LudumData

Universal Friend Organization (UFO) by ThePelranthean

[raw]
made by ThePelranthean for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

There are a lot of people in the universe.

Don't let them die; make friends with them!

UE4Editor<em>2020-04-19</em>20-14-17.png

A simple resource delivery game featuring you, a bunch of stick figures on planets, and a good deal of flying around.

Controls:

  • WASD - Movement
  • Q - Pick up resource (hackers know that left-click works too)
  • E - Drop resource (right-click works too)

Basic Instructions:

  • Collect resources from planets that are friendly.
  • Deliver them to planets that are not.
  • Do this before the planet time runs out.
  • Once all required resources are delivered, you get another friendly planet.
  • If you run out of time, the planet dies.
  • Watch the minimap in the bottom-right for an overview of the situation

The game contains only about 5 levels (plus two tutorials), so it's a fairly short game. I hope you enjoy it.

This game is VR eager and tries to start in VR. Since it wasn't designed for VR, this causes it to crash. Simply turning off your VR service temporarily solves the problem for me... but if this is a problem, let me know and I can look further into disabling this.

Youtube https://github.com/leyarotheconquerer/ufo
Youtube https://github.com/leyarotheconquerer/ufo/releases/download/1.0.1/LudumDare46-UFO.zip
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/universal-friend-organization-ufo

Ratings

Overall 590th 3.368⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 629th 3.158⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 506th 3.316⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 821th 3.289⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 730th 3.105⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 347th 3.316⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 373th 3.063⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Mood 714th 2.972⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 11🗳️ 10🗨️

Feedback

rigdonware
20. Apr 2020 · 23:55 UTC
Great job! That's awesome you made this in unreal. Did you use the blueprint system or c++?
PerfectSquare
21. Apr 2020 · 00:05 UTC
Nice job! I loved the puzzle aspect of trying to plan which planet to save next so none would die and the difficulty level seemed pretty good. The planet models are a bit plain but the UFO model is super cute :)
🎤 ThePelranthean
21. Apr 2020 · 01:40 UTC
@rigdonware It's pure blueprint. When it comes to the Ludum Dare, I find the switching between C++ and the editor a bit slow. Since I'm still learning how Unreal works, blueprints are faster for me. I look forward to understanding the engine well enough to write logic in C++. Thanks for asking.

@perfectsquare I agree; the planets could use some work. Glad you liked the UFO though. :smile:
Tylla
22. Apr 2020 · 01:39 UTC
I had a lot of fun with this game! A couple things:

- The controls were at first unintuitive, but I learned them quickly. One frustrating thing is what I called "missed drops" in my playthrough, where I would hit the E key when not directly over a planet and lose the cargo I was carrying.

- If there is a way to exit a level without waiting for the timer, I don't know what it is. There were a few times where I got stuck once a planet that provided a key resource died; it would have been easier if I could just exit the level and restart instead of waiting for the timer.

- One time I got stuck to the point that *all* the planets died. Yet it still said "level complete" and still let me progress to the next level.
defectivemelon
22. Apr 2020 · 01:44 UTC
Who knew logistics could be so much fun? :) I enjoyed this quite a bit, was just the right level of challenge, with some tense moments that I could pull through from. I will echo the "missed drops" comment, maybe would be nice to have some visual indication when you're in range of drop off / pickup.
technodragon253
22. Apr 2020 · 01:47 UTC
I really loved this game it is the best game I've played so far! I have only one complaint that is that I felt that level 4 was harder than level 5. I loved the graphics and sound as well as the general design! Really great game!
Quinn_Patrick
22. Apr 2020 · 01:53 UTC
This is a pretty fun, well balanced game. I will say that, while it's cool that you used Unreal, a consequence of that is that the file size is tremendous for such a simple game. It took a few minutes just for me to download! Beyond those technical aspects, though, it was a well conceived and well executed game, so good work.
🎤 ThePelranthean
22. Apr 2020 · 02:04 UTC
@tylla Thanks for the feedback. The controls were indeed unintuitive. I locked them in early in development and ended up regretting them most of the weekend. @defectivemelon Your suggestion to have a visual "in range" indicator might have solved the issue quite nicely. Thanks both of you for pointing that out.

@tylla As to your second point, that's a good point. There isn't a way to exit/restart a level early. I don't think any level is longer than 2-3 minutes, but that's still a long time to wait if you miss one of the early dependencies. Sorry about that.

And for the final point... that's just a bug. I wasn't able to iron it out before I pushed the build.

Thanks both of you for pointing out these problems. I'll have to see if I can set aside some time to make a friendlier build.
🎤 ThePelranthean
22. Apr 2020 · 02:06 UTC
@technodragon253 Thanks for the compliment. Level 4 was definitely harder than level 5. At that point though, I just wanted to use dirigibles and unicorns. :unicorn: Sorry for the drop in difficulty.

@quinn-patrick Glad you found it fun. I'll have to keep package size in mind in the future. This definitely wasn't my most optimized game ever. :slight_smile:
WubbaDuck
22. Apr 2020 · 02:18 UTC
This was really entertaining. I like the concept. The momentum of the UFO was a little much though. I constantly overshot the planets or was going so slow that I had a hard time getting there within the time limit. But overall, well done!
SpaceWizardJ
25. Apr 2020 · 05:11 UTC
I like the concept. I had a hard time in levels 3 and 4 because I couldn't tell which icons on the map were planets that had and planets that needed. The music is really good and contrasts against the urgent (and grim) nature of the game. What would you do to deepen the gameplay? Thanks for letting me play your game!
Clayton Does Things
25. Apr 2020 · 05:20 UTC
Interesting concept. A little pause before the level starts would be nice though.
🎤 ThePelranthean
26. Apr 2020 · 14:26 UTC
@spacewizardj Thanks for playing! As for deepening the gameplay? Hmm... good question. It would have been fun to add enemies of some type to chase you and make you drop your cargo. Something like space jellyfish would be good. :smile_cat:

It may also have been interesting to have planets that accept multiple types of resources at once to add a bit of choice... that would have enabled me to build more flexible levels with a bit more challenge built in.

In the end, though, the game degenerates into a run here, now run there, now run back again sequence. My main goal in anything I add would be to spice this up and try to make interesting decisions. Thanks for the question!

@clayton-does-things That is an excellent idea. It didn't even occur to me. Thanks for the suggestion!
Danilo Freire
05. May 2020 · 20:11 UTC
Stuck in level 4, but love the concept! Had fun playing it :)
IDidGame
12. May 2020 · 12:01 UTC
enjoyed figuring out the order of operation, movement could have used some tweaking(higher de/acceleration with lower top speed?)
DreadedDruidStudios
12. May 2020 · 12:27 UTC
I thoroughly enjoyed that game. I found it a bit on the easy side, but the gameplay was very solid. I loved the graphics and the music fit well with the game. Good job!