LudumData

2021: A Space Odyssey by ChrisCo

[raw]
made by ChrisCo for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEJodJ8xFvQ

Try to travel as many light years as possible! But keep your fuel and oxygen in check. Those pretty little planets might be useful to you, landing on them is no easy feat.

Hi! This is my first game ever for my first Game jam ever. So much effort in the last 72 hours, but it was worth it!

The game is a bit heavy, but hope you can try it anyway. I'm interested in uncovering the mistakes I've made, please leave a constructive feedback if you can.

Tips: - It's better to play with a controller. - It's a chill little exploration game where you can enjoy some classical music (1 hour of music available). Do not rush. - Don't always hold down the thrusters, take advantage of inertia. Be thrifty with the fuel. - Use the turbo to avoid threats. - Land very (veeery) slowly on planets or capture pink asteroids to get oxygen and fuel. - Use the zoom to search planets or pink asteroids to avoid running out of fuel. - Be very careful of collisions, they do a lot of damage. (Maybe too much damage. My highscore is only 4 light years 😄)

🎵 The soundtrack is the orchestral suite "The Planets" by Gustav Holst.

I'm on Twitter @_christiancorro

PC, Mac, Linux https://christiancorro.itch.io/2021-a-space-odyssey
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/2021-a-space-odyssey

Ratings

Overall 347th 3.871⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 331th 3.774⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 512th 3.565⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 365th 4.032⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 202th 4.323⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Audio 379th 3.759⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 942th 2.632⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 291th 4.017⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 34🗨️

Feedback

bubul69
27. Apr 2021 · 01:19 UTC
so glass hole are real ? haha pretty nice game GG
Viktor Dedek
28. Apr 2021 · 09:35 UTC
I was not able to land on any planet. It is so hard, no fuel almost imediately when I leave my home planet. Very hard game, maybe ease the difficulty a bit? Did you compose the music, if yes, it is really good job. Thanks
etom
28. Apr 2021 · 09:40 UTC
Wow! I really loved the mood!
The idea is brilliant. I would loved it if the planets would attract me with their gravity.
But for your first Game Jam - Great job!
mira
28. Apr 2021 · 09:50 UTC
I don't know what to say if this is your first game. It just can't be compared to my first game (snake in excell) :smile: just keep going, I'm really looking forward to your second game on your second LD jam :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Elros
28. Apr 2021 · 09:52 UTC
The game is really nice - the movemnet is challenging but not unfair, the mood is very nice, the black holes are really cool. The attraction mechanic has the classic twist of bringing you what you need but also putting you in danger. I think really this game is 2 things away from a full steam/mobile game.
1. It is a bit hard, I think there are not enough pink asteroids? I didn't manage to get fuel from anywhere else.
2. Maybe an extra mechanic would be very cool. e.g certain fuel sources can only be picked by an astro guy (maybe with a small jet?) which can leave the ship but then you need the ship to have enough momentum so that you can still come back to it and it won't fall all the way down. Just an example.

Overall great and complete work, top marks :)
🎤 ChrisCo
28. Apr 2021 · 09:59 UTC
@elros Thank you very much for the feedback! You can get fuel also landing on the planets. The idea of this extra mechanic is amazing! Maybe in the future I'll try to implement it.
🎤 ChrisCo
28. Apr 2021 · 10:07 UTC
@etom Thank you! :) The planets attracts you, maybe I can increase their mass to bump up the attraction.
jk5000
28. Apr 2021 · 12:08 UTC
This game looks and sounds great. I am not sure I really like the controls, but okay it gives a feeling of flying in space. But anyway this is a really good first game. So well done.
🎤 ChrisCo
28. Apr 2021 · 12:47 UTC
@viktor-dedek you have to land on the planets very slowly. But I can reduce the damage of the impact with the planets. Thanks for the feedback!
steelax
28. Apr 2021 · 17:40 UTC
i really liked how responsive the controls were with the ship, you had just the right amount of drag, the visauls were really nice. expecially the black hole. too bad i sucked at it :P
pestodesign
28. Apr 2021 · 20:48 UTC
Good idea with balancing fuel, health and oxygen, and I liked how the ship was moving between planets and black holes. I would add small stars in the background though! That would give more depth to the game, plus I t would help me feel he speed more. Sometimes the ship was moving and still I felt it is floating in a pool. I know a field of stars is a cliché for space games, but here it would be helpful. A fun little game still, I enjoyed playing it! Congrats!
🎤 ChrisCo
28. Apr 2021 · 21:44 UTC
@pestodesign these tips are much appreciated. Thanks for the feedback!
pestodesign
28. Apr 2021 · 22:00 UTC
@chrisco I am glad you did not take them bad! :)
Jvdwijk
28. Apr 2021 · 22:09 UTC
This game looked really good and especially for a first go was really well done!
Bajtix
28. Apr 2021 · 22:33 UTC
It is a pretty fun exploration game, I especially liked the shader effects on the black holes, but unfortunately i didn't manage to get really far. ( < 2 light years ). Still, the mood is there and the 3d models are nice.
Kitty_Mama_
28. Apr 2021 · 23:48 UTC
I have to echo what @viktor-dedek said, it was way too hard, I never had enough fuel to land anywhere, and inevitably struggled. Only death. But all in all I can tell the kind of effort you put into this game and you did overall a pretty dang good job. Just felt almost unplayable because of how hard it was to steer and how quickly gas ran out. Felt unfair. Otherwise, great job! Just needs to be tweaked a bit for the average gamer like me.
Tiago Cruz
29. Apr 2021 · 16:40 UTC
The game has some really cool visuals and i loved the controls, but some planets didn't recharge my stats and actually dealt damage as i approached them, but I had fun playing it and i managed to hit the 6 light year mark!
🎤 ChrisCo
29. Apr 2021 · 16:52 UTC
@tiago-cruz Wow, 6 light years! What patience! :D The stats of the planets are procedurally determined. The green ones, for example, have a higher probability to not have fuel, but have a lot of oxygen, and so on. Thank you very much for the feedback
Crazybot
30. Apr 2021 · 08:24 UTC
Wow, 400mb!

I really, really enjoyed this. it looks great, it feels great, I had a lot of fun :D

There are honestly only two small negative things I have to say, first some of the planets were very poorly UV unwrapped.

and second, I feel like it doesn't get harder. At first it was a real challenge but once I got the hang of it I felt like I could go as far as I wanted. in the end I got to 5 light years and stopped

PS, turns out black holes are just portals lol. I died from a black hole and then after death it changed from like 5 to this
![2001_A_Space_Odyssey_WIt42mO6Si.png](///raw/46c/f1/z/41bdb.png)
Shin0nome
30. Apr 2021 · 08:24 UTC
Wow this game is awesome ! The graphics, same as the music are great and this is a polished game ! I really do like how you managed the gravity mechanic it work well with the game spirit ! Love this game, good job !
🎤 ChrisCo
30. Apr 2021 · 08:35 UTC
@crazybot Ah yess! It's definitely a post mortem portal, not a bug! Thanks for the feedback
🎤 ChrisCo
30. Apr 2021 · 08:37 UTC
@shin0nome Thank you :)
Gustavokado
30. Apr 2021 · 09:11 UTC
This was a really nice experience overall, the controls took a little bit of getting used to but felt rewarding after a while when you learned to perform some tighter maneuvers around danger and such. I liked how the game looked a lot as well, especially the black holes and differently coloured stars but i think it would really add to the mood if there were more elements in the background as well such as distant stars.
The gameplay mechanic of attracting both good and bad asteroids was very clever and i liked the risk/reward element that it brought.
However, there was mainly two things i didn't like. It felt a bit off that you take damage by simply being in a planets atmosphere, you're incentivised to land slowly in order to not crash but you're also punished by doing so? felt a bit weird.
It was also a bit distracting when objects just popped into existence out of nowhere, although that problem was probably mostly because i played fully zoomed out most of the time.
🎤 ChrisCo
30. Apr 2021 · 09:35 UTC
@gustavokado thank you very much for this rich feedback. Maybe in the future I'll try to enrich the background. It would be nice to do it procedurally. The initial idea of having damage from the atmosphere was to force you to find the right balance of landing speed. Neither too slow nor too fast. But maybe it's not so well thought.
tomz_best
30. Apr 2021 · 16:51 UTC
Graphics is great! I like this game in overall
My Sweet Whomp
30. Apr 2021 · 23:32 UTC
Hey, I tried to play but had a weird bug where the spaceship keeps rotating like if the button was pressed (while it's not). Do @ me if you find a solution for this, and I'll be happy to try it again.
SilkyPantsDan
01. May 2021 · 12:07 UTC
Such an amazing concept, and I hope you continue to refine this. One suggestion I had - while floating in space - was an indicator to the 'nearest' planet (which could be far away still) as it can be hard to know where to go to refuel on Oxygen.
Steve7411
01. May 2021 · 12:17 UTC
This was a fun experience, and the graphics are pretty!
🎤 ChrisCo
01. May 2021 · 12:19 UTC
@silkypantsdan this exact idea was in the initial plans, but I was unable to implement it in time. Thanks for the feedback!
Kaminos
01. May 2021 · 16:30 UTC
Great entry! I especially enjoyed the graphics and mood.. really cool job Chrisco :)
JaviCoder
01. May 2021 · 20:59 UTC
very cool. a very nice game and made with care. The music is amazing too. good job!
pancelor
02. May 2021 · 00:34 UTC
nice! very relaxing. I love all the different planets and things to explore. and the controls screen is really really good.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1007659333?t=05h38m47s
Ramble House Games
02. May 2021 · 13:14 UTC
Holy Space Balls Batman. This game is great. So Much fun. At first it seems like it might be too much of a space simulator (ala kerbal space program) but its not. Its a super fun physics game with a lot of layers. The music selection is flawless. The controls are intentionally washy as a result of the mechanic, but not so much as to be frusterating. I will be playing more of this for sure.
Thanks for bringing this by my stream. Here's a link to the VOD:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1005922340?t=0h36m5s
marcmagus
02. May 2021 · 17:44 UTC
Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for playtesting! If you’d like to revisit the play and commentary you can view the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1008703439
etrealjunior
07. May 2021 · 05:11 UTC
Congratulations beautiful game, some things did not work well, most of the time I had to leave the camera away because objects were generated very close to the ship, so it was possible to deflect, otherwise I would hit the spot for not seeing them, in a few matches the player dominates the game and it becomes too easy, just to be in the atmosphere of the planet already reloads, there is no need to land, I did not see the need to attract objects, I hope you will continue to advance this project because you have a beautiful jewel in your hands, which if it is well polished it will result in a super brightness, my suggestion was to place space stations on the planets so it would justify the spacecraft to be landing, and vary the space a lot more and put new goals to conquer, and a mini map, congratulations on the project, follows a video that can help in the elements, a big hug, and I await your feedback on my game I will be grateful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoW8Tf7hTGA
LDJam user 250426
15. May 2021 · 19:41 UTC
The blackholes was SO COOL. Gameplay was solid although some of it is RNG based
I also liked the different resources you need to manage, but I wish they were closer together, not in the 4 corners. Great job on your game!
Birdwards
16. May 2021 · 01:52 UTC
Thanks for submitting your game to my stream! I played it yesterday. You can watch me play it here (I start yours at 1:32:42):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsMPyOopzzU

Sorry for no game audio - OBS somehow stopped recording the computer audio without me noticing, but I could hear the audio just fine when I was playing it.
PhilStrahl
18. May 2021 · 17:11 UTC
That was a super chill experience once I figured out what to do. Congratulations on your first Ludum Dare jam! Here's my time with it on my stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1oYMc95du8
ShirleySmith
10. Jun 2022 · 09:13 UTC
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