Populate

Cool concept. Lots of depth for a "1 button" game

Every time I press space, the webpage scrolls down instead of doing anything in the game, even after I click in the game or even try fullscreen. Is there something I'm missing? Your game looks fun, so I'd love to learn how to play it!

Took me a little bit to get the hang of it but I enjoyed it! Was not expecting a one button game :D

Great concept! Loved how interactive the game was with only one input button. Great, innovative concept.

Very cool concept. Kinda resembles me of a Reddit's space joke. 'Doctor Jupiter... I think I'm having humans...'

Interesting puzzler, I always love games that throw some orbital dynamics at me! I thought that the mechanic of having a boost but not being able to adjust your orientation after launching was a good touch, it caused me to have to think a lot more about when to go, especially when my target was on the other side of the system.

I think that this game could have benefited a lot from some sound effects when launching and populating a planet for the first time, as well as something ambient. The whole world of the game just felt very empty in the silence.

With a bit more polish, and maybe one or two interesting twists on the mechanics introduced throughout the game, I could see this being a fully fledged and very fun puzzle game. Well done!

This is pretty fun, the beautiful sort of simplicity. My best time out of two tries was 287.58. My only complaint is the level-complete text gets in my way when the next level starts.

@kevinworkman how odd! I'm sorry it does that for you. It sometimes does it to me but as you expected when I click into the game it doesnt do that anymore. Let me go add a workaround for that problem by adding a different key, maybe shift or x. brb.

@kevinworkman Update: V1.01 is up on itch.io with a devlog explaining how I added shift and x as input options (space bar still works too). That should be a workaround for the bug and I hope you enjoy the game!

@nick-barrash Thank you so much for playing the game and for your feedback. I am glad you saw depth in it, I did too and I appreciate your words very much.

@pizzasgood OMG thats a GREAT best time! thank you for playing it and for trying it twice, and especially for the feedback and coming back to leave a comment with your best time. You rock! I really liked what you said "The beautiful sort of simplicity" that makes me really happy. :)

@smilewood I appreciate your comment so much. Once I figured out what this game could be I started working on it but I couldn't put into words what was compelling about it and you have put it beautifully in your first paragraph. Thank you! You are completely right about sounds and especially a sound for lifting off from the planets would be great for this game. I appreciate what you see in this game and that you played it and came back to comment on it. Thank you again!

@mikoziq Thank you for playing this and coming back to leave a comment! hey I haven't heard that joke but now I'm interested could you give me a clue or a link about it?

@fabdynamic http://molempire.com/2011/09/21/mankind-vs-earth-illustrated-jokes/

Hi Fab, this is a great entry.

I always enjoy a good gravity defying space game xD
I didn't really understand where or why my spaceship was being pulled though, were bigger planets stronger? was it just the center of the screen that was pulling?

Apart from that it was very enjoyable

congrats and thank you for the game

@evogengames oh wow thank you for playing and commenting and for providing feedback about gravity and I think you’re right that it’s not clear and for those who are interested: it takes all planets mass and distance into account and each planet has a somewhat randomized mass which is proportional to the size but not defined by the size so the planets mass to size could use some balance for a future version and I appreciate you pointing that out. Thank you for the congratulations too!

I like the idea and concept :v:

@amin-jk000 Wow thanks for playing the game and for stopping by to leave a comment!

Nice one! Works very well as a single button game.

Sometimes though, it didn't seem like the relative force of gravity matched the size of the planets. I also feel that maybe all the gravity could be a bit stronger overall since the rocket is quite powerful.

@remzo Thats excellent feedback and I think you're right about the gravity/size ratio: thats something I will need to balance in future versions. Fortunately the way I ended up programming it theres a universal gravitational constant and I should be able to increase that to improve the balance between gravity and the rocket. Thank you for the kind words and for playing and stopping in to drop a comment :)

This works now! This was pretty good, bouncing around the planets was fun. I would have maybe liked to see some more variety between the levels, and maybe a consequence that prevented you from just spamming the space bar, but this is a great little prototype. Nice work!

Count me as another person who enjoys a good planet gravity-based game. You have a rather interesting and, for me, almost-satisfying to play concept. I really like the idea, but, personally, I felt that there wasn't enough feedback. I greatly enjoyed trying to get my ship to land on each planet in a solar system. However, once I landed on all of them, there was no satisfying feedback along the lines of "Mission accomplished in ___ seconds! Hold on, we're heading to a new solar system!" That lack of feedback caused me to lose interest in continuing to play. Reading other comments (and your description), it looks like after I visit enough solar systems I get a final score, but I was looking for more frequent feedback.

All that said, if you continue developing this, my two cents would be to make it level-based where each solar system is a level that a player can 'beat' and receive that reward. I think it could be a really enjoyable game if you implemented something like that.

Overall, well done!

@kevinworkman great feedback thank you and I'm really glad it worked. I hadn't really thought about spacebar spamming but had hoped that whatever a player did they would find that it was ultimately faster to plot their launches out a little bit. More variety between levels? Definitely! Thanks

@fussenkuh Thank you so much for playing it! I see what you mean! yes after 10 levels it tells you how long it took, but I like your idea too and thats a great one for a future game. There also wasn't any audio which further contributed to the lack of feedback to the player. I especially like the words you used for the level transitions. Thank you so much for your feedback!

Hmmm I won but I don't see my final time. I like the idea of this game, the gravity physics is always fun to play with. I also like the decision to restrict to just Space Bar, sometimes restrictions add more to a game, than adding more features can. Great entry.

@doug-graham Wow thanks for playing the game and stopping by to leave a comment! I wonder why you dont see your final time! I'm sorry about that I'll give it a shot soon and see if it happens to me. Thank you again for the kind words!

Great concept. liked the slower more relaxed Gameplay. could see it getting some effects.

I completed the game, but also didn't see a final time :(. Just saw the "Populatio" text, and no buttons or clicking did anything. I was holding space when I landed on the final planet though, I think, maybe it auto-dismissed? Had fun, though! At first I didn't realize I could *hold* space, and was wondering why sometimes I launched with a bit more or less thrust, and spent quite a while flying around wondering if I had achieved a stable orbit... things got easier (but maybe less fun) after I realized I could adjust my thrust.

A little sound would have really helped, I think. Each level was a little too same-y, needs a little variety, maybe some static things (asteroids?) that just get in the way.

This is pretty good game for only pressing one button. I liked it! It is super fun to bounce from one side of the map to the other.

### End Screen Fixed ###
I just released an update (V1.03) which fixes the problem with the end screen.

__Description of the fix:__
V1.0 had an end screen after the 10th level which gives you a final time and also had a level complete message between levels. Unfortunately through carelessness on my part I had disabled it while trying to fix thing for V1.01 (thats the version where I fixed the space bar problem by adding the x and left shift keys). This update restores both the end screen (with time) and the level complete message.

### Apologies ###
Apologies to everyone who played the game without the original end screen which is at least: @fussenkuh @doug-graham @deedz and @jimbly I appreciate you playing it nevertheless and stopping by to leave a comment.

### Fix Confirmed ###
To confirm that it now shows a final time when you beat the 10th level, I personally played the game in its entirety just now after it was [uploaded to Itch.io](https://fabdynamic.itch.io/populatio) and I got a **pretty decent time! 445.66**


@deedz Hey thanks for coming by and dropping off some kind words. you are right it totally needs some sounds. Since you played it I fixed the win screen to have a timer btw. Also I found this really cool game called DeedzLoop (yours obviously ;) ) which was a lot of fun and I just got addicted to it for like 20 min! Party on!

Really good entry. Happy to see this years theme has given me lots of good games about orbits and such as a big space fan.

This really kept me entertained for a while.Nice!

A nice minigame, quite at some point even a bit frustrating :D Also I would love to see some form of a timed challenge in this, that would make it a bit more competitive (if there was a way to fail). But overall really nice and the physics in this are really cool!

Really cool game! Very relaxed gameplay. I love that the controls are so simple. I think chain reactions would feel great in this game? Maybe some planets could have powerups, shooting colonization projectiles when landing. That would add some feedback and power on the player's actions, and create a small "idle game" component. This would also encourage players to beat their high score I think. Just an idea. Anyway well done! Also maybe we should discuss about VR ;-)


That was very fun, and very challenging! It's not that easy to create interesting game around (pun intended) orbital mechanics, but you did it! I had a great time playing this. Also, glowing effects on planets are nicely done!

@bootak Oh wow thank for those kind words. I appreciate that you said it was fun, challenging and interesting that warms my heart. Thats a great score too you did awesome!

P.S. Great pun lol!

@mar3k great ideas. Thank you so much for playing and stopping by to comment!

@spacemonkey oh wow thats a bunch of really cool ideas you've got there. I hadn't thought of chain reactions at all but yeah that would be really cool! and I would love to discuss VR! I've got a few rigs here and love it so much. DM me on twitter @johnmcgarey sometime (or let me know and we can find some other way to keep in touch).

I got 415, the mechanic of flying off the planets was fun in the first levels but the last levels mostly felt like waiting for the orbits to match up. Graphics and controls were solid.

Wowk @ethan-alexander-shulman you got 415? I'm impressed! Thats a great score and better than what I got last time. You're right about the last levels, although I'm hoping someone can find ways to strategically optimize your launches to get through it quicker. I appreciate you playing the game through to the end and am glad you had fun :)

It's so nice! So simple idea but really well done, the movement feels natural even tho its really hard sometimes. I struggled a lot with eccentric planets and I felt not punished or whatever, I just wanted to reach it even after 50 launches, and when it passes very very close, turn around and finally stick to the last planet *YAY* :D

Had lot of fun, it would be a perfect mobile game! Too bad there are no sounds, that would be cool

Oh.. That's a cool idea!

Nice chill clicker, and i enjoyed the pod's motion physics) Couldnt quite figure out the mechanics for gravity so the game felt a little un-deterministic at times; Overall - great job!

Took me a while to realise I should hold down space. But fun little game!

@neragoth Wow thank you I'm flattered and happy that you had fun with it!

@mutuware @enderr42 @obi-one Thank you for playing the game and for swinging by to leave a comment!

Really cool concept, although it was infuriating to have so little control when you did miss, which I guess is the point. I did notice in the second level I didn't even have to move to win, which was quite cool. It was nice just watching the planets follow their paths. Good job!

The gravity feels really nice,and intuitive.
It was bit unclear how many levels there were. Would be nice to know!

The controls were fun and I loved the shine of the planets! Score: 529

I love games with space gravity! Maybe I miss some kind of lose condition. Good entry!

@the-enigma omg I didnt even notice that about the second level. It is conceivable that they are all like that because I didnt think to test for that at all lol. thank you for playing and stopping by to leave a comment.

@matchamaze Thank you! I tried to imply that in the description but it wasn't clear enough I just now changed it so in the first paragraph of the description it now says there are 10. One player i know got to level 10 and thought it was just infinitely generating levels and gave up ... so close! For that reason and because you brought it up too I think in the post-jam version I will probably label the levels while they are loading or maybe put some announcement at the beginning about how many there are per galaxy or something. Thank you again!

@piturnah Oh thats awesome I'm glad you liked it. The shine came about pretty quickly and I'm glad it was as fun for you as it was for me. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment! P.S. Nice score!!!

@neowedge Good point. Maybe a hard mode with a lose condition is in order for the post jam version. Maybe with certain planets that can't be landed upon or you die, or maybe if you hit the edge of the screen you die ... any thoughts? Thank you so much for your ideas and for playing and for stopping by to leave your good ideas! P.S. I also love space gravity but have never done anything with it before this project. Now I will do more :)

Nice game. Once you've only got a single planet left to visit it gets really challenging but it's addictive enough I just kept on playing. Well done!

I enjoyed this entry a lot! The core mechanic is very satisfying! It took a little to get used to how your orientation reverses after colliding with something but being able to "bounce" as needed is nice. Good job!

@fabdynamic The other thing you could thinmk about is an "overworld map". Between levels, to show where you are in the process to populate the galaxy, you could add a galaxy map. It would even add you the possibility to make branched map with additional mechanics on certain branch. It would also add a possible save point, if people don't want to do everything at one sitting.

Awesome game and cool mechanics. Would have helped a bit a more focus on the graphics. But overall a great game.

@cogcomp Thank you for playing! I appreciate that you said that it was addictive enough to overcome the challenge. Also thanks for stopping by to leave a comment!

@kantieno I'm really glad you enjoyed it! You are right it does take some getting used to. Thank you so much and thanks for stopping by to drop off a comment here.

@matchamaze Wow thats a great idea. Not only would it address the issue of not knowing how much is left, I love those ideas like a branched map. The save idea would be valuable too. Thank you so much for stopping by to leave a comment with your excellent ideas. :)

@meskaline Thank you for playing it and leaving that nice comment and feedback.

A very nice concept! My best time is 495.7 :) This could be a very good casual game.

What's missing is really just polish. The "level complete" text is a bit in the way on the next level, there could be an indication which level you're on, ... Sound would be nice, but I'm not one to talk as I also don't have sound in my game :) I noticed that you didn't opt out of the audio category though, is that an oversight?

This was quite fun once you got the hang of it! Trying to balance yourself in space while waiting for a planet to come around and then hitting it felt great. Well done! My time was 488.5. I felt introducing one more small game mechanic half way through would've made it even more interesting :)

The simple controls make the concept really shine. The different strategies possible are also cool! Took me around 380 sec. Very fun! Some music/sound would have been nice.