Asteroid Catcher by Jcourt

Orbits are loops right? Your goal is to get as many asteroids and UFOs stuck in a loop around the Earth as possible.
You have a space station, which is orbiting the planet. The space station has tractor beams, which you can use to push and pull the asteroids.
To collect an asteroid, you need to pull/push it until it's in orbit within the green circle around the earth. If it stays within the green area for long enough, you'll get points according to its mass.
You should try to avoid hitting the earth with an asteroid, because if you do it'll do damage, and if you do it too much the Earth might even be destroyed.
Occasionally you'll see UFOs. You can collect them the same way you get asteroids, but you can also just ram them into the earth (they won't do damage). For each one you collect, your tractor beams get a bit stronger.
As a general rule, try to influence an object's orbit from the opposite side. For example, if the low point of an asteroid's orbit is within the green area, but the high point is too far away, don't push it towards the earth when it's at the top. Instead, you should try to slow it down when its at the low point, because then it won't be able to go as high.
Controls: - Push Object - Left Click, or Z if you're using a mousepad - Pull Object - Right Click, or X if you're using a mousepad
| Youtube | https://jcourt325.itch.io/asteroid-catcher |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/asteroid-catcher |
Ratings
| Overall | 1374th | 3.05⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1475th | 2.605⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 486th | 3.625⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 697th | 3.725⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1347th | 2.825⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 9🗳️ | 15🗨️ |
Since we're dealing with orbitation physics that are not that intuitive, it'd help a lot to have a visualisation of the objects' orbits so we can see them change in real time while we interact with them!
Nice job still!
And tip of the hat for the web version of the game :)
In practice manipulating the asteroids is too hard though, most of my points came from just smashing UFOs in the center, I think the game would flow better with an orbit reference or ruler of some kind.
The art is also a bit too simple, can't say it's a strong point.
I originally planned on making a few little videos that be part of the tutorial, and would have the orbits actually drawn, to try and show how they actually behave. Do you think something like this (but higher quality and more accurate) would be helpful?

A couple of other things I'd like to suggest are:
- Labeling the values on the bottom of the UI
- I don't think you can back out of the tutorial
It's a creative idea leveraging the theme. Good job!
In terms of UX, I feel like a menu button would be nice to pause and/or back out of the current game to the main menu would be nice, in case the user might want to select a different mode. Currently, you have to wait until the timer runs out to get back.
Very creative interpretation of the theme though! The game might be more fun, and a little addicting too, if there were some more adjustments to accessibility.