TERRIFYING ROCKET ZEST

A nice game, but it would be nicer if the play area was a little bigger, and the border would act like asteroids, bouncing you back with a health penalty, instead of just letting you pass through and die.

The ship was also somewhat hard to control. Not bad for a game jam game tho.

@Darylsteak Hey, shit, that's a really good idea! I could have done that, too. Quite easily. Just had to rocketbody:applyForce() that ship... I also wanted to actually give those lines movement and flavour, but I was strapped for time. They're meant to be Solar Winds, and there's even a PNG picture of how they'd look. It's kind of a shame that I only had enough time to pick the Compo...

I wish there was a score of how far away you reached. Or maybe I just missed it? Regardless, once you got a good sense of how the ship moves, it was rather pleasing to play. A little bare bones as a whole but with a bit of polish this could be a very entertaining mini game.

Gameplay is ok? Rotating the ship makes the game unplayable, so I just used arrow keys to boost and strafe. It seems sacrificing people earlier is more helpful as that was the only way I could make it to the end. The "you made it here in [x] seconds" message is bugged as the seconds keep counting even after the win condition was reached. Kind of difficult in a janky kind of way but not impossible.

@burnedkirby Oh shit, I thought I fixed that bug... Was it after a respawn?

@hindbodes I think so? I definitely didn't reach the end on my first try.

The falling planet at the beginning is a bit hostile :D
Fun concept, but really hard to get through.
I tried to sacrifice everyone right from the start to see what happens, was surprised by the speed boost o/

You don't know fear until you face the cosmic zest...

A cool game concept. The game is somewhat tricky to control, and damage is pretty unavoidable when squeezing through the narrow gaps between the huge astroids, but hey, sacrifices must be made, right? It's also fun that you have to balance the number of sacrificies, because keeping everything means you won't make it, but ditching everyone makes you accelerate way to fast. I gave into peer pressure and ditched the fat friend right from the start though :p

I do agree that rotating makes the game so difficult to control that it might as well be scrapped. Strafing isn't perfect but it gets you to the end much easier. Maybe making the rotating function less "sticky" would help.

Very interesting concept. I agree with the others, the rotating is really hard to control, but once I figured out how to do strafing, the game became much more playable. I really like the concept of ditching people to get further.

Thanks for the ratings!

I feel I should point out: when programming the rotation, I made at least one mistake - but it's probably not what you think: the rotation stabilizes when the next boost is ready and the Z turns yellow. I wanted to make it so that the ship could get turned around by buffeting from asteroids, and my solution was to... make the "stop turning around" code turn off... *sometimes*. I get your confusion, but knowing all this should make rotation much easier to understand and control.

"F = ma" and a bunch of other physics things, suggests that dropping everyone at the beginning is a solution, which also leads to hitting a sphere at mach 3. This game is still very unrealistic in a way I like. I didn't find the rotating useful at all, and finished the game without it. I scored 357, saving 3/8 of them. The warning signs are very scattered and hard to understand, except for the part near the end; it's really easy to hit things. I don't think stuff was well polished, but to me they were part of the challenge. The nerdy humor in this game is enjoyable, good job.

What a terrifying flash screen... :D I like the simple storyline and mechanics, but the physics should be a little more intuitive... And remember to give the user enough feedback whenever he does something. At first I was very confused as to why I couldn't thrust or rotate, until I got a feeling for the physics. Otherwise, great idea, steep learning curve, I love throwing people off my spaceship!

Congrats on your first compo! You made an awesome thing in 48 hours. See you again in April! :)

Actually I might not be back for the April one. :*L* I'm pretty sure I need a break, at the very least.

Still, though - does my game flash at people? If it does, I really want to put that epilepsy warning there. It's the preloader, right?

Cool game, fits the theme well. I didn't realize you could rotate until after I beat it actually(there's no victory screen or anything which I think should be added to the end), though rotating seems to make the game harder? Switching the rotation to aim at the mouse position would make it easier to control(also WASD controls too instead of just arrow keys.) My strategy was to just eject the fat people immediately and hug the walls while boosting more and more near the end. Ram those damn asteroids outta here.

From reading the other comments apparently there is an end section, I probably sped right through it though lol

It is much more difficult than I thought, but great fun! The concept are great and every piece works right in the game. Great job!

😇 Thank you for making my game pass judgement, gang! 🕊