Network Bridge by Coda Highland
Reconnect the Galaxy!
The invading Magnetar Army has sent out advance forces to sabotage the interstellar relay network! Transmission signals have been limited, blocking warp travel through the galaxy. Travel to the four quadrants of the galaxy to destroy the invaders and reactivate the relay stations!
Some members of the resistance survived the Magnetar assault. Rescue them from their damaged ships and they will aid you in your mission!
Controls
- Arrow Keys / WASD: Move
- Z / Space: Fire
- X / M: Listen to an incoming signal
- Escape: Pause
Touch controls are also supported. (Note: Please use a landscape view. Portrait layout doesn't work right.)
Instructions
- Destroy all enemies near relay stations before docking
- Rescue pilots from damaged ships for powerups and repairs
- Ship is lost when signal strength reaches zero
- Radar shows enemies, damaged ships, and relay stations
- Relay stations and damaged ships are highlighted
See the Help screen in-game for a description of the HUD elements.
Strategies
- Magnetic Mines: Drifts toward your ship if you get close. Lead it away and then turn around to blast it!
- Patrol Cannon: Alternates between moving and attacking. It has a predictable pattern, so watch it and find an opening!
- Laser Turret: Uses a targeting laser to lock on, then fires a shot when fully charged. It has limited range, so shoot it down from a distance!
- Relay Stations: Dock with a relay station to activate it, but all nearby enemies must be destroyed first.
Post-Jam
I fixed two bugs after the deadline:
- I fixed which character portraits were used in levels 3 and 4 so all of Ginny's art could be seen.
- If you tried start the game before the music finished loading, the whole thing would crash.
License
Software, sound, and music copyright (c) 2026 Adam Higerd
Graphics copyright (c) 2026 Adam Higerd, Ginny Higerd, and Jason Higerd
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
| Link | https://bitbucket.org/ahigerd/ld59 |
| Link | http://greenmaw.com/webgames/ld59/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/network-relay |
Ratings
| Overall | 344th | 3.682⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 335th | 3.5⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 685th | 2.913⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 506th | 3.587⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 493th | 3.614⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 272th | 3.652⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 191th | 3.474⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 398th | 3.674⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
What, you don't hear them? Here's a transcription:
> SIGNAL SIGNAL SIGNAL.
>
> SIGNAL.
>
> SIGNAL.
>
> SIGNAL.
```
... .. __. _. ._ ._..
```
I love that the mini-map feels diegetic as a ship radar. The feedback from shooting enemies is great, especially the little explosions and particles. The full screen effects when transitioning between levels or hitting game over also feel really good.
These are pretty minor points, but I do wish the player ship had more satisfying audio, closer to what some of the enemies have. I also wish the laser enemy was more interesting to interact with. Right now the best strategy is to outrange them, which means you don’t really get to see or hear their laser much, which is a bit of a shame given how cool it is.
I had a lot of fun playing this (I’m admittedly a sucker for shoot-em-ups), and the level of polish really stood out.
The magnetar army: Crushed
Game: enjoyed
Transitions: Cool
@pojemnik I don't understand. There is a restart feature. You can quit from the pause screen to go back to the title screen at any time, and there's a "Back to Title" button on the game over screen.
@prismapunch The control scheme issue was something I knew about during development. I would have liked 360-degree control but my custom game engine doesn't support arbitrary sprite rotation. I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway!
@beastpanda I really appreciate the detailed feedback. Thank you very much! :slight_smile: The player ship should have just as good of audio as the enemies because it's using the same code... I made the player's weapons fire quieter because you were going to hear so much of it. Did I maybe make it too quiet?
It's hooky and retro! Love both. Even the awkwardness of moving the ship like it has has an "implosion" engine :D is sweet and gives it its own aesthetic!
**EDIT**: just played a bit more. Got to level 4, where it may be gets a little harder due to the may enemy ships. One small addition I would make that would have made it even more fun would be some Special weapon that reloads for a given time, to clear a portion of the screen. E.g. a shockwave. That would "save" the player in a few occasions where death is near :D. Apart from that, great job overall!
@6knowledge Yeah, balancing the lasers was tricky... I wanted them to be scary enough that you couldn't just zoom past them and ignore them, and I added a hint section specifically to say how to beat them, but I also know that sitting outside of range and beating them down isn't very satisfying. Glad you had a good time though!
Some minor bugs I encountered:
- The game over screen was stuck for me. This might be what Pojemnik also experienced. There was no back to title button and the pause menu also didn't function anymore. There was only "Signal lost - auto-recall in progress" on the screen.
- In the second level the starry background broke. There was only a lot of pixel noise on the top line of the screen, which I assume was supposed to be distributed all over the screen to form the stars.
Still well done, our game has bigger bugs :D
@arnage Oh. I think I figured it out. The animation isn't properly cleaning up because the game ends in the middle of it, and that breaks the state machine. Thanks for the report. (There's also a known issue where those animations interact poorly with the focus-lost detection.)
Not sure what's up with the background breaking, though. I only saw that a single time during development and I fixed it right away... I don't see an obvious way that could break at runtime.
One of these days I want to add controller support to html52d. I was thinking about it for this one but I didn't end up having time before the jam started and I didn't want to spend time during the deadline hacking on the engine.
Sound effects are pretty well done! I especially loved both the pea-shooter and laser enemy sounds. ;) I wish there was some simple ambient music to acompany the experience, but I know it's tough to fit everything in such a short development window. The artstyle looks really cool, I loved all the character portraits and played several times to make sure I've seen them all. Looked like a lot of nice HotS callbacks in there, along with some Sailor Moon and - of course - Rocky. :)
I also experienced the bugs Arnage mentioned - no victory screen, and pressing escape just stops everything and no pause screen shows up either. I know that they're there since they show up for a few seconds when the game first starts, but they never display properly during gameplay. And finishing the game just leaves you in the void in an "undefined" location. I rescued everyone, but got lost in space myself.
Overall, it's a really cool jam game! Nicely done!
