LudumData

Birds in Space by PopDaddyGames

[raw]
made by PopDaddyGames for LD 43 (JAM)

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Welcome to Birds in Space!

You are Zaalu, and your goal is to avoid the ever encroaching Black Hole! Fly through space toward the Warp Gate, stopping along the way to gather Space-Seeds. You can turn in these seeds at various Bird Stations to upgrade your stats.

Hint: Upgrading your boost also increases your base speed.

With this Ludum Dare submission, we wanted to emphasize player input and controls while navigating 3D space. We hope that you are able to have fun just flying around and messing with our unique yet basic control system.

Programming: James Tusha (http://www.twitter.com/PopDaddyGames)

SFX & Music: Joshua Damian (http://www.twitter.com/AtmcType

Art & Models: Anthony Tusha

Note: The bird currently implemented in this build is an asset purchased from the Unity Asset Store- we were not able to complete the rigging process for our own bird during the jam. We will be adding our bird at a later date. The background (space stars) is also an asset from the same artist on the asset store.

Nightsound Games Low Poly Bird: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/animals/low-poly-bird-114438

Nightsound Games Space Skies: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/textures-materials/sky/spaceskies-free-80503

http://www.twitter.com/NightsoundGames

  • Game Engine: Unity3D
  • Models: Blender
  • Art: Photoshop
  • Music: Garageband
  • SFX: Garageband
  • Code: Visual Studio Code

[Backstory]: If you follow us on Twitter, you may notice that we actually started this project earlier in the week. We put about 7 hours of development time into the core concepts prior to the jam (not knowing what the theme would be) because all three of us had work and real life events we had to partake in over the course of the jam. James did about 50 hours of programming, Anthony about 30 hours of modeling, and Josha bout 20 hours of audio / music 'for this jam'. While we wanted to participate wholly in the jam experience, we simply could not afford the time this particular weekend. We still had a blast, and hope you enjoy what we were able to come up with!

* _ P.S. You can enter a "Cheats" menu by holding "Q" and "W" at the same time. Have fun! :) _ *

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Windows https://popdaddygames.itch.io/birds-in-space
macOS https://popdaddygames.itch.io/birds-in-space
Linux https://popdaddygames.itch.io/birds-in-space
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/birds-in-space

Ratings

Overall 383th 3.579⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Fun 404th 3.395⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 490th 3.184⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Theme 871th 2.868⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 198th 4.095⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Audio 174th 3.681⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Humor 725th 2.419⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Mood 291th 3.608⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Given 33🗳️ 35🗨️

Feedback

DrLizard
05. Dec 2018 · 07:33 UTC
Its not easy to play. I have run out of oxygen twice before i reached first seeds ad i didnt had will to do same with cages.
Graphic and audio are nice, basic mechanic seems interesting. It is hard to say more, I would consider it more like tech demo, than game.
But dont take me all negative. It has potential and I hope that in future you will have necessary time to exploit it.
great-bobleny
05. Dec 2018 · 07:53 UTC
I didn't play it, sorry. I only play browser based ones (easier to just sandbox the browser).

I just wanted to comment on the artwork, it is supper impressive. Anthony is clearly an excellent artist.
ReiMari
05. Dec 2018 · 07:54 UTC
Controls were solid and the graphics are nice. It just wasn't clear to me what the bird stations are. I assumed it was the cages but nothing happened when I flew through one, so I ended up finishing the game with a whole bunch of un-spent seeds. Overall a relaxing and enjoyable game.
ruddgasm
05. Dec 2018 · 07:55 UTC
Cool game. I really liked the bird graphics and gameplay was fun. I never really saw the need for shield or health because it was fairly easy to dodge the asteroids. The game was pretty relaxing so it wouldve been nice for a bit of a challenge but overall the gameplay was fun. Since you started this game before the jam I didn't really see how the theme played in at all other than a text box at the end. I would like the sacrifice aspect to be more fleshed out. Other than that great game.
Gao Ming
05. Dec 2018 · 08:26 UTC
The graphics are beautiful. Great work!I love the feeling of forward sprint！
MrJackhpil
05. Dec 2018 · 08:34 UTC
Graphics are great! I like those feelings when you sprint. It looks and feels awesome.
cribin
05. Dec 2018 · 08:36 UTC
The game feels and plays great. The graphics are awesome, one of the best looking games I have played yet.
ragtagradical
05. Dec 2018 · 10:59 UTC
This was a really chill experience! I got consumed by the black hole. I think I may have been flying toward it, instead of my goal without realizing. The bird movement is really nice and smooth even on my laptop trackpad.
Apace
05. Dec 2018 · 11:13 UTC
The controls feel reeeeaally good, very nice job on those! I wish to see a more elaborate game based on that system. But even in this short jam version, it's already quite nice!
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 11:13 UTC
@drlizard Thanks for playing!

Don't forget to pick up oxygen bubbles (bubbles with blue inside) while you fly! :)

Thanks for your comments and positive messages!
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 11:14 UTC
@reimari Thank you for commenting about the controls and graphics!

The bird stations are the bird cages-- they have a blue bubble on the opening that you can fly into, which initiates a landing sequence.

Glad you were able to make it to the end-- thanks for playing!
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 11:14 UTC
@gao-ming Thank you for commenting on the sprint- we worked especially hard on playing input and the 'game-feel' (even more so than the gameplay itself!), and are all glad to hear that it translated well to players! ^_^
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 11:14 UTC
@mrjackhpil Thanks very much!
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 11:16 UTC
@ragtagradical The black hole is the purple one, and the warp gate is the blue one!! Glad you had fun despite the collision with your fate!!

I actually developed this while on my laptop, and that was the inspiration for trying to build 'really good flight controls' purposely for the trackpad. I love space games, and flight games, but I have yet to find many that do it well enough to play on my mobile devices or laptop. We very much intend to use this control scheme in other projects, which is why we spent so much time trying to hone them during this jam.

Thanks for playing! :)
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 11:20 UTC
@apace I'm really freakin excited that you liked the player controls!

If you check out any of our previous work, you will see that our player controls SUCKED. Full stop. None of my partners were the cause of those shitty controls, it was all my fault as the programmer. Alex, Josh, Anthony, and Ali all did amazing work, but I was never able to keep up my end and make the player controls "right". I've been studying player input since the last jam, and put everything I've learned to work in this project with the hope of it landing well.

Thanks again for playing, we're excited that you had a blast, even if it is just a mini experience! :):):):):)
Phaeron
05. Dec 2018 · 11:32 UTC
the art work is impressive! Gameflow is cool, game design mecanism seem to be simple but it works ! Very good.
The Game mood is awesome, i liked it !
Phaeron
05. Dec 2018 · 11:32 UTC
the art work is impressive! Gameflow is cool, game design mecanism seem to be simple but it works ! Very good.
The Game mood is awesome, i liked it !
Rodrigo Grego
05. Dec 2018 · 11:58 UTC
The game is great, congratulations!
I loved the aesthetics half star fox.
I just thought the song did not mix much, it could be rethought a bit.
OddballDave
05. Dec 2018 · 12:06 UTC
Great art, great audio, and a nice chill experience. It took me a while to understand all the different elements of the game. I enjoyed it.

Good stuff :8ball:
MZA
05. Dec 2018 · 13:15 UTC
My favourite part of this game is when you open the cheats page and increase your speed to almost game-breaking levels - looks awesome. Having said that, I find that I cannot get far in this game without cheating lol. Running out of O2 is soo easy.

:thumbsup: for creating all the different menu options like graphics and mouse sensitivity and for the fluid controls.
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 13:34 UTC
@rodrigo-grego Thanks for playing! I actually never played star fox, but know that it was widely loved!
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 13:34 UTC
@oddballdave Thanks for playing, and glad to hear you enjoyed it! We love chill too... :P
🎤 PopDaddyGames
05. Dec 2018 · 13:36 UTC
@mza We love cheat codes in older games (wish they'd make a comeback, really!)-- We wanted the game to be difficult at times, but also able to be overcome after a few attempts and learning the mechanics. Thus: we added cheats so you can just have fun flying around at super mega speeds! :)
Codesity
05. Dec 2018 · 16:21 UTC
looks good and interessting. The Sounds were great and the gameplay was enjoyable. Good Work!
Emmatw
05. Dec 2018 · 19:55 UTC
Nice job, you clearly put a lot of work into this game! I liked that you could choose your stats in the beginning of the game. The controls felt really smooth. Your own graphics looked good so it would have been nice to see your original bird in the game, but it really is difficult to get everything finished in time!
TheOneThatNeverWas
05. Dec 2018 · 20:38 UTC
Very cool game! One of the bests of this edition. It is very stylish and fun. Good job!
Nekonyo
06. Dec 2018 · 08:04 UTC
It looks cool. But the game is pretty relaxing for both endings to need to spend a long time going over the goal. And it isn't hard to reach it with some time even upgrades won't be needed for reaching the goal. Is hard to die due to the asteroids and I find weird the way most objects pop at the same time from time to time. So it was a cool game but it wasn't so fun. Maybe some kind of enemy when you are getting close the goal or some kind of increasingly hardness would be greater. That way improvements should really be needed. At least I liked what you tried to achieve. Keep working like that (-:
Swanijam
08. Dec 2018 · 21:13 UTC
This game feels pretty good, especially for a jam game, where moving doesn't always feel so good haha. Very chill vibe and great visuals. I thought it was a little too easy; I didn't feel any pressure to upgrade anything but Boost, and i only hit 1 rock when it loaded inches in front of me while boosting. I had fun though, and happily made it all the way to the end :)
LuCecyl
13. Dec 2018 · 02:55 UTC
Great game, I love the simplicity of the gameplay and inputs! Beautiful graphics. Nice use of the theme.
Congratulations for your job.
Zugai89
14. Dec 2018 · 11:46 UTC
Was pretty nice overall. I didn't really notice to boost and oxygen bar at first though XD Spotting the bubbles and distinguishing their contents was sometimes pretty hard, especially against light background. The new asteroid fields sometimes spawned a bit late and in one case an asteroid spawned right in front of me XD Solid entry for 3 days^^
elysiagriffin
18. Dec 2018 · 21:04 UTC
Hey PopDaddyGames! Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!

If you'd like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/346058131?t=35m05s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
shieldgenerator7
19. Dec 2018 · 20:10 UTC
very polished game. even had in-game video quality settings!

i found it a bit hard to control and hard to tell what the seeds were at first. Also, what do all of the stats do? Shields didnt seem to do anything it feels.

nice graphics nice concept