Space Loop by HungryCatGames

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

Developed in a weekend for the Ludum Date 47 game jam challenge. Solo effort, just me doing it all.

You're stuck in a sphere, spinning in a loop. Fire away at the bricks and see if you can destroy them all. Might seem easy at first, but it quickly gets harder.

Best played in full scree mode. (in non full screen mode the HUD doesn't show, it's there in full screen) Simple mouse control.

CC0 textures, Moondance and XXIX fonts, all other content by Hungry Cat Games.

Used: Unity, Gimp, Aesprite, SFXR, Blender!

Oct 9th, minor bug fixes. HUD now shows when not in full screen and targeting now reflects ball launch path. Also normalized volume keyed to system volume at 50%. (shouldn't be so loud now).

SSGame1.png

Ratings

Overall 1589th 2.681⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1368th 2.786⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 718th 3.412⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1118th 3.294⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1484th 2.257⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Audio 1076th 2.029⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1214th 1.893⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1496th 2.328⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Given 37🗳️ 40🗨️

Feedback

AnniV4X
05. Oct 2020 · 22:27 UTC
Surprisingly fun and challenging!! Some of the sound effects were a little rough on the ear at times, but overall worked well. Pretty awesome for doing it all by yourself too! also a big + for innovation :)
bobemv
05. Oct 2020 · 22:30 UTC
I would have loved to shoot hundreds of balls!! haha perfect game for letting off steam :)
Scharma
05. Oct 2020 · 22:34 UTC
Cool Breakout twist! The 3d perspective nicely mixed things up, and getting the ball stuck between tiles was as satisfying as ever. The sound effects, although not bad, were quite loud, so I'm glad you put an option to mute them there haha.

My first playthrough I mashed the button and quickly couldn't fire again, is there an ammo limit? If so I think it would be cool to have it shown on a HUD. The second time around, I fired carefully, and it went smoothly, I do wish there were some more variety. Solid entry, and good job all around!
Patrick1
05. Oct 2020 · 22:38 UTC
I loved the 3d effect you were stuck in a loop! reminded me of a 3d breakout, I only managed to get to level 3 but it was fun overall! I would suggest a button to hold down to stop the rotation as I found it a bit tricky to aim while spinning fast
Skleembof
06. Oct 2020 · 02:49 UTC
This is the type of weird unique gameplay you can only find in a game jam. It's very unconventional but it has potential. The biggest weakness is the aiming mechanics. The ball never went where I wanted it to go but that couldn have been caused by the weird perspective. If you added a laser that showed the trajectory it would have been more manageable.

Also, I think this would be a lot more fun if the sphere was smaller so the balls are in flight for less time, if they moved faster, and if it had a sick bass heavy soundtrack. and add some RGB LEDs to the spherers as well. Imagine all those shinning balls bouncing around thumping with the bass in a fast paced brick breaker.

edit: Also, awesome logo!
🎤 HungryCatGames
06. Oct 2020 · 16:48 UTC
@skleembof Thanks for the feedback. Many of those are ideas I had for expanding it (or if I had left over time in the jam... yeah, whoever has that!). I was thinking different arrangements of the bricks, glow balls, etc. The aiming is just a bit off as I changed the cursor from the generic arrow to the target right at the end and missed that the aim path is based on upper left instead of center. Parameters for more/less challenge would include ball size, ball speed and two axis movement. I actually had two axis working just fine for movement, but it failed for ball launch as moving off the "equator" caused the spawning of balls to not follow your "looking" direction. Ultimately I just commented out that option to focus on core mechanics functioning properly.
Mekuri
06. Oct 2020 · 18:28 UTC
Great mixture of the theme and breakout :-) It was hard to resist the urge to just spam the balls away (I may have indulged once or twice :P )
With a bit of polish to the controls, and some other sound effects (They were quite hard on the ears) this could grow into something interesting.
Good job - Thanks a lot for sharing :-)
Eugenik
06. Oct 2020 · 22:02 UTC
hard to play,but a nice game
Galse87
07. Oct 2020 · 13:35 UTC
The aim not being accurate is a bit annoying IMO. Also, the sound effects were quite loud.
Charlie Hall
07. Oct 2020 · 16:38 UTC
It seems like the reticle sprite is not centered with the cursor, making aiming a bit of a chore. Interesting concept though. It would be nice to know how much ammo I have left.
Weine
07. Oct 2020 · 17:10 UTC
Creative interpretation of the breakout genre in a 3D ball. I wonder if it could work well in VR.
SpaceGuinea Productions
07. Oct 2020 · 17:17 UTC
I didn't know what was going on, but I enjoyed it. Good take on the theme!
Oxropy
08. Oct 2020 · 18:24 UTC
by rotating in the y-axis the aiming is not as exact as I would like it to be
otherwise a nice little game
zeu31
08. Oct 2020 · 19:27 UTC
The idea have potential. It is really fun to break more than one block with just a ball.

It would be nice to have some straight walls to bounce the balls on, or something like that. because those round once is pretty hard to use for that. also been able to aim freely so you could take more blocks at once. you could use W and S to move.

Like the others said the aim is not very precise which is pretty frustrating.

The textures makes it even harder to see the depth

On second level it is hard to tell which blocks you already hit once.

also the game screen is cropped.
🎤 HungryCatGames
10. Oct 2020 · 04:02 UTC
@galse87 @skleembof @charlie-hall @oxropy @zeu31 Thanks for trying Space Loop. I fixed the targeting, adjusted the resolution so the HUD shows even when not in full screen and normalized the volume. Hopefully a better experience if you play it again.
Greytyphoon
14. Oct 2020 · 02:55 UTC
Good idea, and I like to play some breakout games every once in a while!

The way your cursor moves the whole screen made it kind of hard to aim in original angles, which reduced variety. Maybe looping around the arena could be done with Up/down || W/S?

You'd also really benefit from a background music, the ambiance was a little flat! Good continuation!
Super Hadoken
14. Oct 2020 · 09:37 UTC
It's a really cool idea and fun to play. I feel like the game needs a paddle to make it a less passive experience. At first I thought the camera was a paddle. If the sphere had a grid it could help with visual orientation.
cdunham
21. Oct 2020 · 08:36 UTC
Cool use of the theme and a nice take on Breakout! It does get difficult pretty quickly. My main strategy was trying to aim the shots between the blocks so they'd bounce around inside and hit a bunch before flying out. Having something like powerups that make the balls do more damage or increase their speed or size would make things more interesting. Overall good entry!
Lyje
24. Oct 2020 · 14:33 UTC
Interesting idea, but feels like you don't really have all that much aim control.