Cool game! Looks really nice with the grass shader, fresnels and all the tractor beam effects!

@yodak Thank you, glad you appreciated the tech art!

That was a legit entry, really polished and fully featured. A simple but addictive gameplay loop with great graphics and the sounds. Everything was top notch.


Congrats, I think you will do really well!

@exofrenon Thanks so much for playing!! Glad you liked it!

Great game, it was quite relaxing to vacuum the planet, you should add an map cause i lost the base and was circling for a long time before finding it, i couldnt beat the game cause the "it" caught me. realy solid entry, liked the visuals and you nailed the eeriness of the "it". well done!

@sledzik Haha fair point, I considered adding a UI element to show you where your base was but thought it would be too easy... maybe I will add a bigger tower for your radar so you can find your base more naturally. Thanks for playing, we appreciate the feedback!

Wow, what an incredible jam game. It feels like a polished release. The 3D art is really well done, I love the music and sound design on all the aliens, and the calming, spacey atmosphere of the planet is immaculate. It's enjoyable just to explore the environment you've put together. Really impressive job.

I like the gameplay loop too - it's really satisfying to suck up bigger and bigger aliens throughout the game. (I was hoping for more than there were, but it's a jam so I get it.) It creates a nice sense of progression. On that front, I did find it odd that aliens typically spawned only around my base, leaving the rest of the planet mostly empty. My main critique, though, is that the game lacked friction. I'm not saying you need action or enemies or anything, it's a cozy farming game basically, but there really wasn't anything standing in my way as a player. (There was one bit where an asteroid or something appeared and I had to press a button to stop it, but that doesn't really count.) I just sucked up defenceless aliens in order to increase my ability to suck up more of them. Some sort of challenge or strategy around how you deal with later-game aliens might help keep the player engaged. The battery hunting was pretty simplistic too, and I bet you could do some more with that.

Really wonderful work, though. I played through the whole thing and it was a very chill experience.

Wow, really well done! I really liked the graphics (especially the planet and grass) and the fun "physicsy" feel of flying the spaceship.

A few minor suggestions:
* Add a map or pointer to find the base
* Add an indicator that you're holding a battery (I forgot a couple times)
* Make it clear what the laser is for, or prevent it from firing before the <spoiler> happens - I lost on my last battery, because I didn't realize there was a lose condition
* My vacuum got stuck on the base a few times, maybe add something to prevent that from happening

My wife and I enjoyed this one. I did find that I could accidentally find the next battery without pinging the radar and then paying to charge up and fire it did not enable the radar. That was kinda funny.

Really nice game. I like graphics and music.

@sam-gorman thanks for all the kind words and feedback! Haha yeah we wanted to make more alien dudes too but ran outta time. Fair point on the friction, we have been talking about potentially adding some evil plants or something that steal your juice...

@cody-raethke glad you liked it! I agree, some more indicators could be helpful. Even I forget when I'm holding a battery while playing lol

@tsaot that's awesome to hear!! LOL I didn't even think about that, I thought no one would find the other batteries randomly!

@daliamha thanks for playing!

@picross ooh, evil plants sound fun!

It is very cool. Please finish the game after the jam, I'm sure it will have an audience. good luck to you

really cool visuals :)

Art and music were very pleasant and worked very well. It also had a solid gameplay loop, and I had fun spending around 20 minutes collecting aliens. I got too absorbed collecting aliens that I didn't realize the monster was there, and then I got lost trying to find the base to fire the laser. A waypoint pointing towards the home base would be nice :). Pacing-wise it also ended up taking a while to work through all the upgrades. Overall a pretty fun submission.

Really dig the innocently twisted premise lol. The gameplay, combined with the UI and music, (plus a bit of cosmic horror?) really gave me Pikmin vibes. Speaking of the UI... _hey that's my font!_ :smiley: I made Two Weekend Go (er, remixed Two Weekends Sans, if you wanna be a bit more correct) for personal use a few years back and figure I may as well toss it online for others while I'm at it, so I'm glad to see someone else getting use out of it. Funny to stumble upon it being used in their LD game, but it feels like a very appropriate choice for the tone of this game. Mechanically, I really enjoyed the simple satisfaction of the physics elements, embracing the jank of abducting the aliens and the upgrade loop was decently satisfying to repeat, though some of the upgrades didn't feel very impactful. Also... was I missing some plot or why did [redacted for spoilers] appear and require the laser? I thought it was cool, but not sure why it existed since it didn't seem to have much relation to the rest of the game. Only real complaint gameplay-wise was that it was easy to get lost on the other side of the planet without a directional indicator (funnily enough, Roguelike One, the very first LD game I contributed too, we also made a sphere-planet game and found that to also be an issue players had until we added an indicator). Audio was pleasant, if a bit minimal, and the Roland JV-1080 was a nice period-appropriate choice given the rest of the game's early-2000s-Nintendo motif. Overall, one of the better Jam entries I've seen this LD. Well done!

@fimiq thank you! We want to try to finish it : D

@mr-tj much appreciated <3

@pastmoments Lol yeah I completely agree, we definitely want to add a way to navigate home easier/ Thanks for playing!

@guitarbro dude! That's awesome and so crazy because I felt like I had to dig SO MUCH to find a good Rodin Pro/UD Shin Go, and I was shocked at how good yours was and why it wasn't more well known. Thank you for making it! I'm really glad you caught the Pikmin influence as well and I'm really happy you appreciate the jv 1080 stuff. I'm glad all my little details didn't go unnoticed haha!

Totally agree on the upgrades comment, that's going to be a main goal of a post jam version... just really emphasizing the progression and scaling. Def something that needs tuning. Lol yeah the lore behind the [redacted] is that your radar might be signalling more than just the mothership... ;)

Thanks for all your kind words!

@picross I see, that makes sense about [redacted]. But yeah, glad you liked the font and feel free to tell others about it. I'm sure you saw how atrocious the license costs were on New Rodin/Shin Go, I figure being free makes my amateur kerning job not all that bad in comparison lol.

(Side note: who would have thought that a guy who spent his free time making a font would pay attention to small details? :stuck_out_tongue: )

That's pretty juicy! Very appreciate the visuals and sound! These two makes the game both funny and cute, *haha*. I've tried to beat it 2 times. At first, I forgot to buy the laser :< And, after that, despite I bought it, I didn't understand how to use it, haha *(of course I saw the grotesque button **"USE THE FCKN LASER"**, but it didn't react at all :< )* Still, very decent entry! I enjoyed my time!

@ii-p Wow I'm honored you played it twice! Haha sorry about the laser confusion, we tried to make it somewhat obtuse so that it felt scarier, but it definitely needs some tuning. Thanks so much for playing!

Definitely one of the best games I've played so far! The game is really fun, the gameloop is really enjoyable and the mechanics and movement are very smooth. The game is very well executed, the physics are great, the buttons are responsive and it really doesn't feel like a jam game but a very polished one!
It gives me this 2004-ish/PS2 3D game vibe. Both by gameplay, art and the sound... maaaan that sound totally took me back. Not sure if intentional, but that worked for me. I gave you a high score for mood for sure!

Really relaxing game with nice music. I really liked the "voice acting". Thats a smart way to replace real voice acting. Thanks for the web version!

@iluvatar Thank you for the kind words!! Yes a 2004-ish game is exactly what we were going for, and we're really glad you caught that! It is all very intentional : D

@fabelay Thx for playing! Lol glad you liked them, it's one of the "vox" sfx on the Roland JV-1080, which is a "rompler" synth that was heavily used by games studios in the late 90s and early 2000s. I made all the sounds and music in the game on it haha

I must have missed something in the tutorial because I wondered around the map for a good 5 minutes not realizing that I had to input a battery somewhere to continue... It wasn't really clear how to input a battery either, as I expected to have an input ui popup every time. Then I realized that playing in full screen removed such UI popups including how much juice you have and your current carrying capacity :face_palm:.. I bought and used the arm laser but it didn't seem to do anything? I hate that you don't have control over how long your pickup beam thing is out. I didn't understand the beam distance upgrade. I wish you could dump out your inventory faster. My pickup beam also kept getting stuck under the juicer at times.

The ending was the most confusing part. I got the button that said to shoot the laser but it was greyed out, so I thought that it would become usable at the end of the timer. But when the timer went out, I got this big skull graphic without any explanation of what just happened or what I did wrong. I mean, I already had bought the laser from the shop. Maybe I missed something, but that was kind of frustrating.

I will say though, this was a pretty polished experience other than some clarity issues. It was really satisfying to pick up the little guys and the sounds helped a lot. Nice music too! I also enjoyed seeing the variety of different alien guys spawn in. And did they poop, cause I thought I saw poop :laughing: ? Anyways, cool game, I feel like I beat it even if the game disagrees! I got like all of the upgrades and all the batteries except the last radar upgrade so yeah. I played for like 40 minutes. Great job!

@coatline thanks for playing! Lol yes the little gold fat aliens will eat other aliens and will be worth more, but if they eat too much they poop and lose all their value. Sorry about the confusing bits in the game! We were trying to find the right balance between letting the player figure stuff out and tutorializing stuff. If you click while your tractor is down, it will return upwards and you can skip the waiting. Also if you click while it's lowering, it will stop before it reaches the bottom and you can make use of the wider/longer beam. We tried to model the controls after real world claw machines but we didn't tutorialize it well haha. That UI thing is really odd though I haven't seen that bug yet... were you playing on web? If so what browser? I can definitely look into it :D We appreciate all your feedback!

Awesome game, I loved the atmosphere and the chill gameloop of just collecting stuff as the UFO. I will say the ending seems to have bugged out for me... I got the prompt to fire the laser, and quickly purchased and fired it, but then the prompt just went away with no further instruction, along with me entering a sort of weird state where aliens would disappear when I got close (I was playing on web version, if this helps). Either way, I feel like I beat it and I still enjoyed the experience a lot. Great job overall!

Super satisfying gameplay loop, I ended up just flying around collecting things longer than I expected.

Looks really polished too, especially for a jam.

This is probably the best game I've played this Ludum Dare. The atmosphere is great, the gameplay loop is simple but engaging (ever increasing upgrades helps with this), and the overall art and sound direction is really excellent for a jam game.

I would say however, that using the laser at the end was a little anti-climactic, and occasionally the tractor beam would get stuck against objects, particularly buildings. I was also a little disappointed that there was no victory screen. Overall, though, a great entry and you should be proud of what you have all accomplished!

@picross Thanks again for the game and the response! The claw controls make sense now! I just tried to recreate the bug, but I couldn't get it to work. I'm not sure what I experienced, but it's probably not very common. Anyways, I'm using Opera GX.

this game is soooo cool! i want to come back to it when i have more time! i followed u on itch!