This is really good, even more so for a first game. I love how its really snappy it is when you die you're thrown right back to it. Good work :)

Cool game. The first level was the hardest. Took me some time to get a feeling for the slingshot mechanics. Afterwards, I was able to complete the levels on the second or third try.

Appreciate the early feedback. Very encouraging!

This is probably one of the game concepts I was most excited to see! I love games that involve swinging around like that! That said there was an issue with the difficulty curve. Mainly the second level took far too many attempts to beat. Also there were a few issues with game to player communications for instance showing the player what they are and are not in range of. Overall I had a lot of fun playing it which is why I played it through twice on my stream!

Great idea, and a fun little game. The difficulty on the second level already was pretty high. It takes a little while to get used to the mechanics, like when to release to go in your intended direction. So, some more easy levels to start with would be great. Even the first level is a little too difficult for someone just starting with the game.

I'll definitely be coming back to try again at some of the levels. Nice entry!

It took me some time to realize what I was supposed to do, but after that I felt in love with this game.
The concept is so simple but very attractive, one of the best mechanics I've played so far! I probably won't stop playing until I pass all levels.

As feedback all I can say is that you could decrease the volume of the SFX. Right now it sounds a little loud.

Good game!

It's a bit hard to tell if you can connect to a planet to sling to without just trying to click; other then that mechanically sound. Would have appreciated a mute button, while the music was fine for the first few loops it started to grate.

The game is pretty nice :) I like that you can really feel the gravity and you need to be really precise with the tractor beam.

I enjoyed this, nice work! I found the levels with multiple spinning planets a bit overly difficult; a lot of the time it felt like I was just guessing what might work, without being able to know for sure whether it would. As others have mentioned, it would be nice if there were some more UI helpers. For example, indicating
when you can grapple to a planet, gravity fields, etc.

Just wanted to jump in and say I've been updating this game in the background (but wanted to keep it pure for the Jam). Sound effects are going to be lowered, and I'll add a mute button (I found it really hard to judge in Unity how loud the game was going to be). levels redesigned for a smoother difficulty curve. A hue for the planets gravity to make it more obvious. A light hue around the ship to show the tractor beam distance. Remove the timer (I think limited beam is enough) and you can actually press 'R' to reset right now, so adding a prompt to the UI could be nice.

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far. Looking forward to more suggestions!

Pretty good, and I love the concept. I really wish the tractor beam was a click and hold rather than click once and click twice thing. Also the tractor beam seems to automatically slow your momentum quite a bit, not sure if this is intentional.

@joyfired Appreciate the feedback. Honestly, I hadn't though about it being a hold-down mechanic, but I can see how that would be more intuitive. Right now the tractor beam (I found) does not really add to your momentum unless you really utilize the planet. It tends to be a matter of just carrying the moment of when you start the level. I played around with the idea of having some small thruster mechanics for the ship, perhaps having the tractor beam pull you toward the target a bit to build momentum.

Thanks for playing our game! I would try yours but the Chrome on my PC doesn't run WebGL for some reason. :/

@jushiip Sorry, I am going to investigate how to host/release on Windows (maybe I can do this on Itch.io) so more people can try. Wonder if there's a spot to host APKs as well if someone wants to try and Android.

Really neat game. I had a hard time with level 1 for a while, when I finally beat it I accidentally hit 'retry' out of habit. Beat it again and got super stuck on level 2 and finally gave up on level 3. I'm going to revisit this, and I'm going to beat it - just not tonight =) Nice work!

@burgee I'm working on smoothing out the learning curve, and I also ended up hitting retry after beating a level. Doesn't feel good to have to restart the level after multiple tries. I'll be removing the retry button after each level, and just have 'next'. Maybe I'll add an option in menus to go back and try previous levels. Cheers!

had fun failing at this :P

@radmccool Oh no! lol. Maybe failing is part of the fun?

Nice looking game! Reminds me of one I did for an educational compo last year!

Really cool idea and gameplay. Art style is also very nice and the game is quite challenging actually, much more challenging than i expected it to be. The gravity changing the direction was a very cool mechanic i loved it a lot. The sound effects were nice and fitting as well. Overall really cool and engaging as well as entertaining game. Took me several tries per level and that was awesome.

Maybe I'm just bad... but this game is hard as hell lol. Still fun enough to keep trying endlessly though I guess!

I don't know if I'm bad or if the game is really hard. But the second level is really impossible for me. I like the concept still. A smoother learning curve would give this game a huge improve
.

@carsen-d and @aurelien I am quickly learning that the learning curve is was to steep. I've been working on updates in the background, and focusing a lot on difficulty. I do want it to be difficult, but level two is probably a bit overkill in challenges for being the second level. Thanks for the feedback!

This game is really challenging! Espacially the second level was way to hard in my opinion. But still it was a really interesting concept and fun to play. You could add a menu to select the levels and add an option to mute the sounds. After a few minutes they got kind of annoying. Overall a nice first ludumdare entry. Congratulations!

Very challenging (took me a lot of tries to even beat the 1st level) and it's a very interesting concept, I really like how both hooking and planets mechanisms fits together. Try to make the learning curve a bit easier (more beam duration early on?) and reducing the volume of SFX. Good job!

Well that was damn hard! Fun concept and fun game. The physics of the rope sometimes completely stopping your current speed feels a bit wierd, but I'm not sure how that could be improved.
Come check our game, we're in space too! :)

I have returned to give my rating! Good luck!

Very nice concept, especially for a first try !
The game is quite hard which is not surprising for a first try but the mechanic is simple and quite intuitive so this is not really frustating.

By the way I succeeded at the second level at my first try. I was amazingly proud. Ok maybe I was lucky :wink: But then I made it to the end so I guess I am awesome. This is a very good sign because I usually am not very tenacious.

For the control I think it would have been better to force the player to maintain its click and to realease the beam when the player realease its mouse button. More intuitive for me. But maybe this is just my taste.

Tough, but very satisfying when you finally release the tractor beam at exactly the right moment!

Really fleshed out concept! The mechanics work really well and it makes you wanna try over and over again to beat the level. Although I have to say a little tutorial as well as a little more scale in difficulty would make it a lot easier for firt time players! Also I would remove the quit button on the web build cause it doesen't do anything.

Overall a really great submission for this Ludum Dare! :smile:

Played it again for voting, still one of my favourites this jam. Great work!

Nice retro feel to this.

Was a bit confused at first but soon got the hang of it and had some fun.

Hope you can check out mine too - https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/island-attack

Nice! I love these physics-based action-puzzlers.

I wonder if the first level is too hard. I kind of wish I had a practice level to get my bearings a bit. Also, some kind of visual to show me how long my tractor beam should reach.

Definitely something to expand on!

This game has a neat concept. Slingshotting yourself around planets is really fun. The aesthetic is also nice and the music is fitting. I'd say the game feel was a little bit off; the tractor beam felt more like a solid pole than an energy tether. Despite this, the movement was really fluid and fun to pull off. If this game is lacking anything, it's on screen indications. There should really be an indication of when I can tether onto a planet, because, right now, it's all guess work; the range isn't really clear. Also, a trajectory indicator like in Angry Birds would be helpful for aiming, which also took some guesswork. I think these indicators would go a long way towards making the game more approachable. Despite these issues, I got all the way through the game and had a blast doing so. Great work!

Quite high difficulty right at the start. It's not necessarily a bad thing but to learn the controlls I think it would be better to have a lower difficulty at the start. The tractor beam takes some time to get used to.

Other than that really fun game. I actually enjoyed the difficulty after some time :)

Hey I like this! I also found it quite difficult to start and I think a simpler first level would be a good idea. The gameplay is quite addictive, I kept failing the first level but it kept me trying again and again, about a dozen times before I got it, that's a good sign!

Good work!

Very cool puzzler, and also very challenging. I think it could be slightly easier like maybe the end has a magnetic pull that assists the player, or more guides to let the player know what gravity is currently closest to the ball. But still very cool entry and well thought out puzzles.

Oh and one thing I would say is that there were a few times when I hit the reset button instead of the next button because I was used to hitting the reset button so many times. I would also suggest moving the reset button for when you win so not to accidentally press it.

Nice first try on Ludum Dare entry!

The function of tractor beam is ambiguous for me at the beginning.
But after some trial and error I get used to it and clear the level.
The combination of gravity and joint is a good concept, I think it could be more polished.

Nice done :)

It's a good concept! Really challenging (maybe too much for me :smile:), good little songs and melody. Good simple game for me! :thumbsup:

Really smooth physics in this game. I like the gameplay, it is quite challenging but very addictive too.
Great Job!

This is great, especially for a first game!

The planet-slinging is a great core mechanic and you've got a pretty decent feel on it here. The puzzles that you've built on top are also very nicely done, and I appreciated that there were obviously multiple solutions, and I could feel clever if I got a cool one.

I beat the whole thing, and a bunch of the levels twice. Some of them were very tricky in cool and different ways. One time I nearly beat a level by slinging around and bouncing back off my starting black hole and falling all the way to the goal, but I missed by like a centimeter!

I'm a stickler for fluid controls, so I always tinker a bit in these games and try to provide a few points of feedback, here are some I noticed for your game:

- I didn't discover the R key soon enough, I was getting tired of waiting for inevitable failures to play out and then clicking the button. I tried the R key at random and it was a huge improvement in my quality of life, especially as the levels got harder. (I had to retry some of them a lot.)

- I would suggest one change to the way the clicking works. Right now I always must click to undo the beam. I'd suggest that while slinging, if I click a second time you check: if I clicked on empty space you release the beam. But if I click on a planet in range you cancel my old beam and immediately go into the new beam. Right now I have to double-click in that scenario and it feels less smooth. This is the ultimate moment of your core mechanic playing out, when I'm chaining slings together, and you want that apex moment to feel smooth. I think it could be polished a little, though I'm not sure my specific suggestion is the best, you'd have to experiment.

Those are small items though, just trying to have feedback here!

I enjoyed playing through the whole thing, it was an original experience with a cool core mechanic and it was very satisfying to solve a level. Great job!

@pkenney I really appreciate the well thought out feedback. I like the idea of chaining the beams together without all the extra clicking. Glad you enjoyed the experience!

REALLY nice, especially for a first game! Hot dang. This was really fun and challenging, and I've never played anything like it. I had to get used to thinking about tangents and working through space in a different way. The controls were fine for me, I'm not sure how else you would do it.

I actually didn't know there was a way to restart the game, sometimes I would have to wait for the ship to crash. It was fun watching it interact with the planets though. Also the difficulty curve through the levels was up and down sometimes, but that's fine, you probably didn't have a ton of time to devote to level design. They were all doable and challenging, and I had a lot of fun!

Man, I am super bad at this game...

Nice work!

Great job on your first game. The tractor beam energy limit makes it challenging while keeping it fun.

Woo! I got to level 3! I couldn't continue after that, i gave up. haha. Very addicting little game! I thought it was great! Some feedback: I wished the first few levels were more like Level 3. Maybe it was the aesthetic but, as hard as the level 3 was, it felt like the most polished one. Also, the music choice may had been better. :) but it didn't affect the addiction nor the gameplay. Great job!

One of my favorites. I had fun playing it. Maybe the physics could be a little bit more elastic because sometimes it seems to me that it is too rigid (but it is a detail). The main gameplay fits with the theme. It could be very interesting to export this project on mobile device. Overall, this is a good game - and for a first LudumDare experience, you impressed me. Thank you ++

I really like the way you have to stick into the planet to propel yourself to the goal. The sfx at the beginning was really shocking though! I think adding a circle around the ship to indicate the tractor beam's range would be great! Overall, it's a fun puzzle game :)

I can't help but agree with a lot of people here, this game is quite difficult! It doesn't make it any less fun, but I can see how some people might find the difficulty not that appealing.

The general idea for the game mechanics is absolutely great, but I think you could implement the controls and feel of the ship in a better way. I have a few irks with this that could be so easily adressed, they are:

1. You can't tell at all where you are pointing your beam to, so at firt I thought you only tethered to the closest planet by just clicking, but later on I caught on that the mouse position is crucial. This could be fixed with a simple arrow pointing towards your cursor or even having a player sprite with a distinct front always facing to the cursor.
2. You tether to a point on the surface of the planet instead of the center of the planet, this confused me as the rigid feel of the tether felt more appropiate to fixing an orbit on said planet, if you want to attach to a point of the surface maybe some elasticity on the beam would make it feel less jarring.
3. There's no way to know how far you can go beyond a planet to still be able to attach to it, making planning your moves harder. Easy fix would be to draw a faint circle with the player's beam reach.

All in all a great concept at work with good potential for interesting puzzles and game dynamics. Some work on it to polish and reach said potential is needed but is completely achievable. Great work!

Hey great game for a first entry, welcome aboard and hope you have a lot more fun and success with LD! Thanks also for your review of my group's project. My ideas on your game follow:

Graphics: Really liked the graphics on your game. The background was nice but not distracting and the planets were varied and interesting. They added a great touch of polish which is a real differentiator for LD games. Some suggestions I would have would be to match the resolutions of the game objects, and settle the colour palette down on certain levels. I found the screen looked a little busy at times. Also, I think that making the player ship a slightly more complicated shape (e.g. a triangle like from Asteroids) might help the player guess the trajectory of the ship when they let go of the beam.

Audio: The sound effects in the game sounded really professional and the BGM is a great thing to have. The little touches of polish always go a long way to set your game apart. One comment I would have here is to match the gain a little more closely - some sound effects were much louder than others (and the BGM), which prompted me to turn the whole thing down.

Gameplay: I liked the difficulty of the game, but there were a couple of things that would make gameplay a little more intuitive and fair. Like many of the above, I think that the tethering system could be a little more intuitive. Many suggested using the center of the planet, although I like the idea of the surface, since your velocity gain can sometimes be more the closer you let yourself come to the planet, adding a risk/reward element. This clashed a little with the limited beam time mechanic however, and frequently I found I ran out of gas because the spin was slower than I expected. In keeping with the gas use theme, I think the beam could recharge quickly when not in use, incentivizing minimum use but not punishing you for the sometimes unintuitive physics. Also, I think that the radius at which you can attach to the planet could be made more clear, as did many previous commentors. Some polish elements you could also add: (1) let the player choose when to launch the ship. Since it launches automatically I was caught off guard the first few times and since I didn't recognize the ship's shape right away I was confused at first what was going on. (2) add a 'restart' button. The countdown timer is too long on most levels and you can become stuck. It's no fun to refresh the page when that happens, and waiting is kind of a pain too. They're easy changes to make a big difference to the UX!

Thanks a bunch for your submission, it's really polished and a great idea for your first entry. Looking through your To-Dos, I really liked the level editor idea and score system. I agree with you on those. A ghost racing system could be fun too. Hope you had fun making the game and enjoy the reviewing! Hope to see you back at LD again :D

That game make me laugh! Good idea, very funny! Great job!

Very good job! Nice puzzle!

Wow, great job for your first complete game, you should be proud! If you take the game through another iteration, I would love to play it with some of your TO-DOs added. That said, it is great on it's own, polished graphics & audio, and most importantly it is FUN!