LudumData

Astropocalypse by adrisj7

[raw]
made by adrisj7 for LD 42 (COMPO)

https://youtu.be/PVT1v0mpf5I

It's time to save outer space! Gray goo has infested the solar system and is rapidly eating up every planet. Your job is to stop it!

Pilot a nimble ship around the universe, gunning down asteroids and enemy ships that impede your progress. Travel from planet to planet in search of "Escape" tanks that will help you defeat the goo. But hurry, the more you linger, the more the goo will spread, and the less planets you will have to visit!

This game does have an ending, with a thrilling conclusion!

Tips:

  • You don't need to get the "Escape" tanks to get to the ending (but they do help you). If you want to beat the game quickly, you'll need to travel to a particular location on the map (hint, the glaring big evil symbol thing)
  • If you get bombarded with bullets near the planets, kill the red planes to get health packs
  • Dashing by double tapping A or D is super useful for dodging obstacles: it also makes you invincible!

Game too hectic?

Try out the Post Jam RELAXED mode below. It is a post jam game, but no new features were added. (this was created to ensure everyone can enjoy the game!)

Can you beat it?

Controls:

| Key | Action | | ------------- |:-------------:| | Up / Down | Thrust forwards or backwards | | Left / Right | Turn Left or Right | | A / D | Strafe Left or Right. Double Tap for a quick dash | | W | Fire Machine Gun | | Tab | Open up Big map (see entire solar system) | | Space | Engage hyperdrive! (If your hyperdrive is loaded, that is.) | | Ctrl | (Optional) Space Brakes |

Screenshots:

PlanetRise.png

Hyper Drive Baby.png

Big Map.png

Danger Zone.png

Timelapse

https://youtu.be/lHVeB5o_sRU

Known issues:

If your monitor refresh rate is greater than 60Hz, the HTML5 game will run way faster than its intended speed. I'll try and patch that up, but in the meantime if you have this problem you'll have to use the Windows Download.

Windows https://www.dropbox.com/s/jpx09qudg3du1pt/Astropocalypse.exe?dl=0
Source code https://github.com/adrisj7/LD42
HTML5 (web) https://adrisj7.itch.io/astropocalypse
HTML5 (web) https://adrisj7.itch.io/astropocalypse-relaxed-ld42
Windows https://www.dropbox.com/s/rrvz9ubt136ie2c/Astropocalypse%20Relaxed.exe?dl=0
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/astropocalypse

Ratings

Overall 66th 3.919⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 74th 3.839⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 319th 3.258⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 604th 2.968⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 308th 3.371⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Audio 81th 3.661⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Mood 110th 3.532⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

Jeremy Ryan
12. Aug 2018 · 23:38 UTC
Really solid submission! Audio in particular was strong; I liked the music and the "warning" clip in particular. Controls and camerawork were pretty smooth, although the game got repetitive after a time. Nice job for 48 hours!

Really impressed by amount of content/mechanics for a compo game.
darthnumbers
24. Aug 2018 · 03:16 UTC
Mood was great, loved the audio and gameplay. Super hard though!
YourLocalSavior
24. Aug 2018 · 03:29 UTC
Super fun! It took me a minute to get used to the way the camera worked, but once I did it was really fun. I like how it's different in that regard. Also, your tutorial is really well done. Overall, great job!

Also: Bonus points for making a web build! Thank you!
ArtemFTW
24. Aug 2018 · 06:14 UTC
Very fun, but the controls are a little weird.
Rayaarito
24. Aug 2018 · 19:01 UTC
Congrats, best game I played so far. Not going to lie, i originally hated how the camera rotated with the player then I grew to like it. I liked how hectic it felt with the camera rotating with the player - I felt like I was piloting a gundam. It's the perfect pace too, I really enjoyed it. Good job!
🎤 adrisj7
24. Aug 2018 · 21:15 UTC
Thanks for all the awesome feedback! Super glad you guys enjoyed it.

With regards to @rayaarito and @yourlocalsavior I totally get what you mean, the camera does take some getting used to. Originally I didn't want to make it follow the player but I realized that with all the directional controls (rotating, strafing, ect.) it would be hard to orient yourself if the camera was fixed. I do wonder if it's possible to set up a control scheme that gets away without doing that though (maybe using the mouse to orient the player?). Definitely worth looking into for the future!


Also, with regards to the difficulty I wrote down a few tips on the description. A big takeaway is that you don't actually have to travel to the planets if you want to beat the game, but traveling to the planets and collecting the escape tanks will help make beating the game easier.
silkworm_sweatshop
25. Aug 2018 · 10:50 UTC
I beat it! Really fun, I didn't expect this kind of depth in what I thought was a simple space shooter. I like how every element feels slightly different, from traveling to the planets, the battles and escape drive collection at the planets themselves and finally going back into ground zero and fighting the boss.
pengda
25. Aug 2018 · 11:11 UTC
Very good action feedback；

A tad finicky to control；

It must be very difficult to make such a game within 42 hours.Good job

I am still playing……╭(　▔▽▔)╮
Zirrrus
25. Aug 2018 · 11:37 UTC
Oh, this is cool but really made me want to throw up for some reason, so I couldn't play it for long. But I like the pumped-up music and the fast-paced action! Now I need to go lay down for a bit though.
Ben Penwell
26. Aug 2018 · 03:07 UTC
Very fast paced. I was disoriented while moving, so I ended up moving around in a circle shooting to not die.

Not really sure how to win the game? Maybe if I played it more I would've figured it out.
Sarah
26. Aug 2018 · 03:42 UTC
I had a really hard time with the camera following the rotation of my ship, it kinda made my head hurt :( But other than that, the game is nice and works fairly well! Good job (:
psychead
26. Aug 2018 · 08:09 UTC
Very satisfying entry, from the games pace, to the machine guns metallic audio and acceleration. The difficulty felt somewhat overwhelming at the start, following the tutorial and during the first rounds, which is somewhat expected in a more complex compo game though. Being able to restart right at the press of a button instead of having to navigate back to the menu and reading the small introduction again would've helped, but that's just a small issue.
All in all, a exceptionally fun game.
Repusv
26. Aug 2018 · 08:22 UTC
Really good! Way more readable than I thought (considering everything that everything is always moving and rotating). The music is also quite good!
Cheesey Bob
26. Aug 2018 · 15:56 UTC
Absolutely incredible! Such a fun game! It took me several tries, but I managed to beat it - the boss was a really cool way to end it. The visual and sound effects were really great, in particular the player's gun was very satisfying. The addition of the strafe-dodge was a really cool idea which helped you feel a lot more in control during fights.

My only criticism is that it was pretty frantic. I think it could have been made even better if the game speed was turned down a bit - everything else kept the same, just a slightly slower pace so you have a bit more time to react to stuff. Maybe I'm just getting old though, ha!
🎤 adrisj7
26. Aug 2018 · 17:32 UTC
Thanks again!

After hearing feedback from @ben-penwell, @psychead, @cheesey-bob, I added a Post-Jam "Relaxed" Mode that's made to be a bit slower and less punishing for anyone else who might want a less hectic gaming experience!

Cheers for checking out the game!
mrnyarlathotep
26. Aug 2018 · 21:57 UTC
This game has a lot of "juice" (as the cool kids call it) for a compo entry with some nice touches like camshake and some nice particle effects.
Noxbuds
26. Aug 2018 · 22:38 UTC
Very nice. Felt very lively, and the simplistic graphics worked quite nicely. Took some time to get the hang of collecting the escape drives, and the hyperdrive map did feel a bit basic - it would be nice to at least be able to choose the jump distance. Good job overall, nice arcade feel.
amras0000
26. Aug 2018 · 22:40 UTC
This is fantastic. I only managed to get two escape drives so far but I'll likely go back and finish the game when I have more time. The combat is satisfying, the game constantly keeps you on your toes, there's always an objective in sight and there's always a number of things to keep track of. And the game is short enough that this probably never gets tiring or repetitive. The design is great, the polish is great, there's a lot of work put into this and it shows.

Two minor issues I ran into:
- The web version doesn't seem to expand in full screen mode. It's very small and hard to read. It's not a problem on the download version, but it does make the web version pretty unplayable.
- One ring spawned inside a planet. I was able to dash into the planet to recover it (which felt glitchy itself), but I had to try a few times and really this shouldn't happen in the first place.

Some design considerations, which didn't really impact the game:
- The rings could have been placed further apart, maybe across the planet's atmosphere. That might force me to stay on the planet a little longer but I can also appreciate that searching for rings might have made the game more tedious.
- The spinning camera made me a little dizzy at times, especially in the tutorial. Maybe keeping the camera rotation fixed would have made the game a little easier to read, though it may have removed some of the excellent hectic nature.
- maybe the map overlay could have been partially transparent, since the enemies did not stop coming while I was checking the map I would have liked to react to them quicker.
🎤 adrisj7
26. Aug 2018 · 23:23 UTC
@amras0000 thanks for checking it out and giving some quality feedback!

With regards to the rings being stuck near the planet, good catch! I let it slide but really shouldn't have. From what I can tell, I think the rings should always be reachable, but some of them might end up right on the surface.

With regards to the spinning camera, it is a little nauseating. But if it wasn't there it would be difficult to tell which direction is left, right, up or down (necessary for thrusting, backwards thrusting and strafing). A necessary evil if you will, but I'm thinking about how that can be avoided in the future!

And the transparent map overlay idea was a good one, wish I thought of that before release!

PS, might be redundant, but if you ever get bored of collecting the escape drives, you're welcome to just go to the game's ending straight away! There's also a "RELAXED" mode where the game is a little bit less hectic
Rahim_Pxr
27. Aug 2018 · 00:51 UTC
Nice game, I hope to see more updates and improvments sooner.
If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42
🎤 adrisj7
27. Aug 2018 · 01:27 UTC
@rahim-pxr Thanks for checking it out! Small world man, I already took a look at your game and commented on it!
axoona
28. Aug 2018 · 21:26 UTC
Excellent game, congrat's for putting this together! I especially liked the whole mood (the audio and the graphics adding greatly to it). I also really like the screen turning effect, you can get easily accustomed to it and I find it more ergonomic than when the screen stays immobile.

I only managed to get 2 escape pods for instance, the diffilulty at the death zone seems frantic. :sweat_smile: I didn't try the relaxed mode yet. also maybe it could be good to add some indication about the position of other planets

But anyway it's a great entry!
coomzy
29. Aug 2018 · 19:01 UTC
Nice game! Not sure about those controls though