Etracyte by bentglasstube
You are a space traveler alone in the vast expanse. Your engine is lonely, too. It misses its friend, fuel.
Stranded in orbit around a planet, you must venture down to the surface to gather resources.
Ludum Dare
I wanted to do a lot more with this game. A lot more than was possible in 48 hours even though I worked on it almost the full time. Hopefully I will continue to stay motivated.
Gameplay
The game is a sort of exploration roguelike featuring procedurally generated planets that you must explore to find the titular etracyte crystals which power your ship. Each planet is new and offers new platforming obstacles. Your space suit has boosters which allow you to jump in mid air, but over-reliance on them will drain your suit's limited batteries.
There is no ending. You simply play until you decide to leave the loop.
Controls
Arrows/WASD - move
Space/Z - jump/select
Enter - pause/menu
Hold tab on the title screen to skip the introductory "lore".
Known Issues
The collision detection will not do well if the game lags, as it just checks the end position. There's a limit to the length of the update cycle that should prevent huge problems.
The horizontal movement calculations are framerate dependent so if the game runs slower than 60 fps you will move faster. If it runs faster (e.g. you have a 144Hz display or something) you will move very slowly. Sorry about that :(
Tools
Ratings
| Overall | 417th | 3.227⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 421th | 3.043⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 541th | 2.696⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 550th | 2.795⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 315th | 3.386⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 270th | 3.205⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 434th | 1.975⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 279th | 3.227⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
Enjoyed how the double jump had an actual reason for existing, although I kept running out of jump fuel and there didn't seem to be any way to replenish it.
Absolutely adored how the bats aren't badguys that need to be avoided. They're just bats, they won't hurt you. :D
There is no way to replenish your suit energy, which fuels the air jump. One of the upgrades I wanted to add was a converter that would consume a crystal to power your suit. Another was a solar panel that would charge your suit if you were on the surface. Alas, I didn't have time to implement the upgrade system at all.
dont realy have to much to say, gg. intro scene was nice tho xD
I agree it is too easy to accidentally use the jetpack. I'll fix that in a future version for sure. Thanks everyone for the feedback.
@capt-theo That is all you are supposed to do. When you run out you can press enter to bring up a menu and return to your ship. From there, you can explore a new planet and repeat.
The core gameplay loop is kind of disappointing though. I spend a good amount of time exploring the caves and collected 14 crystals. When I got back to the ship, I thought I'd be able to use them for something, but nope. I lost interest the second time, but the first time on the planet was pretty entertaining despite there not really being much to do. If you add some more systems (upgrades, combat, construction, etc), this could be a fun little exploration game!
Anyway, I am impressed with the game you have so far. And much like in real life, the adorable bats help with the bugs. :smile: