Alien Delivery Service by Minus

[raw]
made by Minus for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

WARNING: Audio clips are not normalized! Be careful with audio volume

Hello there, Employee.

Welcome to your new position. The station is in quite bad shape, but it's vital for the company.

We hope that you can properly maintain whatever is still working there and keep the packages going.

-- Management

Gameplay explanation


The goal is to send packages with contents that are shown on the display in the starting room. The storage room is to the right. For the display to work you need to setup the signal in control panel by adjusting knobs and selecting correct wave shape. Correctly adjusted signal should be: green, have relatively stable lines, horizontally as still as possible and as high as possible.

From time to time other equipment will break (display, cannon, antenna, power). You can buy repair kits for them (and other things) in terminal in the room to the left by typing what you want to buy from available items list. Process of buying is also listed in help command.

Any use of word "nob" was meant to be "knob"

CHANGELOG

Version 0.1.1 (BUGFIXES ONLY - No new content)

  • fixed an issue with teleporting to ladder
  • fixed an issue with random orders not appearing

Credits:

Minus - Programming, game idea

Dante - Design, item art

Sprell - Map and character art, animations

Ratings

Overall 614th 3.306⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Fun 795th 2.526⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 383th 3.447⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 345th 3.895⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 643th 3.211⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 165th 3.605⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 632th 3.265⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

🎤 Minus
Apr 21st · 17:37 UTC
NEW PATCH RELEASED:

We have fixed following bugs, since these functions broke right before submitting:
- fixed an issue with teleporting to ladder
- fixed an issue with random orders not appearing
Julia Nistel
Apr 21st · 18:06 UTC
Cool game! I couldn't figure out all the mechanics but I liked how much there was to do
msipp27
Apr 21st · 18:14 UTC
pressing e teleports you to the ladder no matter what. deseperately needs a tutorial.
bonedaddy
Apr 21st · 18:16 UTC
Hey, this is a great effort. I didn't really understand how to use the wave signal machine, but I really enjoyed the little world you built and walking around it.

It's a shame not many people are rating this game, so I want to leave a meta comment/feedback. For Ludum Dare, you should go and rate as many games as you can. Then others will see your game more and try it out. Actually, it's really a good way to get people to try your game, since most jams people won't even be incentivized to play your game. But you also have to go play (and rate) others games, and probably a good idea to leave a comment with relevant feedback. Basically go to https://ldjam.com/games and try to rate 20-30 games before the jam is over in 17.25 days

I see you all have done LD before and got ratings on your games, so maybe what I'm saying is uncalled for and you know how the system works and possibly haven't had time to go rate games. But in case you didn't I felt I should let you know. Anyways, good job on this game!
Pegasus
Apr 21st · 18:16 UTC
I'm not gonna leave a rating as I feel it would be unfair, I just really could not figure out what I was supposed to do. There's lots of things to interact with and clearly lots of things that *could* happen. Maybe you guys could do with a brief instruction on the page explaining the objective? Maybe it's just a skill issue idk.
Rhookx
Apr 21st · 18:21 UTC
My honest Opinion:

The -:
-a bgm would have been nice
-the buying system i wasn't able to comprehend (maybe i'm just dumb haha)
-when an order is huge it can get tedious

The +:
-I like the art, it's simple but to the point and overall homogenous
-the sound effect for items are a nice touch
-the theme is well respected and the indications to figure it out are good

Overall a good game nice work guys
half-animal-half-beast
Apr 21st · 18:31 UTC
i didn’t fully understand what was going on, but it felt like the game was aiming to do quite a lot.

i liked the abandoned atmosphere, and in a way the lack of clarity even fits that mood. still, for a smoother experience, a bit of guidance or a simple tutorial would probably help a lot.
ZalkarIMG
Apr 21st · 18:36 UTC
Loved the references!! (huge Gurren Lagann fan here lol) and the idea is super cool.

found some bugs in the web version tho:
if you press E anywhere u just teleport to the stairs.
the exclamation mark sign in the red button room doesnt work for some reason.
not sure if its a bug but i only heard button clicks and nothing else.


overall great entry, keep it up!
Jawdan
Apr 21st · 18:48 UTC
I had a good time tuning the signal with this one! But I did totally hard lock myself by sending things into space for the silly asteroid animation xd,, nice work
JoeGreen
Apr 22nd · 15:19 UTC
I liked thetuning process, and I managed to tune the receiver. A chest and some kind of cone appeared on the screen. I couldn't place them in the chat. Then the lights went out, and as I understood, I needed to fix something through the chat, but I can't buy anything — it gets stuck on the confirmation window.
ugly_robot
Apr 23rd · 14:46 UTC
Cool! A very ambitious entry!
Loved fiddling with the signal panel. Managed to get an order to come one screen, then would try to send the order and get negative money. Eventually, something would break and I'd have no money to repair. I restarted a few times, but couldn't get farther than that.

Fun just to walk around the station and admire the art. Great stuff!
woona
Apr 24th · 10:39 UTC
Good game! I managed to send one package and get some upgrades, but got stuck afterwards with a broken screen.

It's mostly clear what to do, but you can miss one thing and get stuck (for example, I couldn't find where to fix the screen). Messing with a signal to get it right was probably the best part, getting the necessary items felt a bit repetitive in comparison. Audio effects felt a bit random, and there is no sound for most in game actions.
nnovak
Apr 27th · 05:41 UTC
Couldn't find out what to do, but the signal matching mechanic was really enjoyable to interact with
Bobap
Apr 27th · 08:16 UTC
Instructions unclear. After successfully sending the first package and getting paid, I think the wave machine or the antenna broke. Could not for the life of me figure out how to operate the purchasing panel. After typing in anything to the purchase UI it would lock and not allow any further typing. Nothing I input **or** clicked on seemed to do anything. From what game I *was* able to play was interesting, however getting on the ladder was frustrating since the [E] prompt was overridden by the [F] prompt and pressing it did nothing. Since they're separate inputs, I don't see why they couldn't both be available interacts in the same space. Sorry I couldn't figure it out, your team made a decent attempt.
🎤 Minus
Apr 27th · 13:37 UTC
@bobap I had this issue during development with terminal not responding, but believed I fixed it already. We're considering doing proper "final Ludum Dare" version which will implement everything we didn't do. We might even consider turning this... something into a proper game. As for inputs - as long as you are within ladder trigger it should register clicking E regardless if prompt is shown or not - most likely game was overriding whatver interactable thing was in range and was unable to properly interract with ladder.

To everyone who commented so far thank you very much, I'm personally trying to note every issue and suggestion you mention, so we can improve in future.
Ouisky
Apr 30th · 13:51 UTC
I did'nt really understood the game mechanics (how am i suppose to use the signal modifier and what does it do) but the design was fun and i liked the animations !
aimozg
May 04th · 15:53 UTC
fun, but knobs are too sensitive!