Wandering Planet by jlet

[raw]
made by jlet for LD 38 (JAM)

WanderingPlanet1.png

Wandering Planet is a procedural game, you control a planet and your goal is to gather smaller planet to grow. Beware of asteroids because they destroy planets when they hurt them.

WebGL link: https://jlet.itch.io/wandering-planet

Ratings

Overall 430th 3.3⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Fun 394th 3.138⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 343th 3.207⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 319th 3.552⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 477th 3.25⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 394th 2.815⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 589th 2⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 493th 3.037⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Given 33🗳️ 5🗨️

Feedback

mrnyarlathotep
02. May 2017 · 18:27 UTC
Solid entry with an interesting take on the theme - gameplay sort of reminded me of Osmos meets Katamari Damacy.

My only real gripe would be using CTRL as a use key (I know Unity maps it to "Fire1" by default) for webplayer builds, because it starts firing off various browser hotkey actions
BlackRose
08. May 2017 · 16:49 UTC
Its an interesting idea and an entertaining game ^^ Maybe change the camera control, and the background its a little bit dizzy wen the planet its bigger
🎤 jlet
09. May 2017 · 17:14 UTC
@mrnyarlathotep and @blackrose thank you for your comments, I appreciate your feedback. I didn't notice that using CTRL for the zoom can cause issue with the WASD controls, next time I will check more my game.
Vivoubos
09. May 2017 · 21:15 UTC
Nice game!! The gravity is fun! All the planet wants to hug with me!!! But at the end the game was lagging so hard. Nice entry!
🎤 jlet
10. May 2017 · 16:25 UTC
@vivoubos thank you for your comment, as you noticed the game need some optimization to handle more planets.
KappaIX
10. May 2017 · 18:19 UTC
An interesting idea - I also had trouble because ctrl does weird things in my browser. Got quite a big cluster of planets though! As it starts to zoom out the background made me feel a bit sick and you can't see the asteroids very well.

Well done, thanks a lot for sharing!
Poffle
10. May 2017 · 20:40 UTC
Pretty fun. I've been playing Osmos in bed lately, this had a similar vibe, even down to the relaxing music. I enjoyed collecting the planets but the controls seemed a bit unresponsive at time. With smoother controls and more challenges I think this could be a fun little title. Nice work.
🎤 jlet
11. May 2017 · 17:14 UTC
@kappaix and @poffle thank you for your comments.
NedMakesGames
11. May 2017 · 22:02 UTC
Good game. I think you took the theme in a pretty good direction. My only complaint is that as you get more planets, and the camera zooms out, it becomes very hard to see asteroids. But it was fun to fly around and collect planets! Good job!
blobo
12. May 2017 · 01:30 UTC
Once you zoom out, the asteroids get really hard to see, but I loved seeing how my cluster of planets attracted all the other planets.
Tetristar-Interactive
12. May 2017 · 02:22 UTC
I don't know if it was a bug or not but when holding CTRL it saves a bookmark which then causes zoom to be stuck until you press CTRL again (although honestly this made it easier).

That said, I want to give a standing ovation for the music. Brings me back to classic science fiction which is exactly what I need more of in my life.
killerkun
12. May 2017 · 02:36 UTC
Pretty interesting mechanics, kinda reminds me of katamari damacy.

There was a point after growing big enough where two things happened that made this sort of difficult:

1. The background pattern became a nuisance and made it difficult to distinguish the elements of the game.
2. The asteroids became too small and were simply invisible, destroying planets attached to me without me being able to evade them or something.

All in all, I found this game interesting and I think it is a solid entry in the jam, nice job!
rwoeltjes
12. May 2017 · 12:08 UTC
Your game reminded me of Slither.io The stars in the backround don't feel right. At some sizes there at looks like static on the screen. It is not always clear when you can "absorb" a larger sized planet. Als it wasn't always clear if I was hit by debris and thus losing parts of me.
simonhutchinson
12. May 2017 · 20:08 UTC
Ha! We did indeed have very similar games! It's funny how such a broad topic can lead to such close ideas. I love it.

Anyway nice work with the motion and variety of space objects (not something I was terribly successful with)!
Hierophant
13. May 2017 · 03:07 UTC
This was fun! There are a few things I'd comment on or suggest though.

I wasn't a huge fan of the way the camera was handled, the jolting zoom out or in made it difficult to keep track of where I was sometimes. A smooth transition would have been nice

At a certain point, I got rather big, and was not able to see the asteroids, so suddenly I was knocked back down to very small without fully understanding what happened for a few seconds.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the zoom out key being bound to ctrl, it meant if I tried to move while pressing it, I had a chance to trigger a hotkey for my browser.

That being said it was a fun idea, good job! If you would like, please check out my game, linked on my profile
Maximo Pech
13. May 2017 · 03:28 UTC
Spectacular atmospheric music. Loved the concept and the mood.
korvyashka
14. May 2017 · 11:39 UTC
Funny game - I liked how planets were attracted by gravitation when growing bigger and the form of a heap of planets.
When you got very big - asteroids almost can't be recognized.
mikolak
14. May 2017 · 17:03 UTC
First of all, kudos for the interface and minimal controls, it's pretty much clear from the get-go what the mechanics are and what the goal is.

The combination of KD-like gathering and gravity is interesting. One problem is the risk of relatively small objects (including your planet) getting a big bump in velocity. This is unfortunately a natural consequence of the laws of physics - and what enables gravity assists for real-life space vehicles by the way. I'm guessing this is why the game is restartable.

Overall, though, very much enjoyed it!
slash_random
14. May 2017 · 19:29 UTC
Pretty solid game. I like the music and the easy to understand gameplay. Actually I found two problems. First, while you are growing, the asteroids become extremely tiny and hard to see, also they still seem to hurt you, when you colide with them. The more serious problem comes with the controls. I used the "ctrl"-key as some sort of map-function, while playing. The problem: Whenever I accidentally pressed "ctrl" and "d" at the same time, I triggered a shortcut for creating a new bookmark in my browser and the game shutted down (I am using firefox). Luckily you already made a workaround as you implemented the arrowkeys as an alternative binding, so this is fine. However in my opinion the player should be warned about this issue (at least in the discription would be nice).