Orbitrary by Aimainiac
You are a satellite tasked with scanning a foreign planet. Travel through the data ring hotspots while avoiding the planet's meteor showers, asteroid belts, and electric discharges.
Controls: Hold Z to fly in the inner ring and X to fly on the outer one. You orbit faster when you are closer to the planet and slower when you are further away. Use that to your advantage!
| Youtube | https://aimainiac.itch.io/orbitrary |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/orbitrary |
Ratings
| Overall | 299th | 3.897⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 149th | 3.987⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 314th | 3.776⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 108th | 4.256⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 769th | 3.59⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 563th | 3.444⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 36🗳️ | 36🗨️ |
Was hard to turn it off :) Well developed!
The one thing I wish was different was the 'hit box' or 'tolerance' for collecting multiple shield bits while switching orbits. It seems like it's pretty tight, and sometimes I felt like I should have got credit for picking up a shield bit right as I was entering/exiting an orbit, but the game didn't give it to me. This would make the game a little easier obviously, but I think it's pretty tough to begin with, so it's okay. And more importantly, it would improve players' feeling of accomplishment when stringing a bunch of successful shield-pickups in a row. It almost becomes a rhythm game in the way you want to hit every shield bit.
Awesome game. My favorite of the compo so far.
I liked the graphics and sound, but my reflexes are too slow for the gameplay. High score was a measly 16 :D
The game itself is really clever and fun too!
Can't think what else can be improved beside adding some 8-bit music, although not sure how well it would travel in the vacuum of space.
Well done, and congrats on finishing a game for the jam!
This entry is a great example of scoping in game jams. Well done!
Maybe a nice home made 8 bit music would make it perfect!

I've seen a lot of orbiting games around, but this one is my favorite so far. It's very simple to understand, but vert tricky to get right. Being able to change the speed while switching orbits instead of letting the player freely move was a touch of genius that kept me on my toes. Barely managing to maneuver through so many obstacles felt cathartic.
This is the kind of games that I'd put on my phone. Certainly the type to cause short-burst addictions. Nice, nice, nice! 🐳
I love the arcade-ey feel of the game and the gameplay is actually moe challenging than I thought
If I have to think of any criticism it would be that there needs to be a "How to Play" section at the start. The description is great and all, but i would prefer a tutorial. Also, having a scoreboard would make this an official arcade game
Overall, brilliant job mate
And PiCO8 is awesome for that, as I use it almost exclusively now for LD.
I did have trouble with the controls - I kept mixing up which button I needed to press to move outwards, and which button I needed to press to move inwards - I felt like I wanted to just use directional input instead of thinking about moving in or out. When I had my fingers on the Z and X keys, I naturally wanted to press X to move my character physically to the right, and Z to move my character physically to the left, but depending on my current position, the controls would be "reversed" from what I expected.
That said, I still had a lot of fun playing, and the different mechanics that you introduced as the game went on (The sectional lasers that you had to slow yourself down/speed yourself up to avoid, orbiting meteors) were all elegant and interesting obstacles to throw at the player that meshed really well with the orbital movement! Good job! :)
Simple graphics for this game was the right choice although i guess pico8 helps with that haha.
Everything, from move to aesthetic was really cohesive so nice work on that
It takes a couple spins to get the hang of it.
Friendly criticism: I always skip game descriptions and jump right into the games to see how well the games convey their rules and controls.
I think you should try to find away to explain/convey the speed mechanic in game. Once the planet started erupting I died thinking there was nothing I could do. So I read the description and found I could move faster on the inner ring and slower on the out ring, that wasn't clear to me without instruction and changed how I played for the better. Maybe a speedometer, or just some arrows or something?
The other thing I would suggest is different buttons for try/retry at the game-over screen, since they're the main 2 buttons of the game it's easy accidentally hit them and miss your score.
Great job on the your game!
:D
@bunkai, @spaceguy99, @arttu-halonen, @asue, @mariana-mattevi, @koolruz:
I agree that the controls are a bit hard to get the hang of at first. I'm thinking of adding the ability to edit them, even though Pico-8 limits what buttons you can use.
@tayo, @cubiclaw, @tino:
I am not too familiar with the pico-8 sound editor; the only things I've been able to make are bleeps and bloops. Nevertheless, I'll try to add some tunes.
@spaceguy99, @dragonzbw, @blood-jackal23:
I will add an in-game tutorial in place of the help/tips text.
@raphiell:
To be frank, I spent more time on the vs mode than the coop mode. I'll make sure to add a way to revive your fallen partner in coop.
@nick-rafalski:
Thanks for the feedback! I will add those things in.
@ismael-rodriguez:
I did add a bit of an indication that your speed is affected by your orbit through the trail of particles the player leaves. However, if you didn't notice it, then it must have not been that effective.
@hamus, @rossmoff, @wheybags, @superkoekje, @shortbread, @peachtreeoath, @mog13, @bentebent, @thesnide, @mariana-mattevi, @chispalbc, @kunonooni, @runtra, @noam-blei, @tostada:
Glad you enjoyed the game as well!

I love a good Pico8 game though, congrats!
I thought the hit detection could be a little mean at times - there were times were I was sure I'd gone through a ring but the game didn't give it to me. Made me feel like I sucked at the game - a more forgiving hit detection could lead a more positive feeling!
Woo, what a rush. This was super minimalistic but incredibly well-designed. Everything felt fair since advance warning is given for every single hazard and pickup, so you know that if you had only played a little bit better...which leads to that "one more run..." feeling.
I do think that a lot of players would benefit from an "easier" difficulty where the game just simply runs a little slower, but I didn't really mind. Impressive that you put in multiplayer as well! I'll have to try that at some point.