Retro Rocket Run! by gwolf86
Introduction
In Retro Rocket Run! you must make the choice on whether to collect or avoid the abundant coins.
Collecting them will help improve your high score but may also kill you...
The game gets progressively more difficult the longer you stay alive, so stay sharp!
I had an immense amount of fun building this for my very first Ludum Dare and I hope you enjoy playing it.
Comment with your feedback and highscores (I'd love to know how far you get).
Instructions
- Move left and right (can use arrow keys / A-D keys / gamepad analogue stick).
- Pickup or avoid coins - Your choice.
- Avoid the spike barriers
Pickups
- Damage ship
- Speed-up controls
- Invert Controls
- Toggle Invisibility
Mid-Game:
Invisible Ship:
Highscores
(post yours to be added to the top 10 list!):
78,303 - gwolf86 (me!)
53,828 - @bocodillo
- 49,888 - @frankslater
- 48,626 - @nekoballs
- 38,491 - @priweejt
- 37,173 - @niphram
- 35,185 - @nammflow
- 23,149 - @naca
- 22,570 - @pkenney
- 21,685 - @strelly
- ~17,000 - @x-budsterized-x
FAQ:
Q. Why does your game lag so hard?
A. I didn't pick the best method for handling the creation and destruction of that many coins. I thought I'd fixed the problem before submitting but looks like there are still a few issues.
This seems to be most noticeable on the WebGL version of the game, so the browser may be playing a part in the problem (I'm really not sure). As a result I've now supplied a downloadable version of the game as well (see edits below).
Q. I wish there was more feedback when a power-up was triggered.
A. I wanted to give each powerup a unique animation / particle effect / sound when triggered but I ran out of time. There is a generic trigger noise and particle effect to signal that something happened, but that's your lot for now.
Q. How long does the invisibility last?
A. until you collect enough coins to trigger the effect again (it's a toggle). The same goes for the inverted controls.
Q. How do the power-ups work?
A. Each coin is randomly placed into on of the power-up buckets. When the bucket is full, the effect triggers and the counter resets.
Q. Your game needs more levels!
A. I couldn't agree more! I ran out of time to add all the levels I wanted but these will be added to a commercial release of the game. There are currently 6 section layouts and these come in wide and narrow. I currently have plans to add 14 section types in 3 widths, so that should provide plenty of variation going forward.
Edits:
- The game was originally made form WebGL. However, I later added the download version of the game because players were experiencing some lag with the WebGL build. The download version has the score info in the wrong place in game, so apologies for that (I clearly screwed up the anchoring!).
- Added The leaderboard above for some friendly competition - now linked directly to the players profile so you can check out their games too!
- Added the FAQ to help answer some of the feedback I've been receiving.
Ratings
| Overall | 430th | 3.218⭐ | 89🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 482th | 2.977⭐ | 88🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 426th | 2.966⭐ | 89🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 309th | 3.5⭐ | 88🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 386th | 3.19⭐ | 89🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 291th | 3.073⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 430th | 2.902⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 79🗳️ | 97🗨️ |
Beat this! :)
I look forward to see some crazy high scores!
Highest score I got was 37173
If you could let me know your system specs that would be a massive help for when I come to optimise the post-compo version.
There is a particle effect and warning sound when a pickup is activated, although you don't get told which one (I wanted to do additional effects for each one but ran low on time).
I'll definitely look at slowing things down in the beginning, I also want to add an in-game tutorial that pauses to explain things as the happen for the first time.
If you can't tell what powerup activated by the immediate effect then it's probably the speed boost, which makes the controls more responsive.
Good mood, fitting visuals and sounds. The coin sound was perfectly soft!
@gamesplusjames, I've added a standalone version of the game for you to download and run. Let me know if there are any problems with it (I don't know why I didn't jsut put it up with the web build to be honest!)
It was a bit repetitive and the web version was a bit laggy on Opera & Linux, but otherwise, I liked it. The music fit the game well.
As for the gameplay, it is simple yet addictive!
Small issue I had, part way through sometimes my ship would disappear and just keep exploding.
Otherwise, good work!
The more I played the more I lagged. The more you have, the worse it is! ;)
GG
Picking up more coins is the only way to undo the effects of invisibility and inverted controls, so it creates a snowball effect.
If it was triggering on every coin then that's definitely a bug. I saw it a couple of times whilst I was making it but could never work out what was causing it.
Overall good game ! Keep coding :)
Good job!
Quite fun, I might come back and try to improve my score later :D
Nice post, check out my demo @ https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/do-ki
Peace brooo
I checked out your game yesterday and gave you a rating. :)
Um jogo simples com uma boa inversão de expectativa, boa ideia. Apenas senti um pouco de perda de desempenho na versão web, mas nada que atrapalhasse muito. Parabéns. :flag_br:
Couldn't quite figure out what the best strategy is to earn more points. It was unclear by playing he game how coins and time ended up affecting the score in the end. I know that both increase score, but I love to get high scores so would like to figure out how to optimize!
Other notes: I like the music, although since it is a short sound clip, it does get reptitive quickly. I do like how this game is a nice little breeze to play. It's low stress and sometimes mesmerizing to just sit and play for a bit. Nice work!
This was fun! Nice job adding a variety of power-down effects to make it risky to take the coins! Invisible + inverted was nuts!! The damage one made it tough for me to know.. should I collect coins at all or not?
If I could make one tweak, I would make the restart command usable from the keyboard instead of having to take my hand off to grab the mouse. Don't want to add friction to that moment where I'm deciding whether to play "one more game!"
Also I liked the coin art and the way the lighting and slight perspective made it feel much more like a real space than pure flat top-down would have. It DID have a flying-into-a-field-of-coins feeling!
Nice work.
Nice job!
@nammflow, the coins act as a multiplier to your time score. According to my maths, you'll be able to pick up an average of 200 coins before dying via their damage effects, so you then just have to stay alive long enough to get that sweet time multiplier.
To beat my high score, that means staying alive for around 157 secs!
@pkenney, adding a replay key event was something I thought about adding but ran out of time to really polish the menus (they were the first thing in the game). I also wanted the score menu to have the option to take you directly back into the game, so these will definitely be something that gets added to a later release.
I'd love some more feedback on what powerup I've got. I kept getting inverted controls, but not really knowing I had them, and smashing into the bumpers trying to move one way or the other. I definitely love the inclusion of power-ups though, it adds a good amount of depth to the game.
Great job for your first entry!
If you are interested, please check out my LD40 game [Escape Infection!](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/escape-infection)
Anyways, my Compo game is over here, if you want to have a look: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/squirrel-puncher-4000
The interpretation of the theme is straightforward but I prefer this to over-complicated games.
I had fun playing it, and the game offers a lot of content. Congratulations for your entry!
Overall though a great job done
