. That's actually a really good solution to that problem.
That said, I really like the concept, and played all the way to the end! It's a fun experience, even if it was frustrating at times.
Graphics are not amazing but they are effectives. (The mouth of Uranus is hillarious)
You have a great concept and mechanics, good job !
- First level itself took me more than 20 time to finish (I am really bad at playing games )
- Just one suggest for replay if you could automatically create an ai which detects that know you loose and the game restart again would be nice because i accidently clicked "R" many times
- Also i like the way it attacks to the circular body in a circular fashion
@harusame :: Thanks so much!
@toulou :: Yeah, level boundaries ended up getting cut due to time restrictions. Would've been nice though, eh? :)
@stevenjmiller :: Thanks! It means a lot.
@poffle :: A sincere thank you from the artist :) And yeah, those trick shots are pretty tough to get, but they always make me laugh when they work out.
@sagarpatel25700 :: Are you suggesting to remove the 'R' to restart bit entirely? I hadn't thought of that. I feel like it's important to keep it casual, but if you're hitting it accidentally maybe I should've used a different key. Good note, though. Thanks!
Ya, the baby heads are really hard, but that's part of the challenge I think right?
Anyways, congrats on a very interesting game!
I got pretty good at skipping planets at the level before the warp hole level I finished with only 1 jump!
The final level with only 1 jump I made it to the planets right before the warp hole. Once gravity made me do a ~180!, to my death though.
Gravity doesn't feel quite right, it seems like if you are a little distance from the planet you will receive no gravity, but if you are a little closer the gravity is powerful. Also a easy solution to the problem of people not knowing about r to restart is to pop a message if they have been flying for a long time.
I liked the method for exiting the game. I found the game to be really enjoyable.
My Game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/planet-or-die
@ajayajayaj :: They're supposed to be challenging, but they were... tough to balance. And thanks!
@vidinu :: Thank you! I tried to make it tough to shoot straight to the goal, but by all means try! Sometimes it works out ;)
@timeracers :: That's awesome. Were you using the gravity to slingshot? And yeah, it's not really *true* gravity. Good call on the restart message, and I'm glad someone noticed the exit method. Thanks for the feedback!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYiOXlTKNb0
Overall I enjoyed this one.
PROS
- Very nice atmosphere
- Controls are smooth
CONS
- Still a little confused as to how to manipulate the baby moons
- Gravity swinging around planets wasn't explained well? Not sure if intentional
For full criticism and breakdown of ranking, as well as candid reactions to gameplay, do check out the video~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4107L2DLog
The graphics and music choice was very amiable, overall a relaxing experience. I found it a bit difficult to estimate how I had to setup the planets and at what angle I could blast off safely. Not sure whether this was deliberate but I once managed to use the gravitational pull of the planet to slingshot myself around it. If it was deliberate I would have liked to see this feature more pronounced as such a move as pretty hard to pull off.
Overall a solid entry.
I played this on stream at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/141022066 - time 3:04:10
@pit :: Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely have to play around with a setting up a background if I come back to this.
@inventroom :: Thanks for making a video! Your feedback was really honest and helpful, so thanks for that, too.
@cerno-b :: Thanks! Yeah, the gravity slingshotting was half deliberate and half sheer chance. Overall I'm glad that it's there, but it certainly is hard to pull off and it can feel a little cheat-y.
@devpaul :: Thanks so much! That's high praise, indeed :)
@sgstair :: Hey, thanks for streaming it! And as the artist, thanks again! But yeah, designing puzzles for this was pretty tough. Some of the puzzles (I think) are real winners, and others sort of tread water. What can you do, though? 72 hours is a bitch ;)
Check and rate my game, hope you'll enjoy :)
The music fits the game very well and some of the sound effects remind me of the classic "Paradroid" which was a nice callback (even if not intentional).
Excellent work!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9tRgmWtsjc
@dmit :: Hey, I left you a comment! Glad you liked the game :)
@richard-michael-smith :: Thanks! I've never played Paradroid but I'll have to check it out.
@molpe :: Hey, thanks for making a video! It was super fun to watch. The zoom level is something I've received a lot of feedback on. Definitely should've made it bigger, methinks.
@thelonelynug :: Yeah, this isn't the most innovative take on the theme but I'm glad the mechanics managed to grab you.