Space Mailman by Kepons

[raw]
made by Kepons for LD 38 (COMPO)

The most hardcore space mail delivery game ever created. Try not to crash as space mail thieves try to chase you down while you are on your mission of delivering super important space mail!

The game might appear unreasonably hard to some but if you practice enough and don't accelerate all the time like the hot-blooded racer you are, you might just make thousands of virtual dollars!

I've uploaded a post-LD version of Space Mailman to itch.io with small fixes and tweaks. Feel free to judge it by the compo version but do give it another shot if you find it too frustrating!

Screenshots

ss1.png

ss2.png

ss3.png

Downloads

Twitter

Ratings

Overall 233th 3.409⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 258th 3.182⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 283th 3.091⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 414th 2.909⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 84th 4.045⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 212th 3.1⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 266th 2.526⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 216th 3.25⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 13🗳️ 10🗨️

Feedback

Jupiter_Hadley
29. Apr 2017 · 18:27 UTC
Very challenging game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation [video series](https://youtu.be/OjTiHp24xjs), if you’d like to take a look :)
rinberd
02. May 2017 · 18:04 UTC
These graphics are so slick, love them! And really fun gameplay too :D
refreshgames
15. May 2017 · 21:50 UTC
I'm surprised this game hasn't recieved more comments! It's really well put together and, once you've spent a while being gentle with the thrust, it becomes much more playable, whilst still retaining the challenge you'd expect from games akin to lunar lander, gravitron, etc. Proud to have delivered 2 parcels before being moidered by space mail thieves.. I mean, I know it's not allowed but I wander what's inside the envelope!
lucentbeam
16. May 2017 · 12:40 UTC
Really clean and beautiful graphics. I appreciate the fast and stylish gameover screen, too, because I got it quite a lot :P. Seriously, it's pretty tough.

Related to the difficulty, I had a thought about the UI: I spent so much time looking at the edges of the screen for either the envelopes or other planet markers that I would frequently lose track of which way I was facing. The ship is, afterall, just a triangle. Perhaps having a small reticle that projects out the forward vector (just a little ways) would help players keep track of their orientation out of the corner of the eye?
Togimaro
16. May 2017 · 19:10 UTC
Fun game and awesome graphics :D
I want to see this on a Vectrex! :smile:

Good job!
csanyk
18. May 2017 · 01:08 UTC
I love the wireframe graphics, but I think they make the game unnecessarily difficult/unfair because there's not enough texture to give you a frame of reference to understand how fast you're moving. Planets kindof sneak up on you and before you can react you end up splattered on them. If the window were big enough to give me some space to see ahead of myself, it might be a little more manageable.
Manax
19. May 2017 · 01:54 UTC
Very hard, but looks awesome, and plays well. I'm okay with it being unforgiving, but as @csanyk said, having a reference (e.g. a star background) would help a lot. There were times I was being gentle, escaped a planet, nothing on screen, and then suddenly I'm falling back to the planet. In other cases, I was being "gentle", escaped a planet, nothing on screen and then smash face first into another planet...
Chao
19. May 2017 · 13:20 UTC
Fun game, was surprised by the amount of content, especially when I discovered the laser upgrade. Although it was challenging, it was a good kind of challenge, and I definitely improved over my attempts. One thing that I would recommend changing is the screen size, make it changeable. There were many times when I crashed into planets just because I didn't see them in time. These kind of deaths felt like I was losing not because of a lack of skill, but a lack of information. Other than that, was a great game.
CabbageCrow
19. May 2017 · 14:46 UTC
I like this game, but the difficulty feels artificial. The problem is that you don't know how far the planet is away. Just a lack of information. It would help too if you have more reference points, so you know how fast you are moving.

Besides that it looks really good and feels polished.
jondalnas
19. May 2017 · 15:39 UTC
The bright graphics were really nice and simple, which is perfect for a fast game.

The spacecraft were maybe a little too slippery and the stars were too small to use a navigation.
Laguna
19. May 2017 · 15:43 UTC
Nice Game! It is quite hard though. It took me a lot of practice, not to destroy my ship on takedown. You could have added a dynamic zoom that takes into account how fast your ship is and how far away the nearest planet is. I really love the graphic style. Bonus points for having some sound effects! :+1:
Kaisean Games
19. May 2017 · 17:01 UTC
This game is too hard for me.
As others have said, there's no way to know how fast I'm moving and how far I am from the next planet.

Zoom out a little and it will be nice.
It needs balancing, but the idea is great and gameplay is fun. Just too hard.

Well done and good luck.
🎤 Kepons
19. May 2017 · 18:23 UTC
Big thanks for the feedback, everyone, I'm surprised I got the necessary amount of ratings! :) Now I'm fully aware of the major problems which I overlooked partly due to lack of time and testing by other people.
luthwyhn
19. May 2017 · 22:05 UTC
Wonderful game. Difficult, but fun enough to encourage me to keep trying. Only successfully managed to deliver one letter so far and I've gotta move on so I can finish rating games before time is up, but this is the first one I've played so far that I'm likely to come back to later :D