The gameplay is a lot of trying to get your rover to go straight and not a lot of content. Great idea! but try making a challenge or something to get the player excited and engaged! If you took this idea and make it feel like fun instead of a chore i think it would be awesome!

I got stuck in a hole. :c

But I kinda like it as a chill/explore type vibe? I'd suggest more than focusing on challenge, focus in on enabling exploration and removing unintentional navigational challenge with more solid locomotion. I think that'd also alleviate the 'chore' sensation that Kade mentioned! C:

I managed to get to the 2nd charging station before also falling into a hole! I really enjoy this kind of relaxing, lonely ambience though. I didn't have too much of a problem going straight but at times, the rover felt a bit slippery and not having enough traction. Maybe also make it a little bit faster? Overall, fun game. Good execution. Sound design was on point.

The game is quite relaxing when you explor and try to get the rover to go straight :P However I did not seem to understand how the charger worked. Did it just take long time or did I need to drive over and past it? As other people mention the game might need something more to make it abit more engaging. But great idea! Need to play abit more now and figure out how to charge it up.

@ganiester there seems to be a bug where sometimes the power bar doesn't change when you're on top of the station, but it updates after you leave.

Thanks everyone for the feedback, working with the physics to make the vehicle work was a pain in the ass, and it translated into being a pain to play with too, sorry. I'll try to make it more responsive/fast.

It's the opposite of Need for Speed. Nice.

@richard-bunn :D I'm gonna use that line as a tag on itch.io

well it looks nice and it has some cool graphics, but it's soo slow and directions move goes 10 times slower than forward. I didn't know you could do a game in blender tho, that's impressive.

I'll be honest, I'd have liked if it resembled more of a "racing game" as you tactly ruled out. Point being, I would have enjoyed exploring the area if I was able to actually move faster than a turtle stuck in quicksand, and in the direction I'm willing to. Tapping to turn feels unimaginably unintuitive, and there's nothing else to take my attention away from that fact.

The graphics are enjoyable and interesting though, so here's to hoping you apply some pizzazz to the controls.

Mac version isn't working. I get this error when opening: "“tiny_explorer” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash."

I can confirm @shaolin-dave 's statement

Nice one! Rover collision with ground can be little smoother, it bounces on edges. If you planning to continue work on project I suggest to add sand storms, it may occur from different directions and player should hide behind the rock to avoid damage.

Very comfy and atmospheric. I also enjoyed the style of the game. Gameplay was good, it felt unlike racing games, but obviously trying something else is a good thing, not a bad thing here. So yeah, I liked it and I think it was executed well. Great entry!

Having the same issue as @shaolin-dave & @devillime. Looks nice though!

I love space themed games. I know real life rovers moves slowly but it does not work well in the game. Rover should be way faster.

@shaolin-dave, @devillime, and @roguenoodle
I don't have a mac, so couldn't try the build for it, sorry. Thanks for the info, I'll look into it and try to fix it.

@kiyaha-jr
I was going to add sandstorms at first, but I wasted too much time in the beginning trying to make the terrain spherical and then trying to make the rover rig not fall apart so I had to cut that down. I'll try to add them in a post-jam release.

@captaindreamcast
Thank you! That feels really nice to read. :)

@teddydd
Yeah, that seems to be the consensus opinion, I'll try to add an arcade mode where the vehicle is fast so you all can have fun with it.

Very relaxing and I needed that, so thank you :) I had no issues making it through on my first try, and there were a couple of surprisingly tense moments when I came up on one of the holes or started sliding down a steeper decline. I also appreciated the nice 3D intro menu, general smoothness, nighttime transition, and soundtrack. I'll corroborate the opinion on the odd bouncing at the edges of polygons, and more of a focus on exploration would have been nice. I enjoyed the experience overall though, so nice work!

I really don't think you Have to make it faster. It's the main purpose of the game. All games aren't about speed/fun/adrenaline.

Exploring while looking at landscape can be really enjoyable.

Problem is, the camera is quit buggy (or at least it was for me). It was keeping its momentum even without moving my mouse. Making it really frustrating to even try to look in other directions.
So I ended up trying to block the camera in the next green circle direction, hoping that i wouldnt had to move it again, ruining the experience of exploration :(

So beside this big problem, the game could have been quit enjoyable / relaxing. With the addition of maybe some context to add a little bit of implication, with some visual narration.

Overall, the game has potential, graphics and audio was great.

Nice game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 39 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qvdJmOzeNg

I actually really enjoyed this game. Yeah it's a lot slower than most people would like but there's a nice challenge in choosing the safest route to make sure you don't end up in a hole in middle of nowhere. I completed the game with just a tiny bit of power left and it felt awesome. For what it is it's a really cool game.

I uploaded my gameplay of this game on youtube, you can find it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12ffc0VIHK4

Thanks for being part of the stream :)

Great atmosphere and interesting concept. I loved the visuals and sounds, the way they created amazing mood. Only things I have to nitpick about are lack of texture on the ground, sometimes it was bit hard to tell whether buggy was moving or not (especially in dark). Also terrain felt really slippery which was bit odd. Altogether great job!

You know, this is one of my favorites so far. I played through three times before I got to the end, and it wasn't even a frustrating experience for me. I feel like I bonded with the rover, like we went through some shit together. I named him Marvin.

Our first trip was mostly spent figuring out controls and the best way to go about getting to where we needed to go. We ended up falling into that giant crater after the second power pad - lesson learned haha. Marvin's not much of a climber. My camera glitched through the bottom of the world when we got to the bottom of the hole which was a silly and interesting experience.

Round two, we carefully avoided the giant crater and pressed on. We got to the third pad and night began to fall, which was scary to me, because the terrain was slippery. While waiting for daybreak I accidentally hit esc and killed us. Again, lesson learned.

Round three, we eventually made it all the way to the end! Marvin got home. I felt accomplished.

Although the rover is slow, I think it is appropriately so. The power levels were really well-balanced and I liked being able to take my time and figure out the best path to where we were trying to go. The turn radius/controls were a bit janky, but it sorta made me feel like we were driving through sand, and looking from it at that angle, Marvin's behavior suddenly made a lot of sense.

It was fun to fight with the terrain and there were a few "oh shit don't slide!" "Marvin we ain't about to climb that mountain where are you going?!" moments but I had a lot of fun with it. Very relaxing game, the art is clean and the sounds are really well-suited.

Fun features I'd consider adding if you're gonna keep at it: More open-world exploration, taking samples of things, little easter eggs, maybe some new terrain features or different worlds.

Overall you nailed the theme and I had a great time with this one! Nice work!

Another Mac user here eager to try out the game. :'c Is this a Unity game? If so, if you'd be willing to provide source, I'd be happy to build it for you!

@ava-skoog No, the game is made in Blender. Someone told me that the problem is that the version of Blender(2.78) I'm using seems to have the game engine broken on mac, I'll try to build it with older versions to see if it works.

I am pretty sure it got slower over time.

I get what you were going for, but the slow moving and turning kind of put me off. As well as that I think the weels are too slippy which means that, one, going up small hills is really slow, and two, the rover starts sliding a different direction to the wheels and you have to ajust them as fast as you can to compensate (which is not very fast). 4 wheel drive may have been a good idea, I'm assuming you didn't do 4 wheel drive because of my need for wheel ajustment on hills and I don't think I saw the front wheels spin or anything, if I'm wrong about that, sorry!

I don't think making it a little faster would turn it into a racing game or anything (unless you're actually doing 10m jumps off the hills). A faster rover with faster wheel turning along with maybe a faster energy drain would have been good, I was getting impatient just reaching the first checkpoint.

The main stuff was here, you just needed some work on some of the smaller things to make the game a little less frustrating! I think some music started playing when I was running out of power which was a nice touch if it was intentional, though at that point I was 2 feet away from the checkpoint and it was a little blech!

I'm a spacenut so seeing the game, made it an insta-click for me.
I love the graphics, being low poly goodness, though not the rover model. It looks almost stock, the 2 missing wheels being a telltale sign.
I loved the music as well! Very atmostpheric.
The sounds were good too. Servo and driving sounds were high quality and realistic sounding.
However, the experience was realistic as well. The journey is very slow, with little diversions or challenges. Also, having the steering hold the last position was good, but throttle would've benefitted from this as well, as holding W for half an hour or more gets painful.
Realism != always fun. That's why we have games. So gamefy the game a bit more, speed it up a bit, and I'm sure it'll be a more fun game! But solid attempt nonetheless!

The game looks and sounds amazing! Unfortunately the content is almost non-existent and very repetitive. But, seriously the 3D graphics look awesome!! :grinning:

We streamed your game with Danae plays on Twitch. :) Here's a link:

[Danae streams Ludum Dare 39: Day 3, part 1: Tiny Explorer](https://youtu.be/LN1svjCl2z0?t=48m30s)

This was a simple "walking simulator", but it was a simple, chill-out experience. I enjoyed it, the sky (with the Moon, oops) was pretty, the darkness and the following morning, added a nice atmosphere. In the morning I especially liked the glossy, low-poly ground, weird as it sounds :D

Good job!

Played it to the end even though it's clear from other people's playthroughs that somehow, I got the very short end of the stick and ended up with a super-slow rover (we're talking like, 5 decimeters per minute speed). Think I ended up playing a full hour to get to the end, with only one problem in the way.

Honestly, I was rather surprised. The slow speed in the game makes certain things that would be boring in other games a triumph. Just going from one power station to the other on a flat plane felt like a journey. And being able to overcome slipping into deep pits was like a victory in improvising. This game succeeds in making the small parts feel significant, even if at its core, the game plays like a walking simulator. I liked it!

Really interesting game. The controls were a bit difficult considering how slippery the terrain felt, but I suppose that was the main challenge of the game. Overall this game set a really great mood and I didn't end up bored whatsoever during the journey. Graphics were great for a 3d jam game. The detail on the rover, lander and terrain were quite impressive. Great work!