LudumData

Express Without Remorse by alpacalypse

[raw]
made by alpacalypse for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

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Superluminal interstellar and intergalactic travel is made possible by a network of TRAnsdimensional Interstellar Navigators built long ago by the Train Builders. In order to Ride the Train, one must stow aboard whilst not getting shot down by the ancient defensive weapons.

Made in Phaser 3.

UPDATE: We got our ratings fixed! Graphics now live!

UPDATE: (some explanations, since we ran out of time to add features like 'clear explanations': the departure board in the station is clickable. the objective is to upgrade your ship enough to clear the hard mission. you can collect junk for upgrades in either the hard or easy missions)

Coding: Alpacalypse

Art: Ruruie

Sound Effects: jbum - "klaxon2" xenonn - "layered-gunshot-5" Leszek Szary - "laser" Javier Zumer - "8bit-powerup" and "8bit-power-down" ttsmp3.com - Train Announcements

Youtube https://alpacanumerals.github.io/express-without-remorse/
Youtube https://github.com/alpacanumerals/express-without-remorse
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/express-without-remorse

Ratings

Overall 1506th 2.858⭐ 55🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1356th 2.802⭐ 55🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1449th 2.623⭐ 55🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1510th 2.683⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1292th 2.952⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 831th 3.079⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 924th 2.511⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1164th 3.048⭐ 54🧑‍⚖️
Given 114🗳️ 97🗨️

Feedback

sneakysushi
05. Oct 2020 · 22:44 UTC
Nice work, always love a good bullet hell. Movement felt a little too skewed to the right, though.
FreddyTurbina
05. Oct 2020 · 22:48 UTC
i am realy bad a bullets heals but i got a great time! , sound where realy cool! i would recommend making the projectiles be a bit more varied
OwlyCode
05. Oct 2020 · 23:26 UTC
This is a hard one! I couldn't handle higher speeds but I'm not good at bullet hells. The lore felt unique and was fun to discover. You should make the buttons more visibles while at the station, it was hard at first to notice what is what. It's a good entry!
Trypants
06. Oct 2020 · 02:27 UTC
There was a bug where I could not control my space ship. Always going top left and got stuck there.
Sieghart
06. Oct 2020 · 06:37 UTC
The movement is a bit sloppy, nonetheless good job!
Will Isaacson
06. Oct 2020 · 06:59 UTC
for how simple looking it is, I played it for a pretty long time lol. It was well done. The artwork in the station proper was really neat looking too. Wish there was more to do in the tavern area but it was a nice touch. Well done and congrats!
Tamail
06. Oct 2020 · 08:56 UTC
This one's hard! And addicting, I must admit :smile: Took me a while to understand what's expected of me but after that, it was a fun ride!
Martin.Delemotte
06. Oct 2020 · 09:05 UTC
Great work, it's very fun to play!
ruruie
06. Oct 2020 · 11:00 UTC
@will-isaacson Daaaaawww! Thanks! XD Mucking about basically learning Paint.net was an exercise in itself.
Raniere
06. Oct 2020 · 12:17 UTC
Thats pretty hard!! I liked it! :)
Evilhamsta
06. Oct 2020 · 16:42 UTC
Your core game loop started out very hard, and I'm not sure that upgrading certain features on the ship actually made it easier to control. I think the concept definitely has potential, and with a bit of refinement and testing of gameplay, this could become a lot more fun than it is.
Palemek
06. Oct 2020 · 19:03 UTC
It creeped me out a bit (my wife says a lot) :) bullet hell is always fun.

Only thing i would suggest is to make buttons more "buttonish": i couldnt figure out at first what is clickable, and what is not.
PrincessChooChoo
06. Oct 2020 · 20:40 UTC
Bullet Hell isn't really my thing, but I still had fun with this game.

I loved the TTS voice announcement, and the art at the station!
How come no Audio/Graphics ratings? I wanted to give them a good score. :sob:
ruruie
07. Oct 2020 · 00:48 UTC
@princesschoochoo
AHHH!! @alpacalypse what have you done?!

No audio is technically correct since it's second hand or TTS but apparently we published without the Graphics rating by accident. >_<
🎤 alpacalypse
07. Oct 2020 · 00:51 UTC
@princesschoochoo I excluded audio because it was all third party (direct or generated), but definitely didn't intend to exclude graphics, which was all original by @ruruie ! I was rushing and exhausted at the time and must have selected both by mistake.

Disaster! I guess way too late to fix now.
PrincessChooChoo
07. Oct 2020 · 01:04 UTC
@ruruie
Graphics: :star::star::star::star::star: 5.0
Cubiclaw
07. Oct 2020 · 07:29 UTC
I've been working hard collecting all that junk, so I could sell it and buy some of that delicious Perpetual Stew. No one was selling though, so I spent my small fortune on thrusters and now my ship zooms across the screen at Mach 2 at the slightest input making me crash into stuff. Cruel game :cry:
etrealjunior
07. Oct 2020 · 09:51 UTC
I liked your game my congratulations, I also did one if you want to know, and give me your feedback I am very grateful, this is the link https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/resurrection
ruruie
07. Oct 2020 · 14:15 UTC
@cubiclaw I promise you when we finish this thing, Perpetual Stew will be purchaseable.
Duke
07. Oct 2020 · 17:42 UTC
That was a strange experience... to be honest, I didn't really understand what was happening o_o. I liked the bullet hell like space ship part, but I had no idea what to do in the rest of the game. I never earned any credits or junk to sell so I just clicked around without getting any obvious hints. That's something you really should work on! It would be a shame to lose the players interest in such a way when you spent so much time fleshing out the story or the meta game play. The art is rather rough and could use a lot of retouching, but I guess you already know that :) I really liked the voice acting in the beginning of the space part! Somehow kinda creepy.

Keep it up!
FireSlash
08. Oct 2020 · 03:46 UTC
I'm not entirely clear on the victory conditions here. If I clear the level the ship zooms off but nothing happens, and additional lines don't appear to unlock.

The upgrade system is a nice tough, but speed upgrades are a double edged sword and should be treated with care.

Bullet patterns were fairly predictable and easy to dodge even without upgrades, but I'm a shmup player... so my experience here isn't really typical or representitive.

I love the idea and atmosphere. I hope you keep working on this!
blobo
08. Oct 2020 · 17:58 UTC
Oh wow, you don't find very many bullet-hells in Ludum Dare! Great job all around.
ruruie
08. Oct 2020 · 23:37 UTC
Thanks @princesschoochoo for bringing it to our attention that we had mis-published. Kind staff have fixed our ratings and we can now be rated! >w<
Dizzy
09. Oct 2020 · 12:38 UTC
great job!
Squidzilla
09. Oct 2020 · 14:35 UTC
Wow, I am really bad at this genre! When I stopped being methodical and careful, but just approached it as traffic in the Rome city centre, I managed a lot better. Very nice game :)
Wendel Scardua
09. Oct 2020 · 17:07 UTC
The "please stay behind the yellow line" thing made me stay behind the "Warning" yellow line for a while, lol.

I'm confused because I finished the game but I didn't get why it ended - was it by the number of travels, by the amount of junk collected, by how many upgrades I've made?

The bullet hell was nice, not too easy neither too hard.
ruruie
09. Oct 2020 · 18:32 UTC
@wendel-scardua All player has to do is catch the express train which is the yellow loop that appears on the map in the station. It's not super explained well because we're both kind of fresh at this and ran out of time.
🎤 alpacalypse
09. Oct 2020 · 18:45 UTC
@wendel-scardua Specifically, that's the harder of the two missions (which the player is dumped into at game start, but which is impossible at that time).
GaryS
10. Oct 2020 · 00:35 UTC
Maaaan that was difficult... the only way I could get through was to stock up on shields!
One thing I would have liked is to see the stats of my ship... as I was buying upgrades I couldn't tell what I had. A bit of visual feedback would have been good there. And as others said, something to indicate what is clickable would be handy. Fun game though.
Tino
10. Oct 2020 · 21:11 UTC
Found myself in an arcade fever mode and finally succeeded to do the "new resurrection loop" track. Then I read in the comments there was obtainable shields... Also I wanted perpetual stew because it sounded delicious but didn't find how to get some. Overall a surprisingly fun and mysterious experience. Good job and I hope you had fun developing it, at least it really looks like you did :)
Craig Cordeiro
10. Oct 2020 · 21:46 UTC
I had to stop without playing much because I knew that if I didn't I would be playing this all day.
Very nice.
Could have used some subtle music.
eldogg
10. Oct 2020 · 22:08 UTC
Very cool gameplay loop where I wanted to keep upgrading my stuff. Also like the humour in the texts, gave it some life. Good job!
GOD COLO
11. Oct 2020 · 11:28 UTC
Nice bullet hell game! Greato Jobu! :smile:
DAk001
11. Oct 2020 · 14:40 UTC
Great loop game. Really cool graphics 👍, love it 😁
raoz
11. Oct 2020 · 22:33 UTC
Hard, somewhat confusing. Very nice audio.
dxk2294
12. Oct 2020 · 01:27 UTC
This was very good - thought a bit confusing at the start. I'm surprised by how much content there was, and the atmosphere was really well put together. Great job!
Toccio94
12. Oct 2020 · 10:24 UTC
I'm a bit confused to be honest, but I managed to complete it.
It's a bit hard, I mean I managed to avoid all the sphere and stuff but I could see that it was something not possible for a more casual player!

Probably it should be a bit easier in the first seconds to allow an easier time on gathering resources. Maybe resources gathered at the beginning are worth less money.
It would also be nice to have a text saying how much every upgrade costs!

The setup is intriguing, it is just a bit too confusing to really get immersed. You talk about the train but I don't really understand what the train should be.

It's a good start, keep going!
Zuvr
27. Oct 2020 · 12:42 UTC
I really like the fact that as you progress the game gets easier thanks to the upgrades, and I felt the whole art and sound design really build the mood :)

I wish the station screens had some more movement to indicate interactability, though I found the texts at the pub to be fun and interesting.

Nice submission!