(VR, Unfinished) Space Jetpack, i guess by mrchip

made by mrchip for Ludum Dare 59 (UNFINISH)

You get a hard to control 0 gravity jetpack using VR controls, to fly around the ISS for the sake of it.

There is no gameplay or objective. I swear something was planned, i just ended up spending nowhere near the time that would have been required to achieve that.

You are seeing this game because i'd rather post something poor than nothing.

Controls

(Seated VR, armrests are useful for comfort)

It is very hard to control, because you are controlling acceleration, not speed, so it drifts all over the place. This is true for rotation as well: it's very hard to keep steady. For every input you give, you will eventually need to input the opposite in order to stop again.

The plan was to correct for drift automatically, making piloting a lot more sensible, and then give you a button to temporarily gain this full manual control of thrusters if you choose. Unfortunately you don't get that. Good luck lmao

You have 6 degrees of freedom: accelerate or rotate in any direction.

You have to grab the virtual joysticks to control them, your VR controllers dont automatically affect your movement, because it was planned for you to be able to press and interact with other things, back when this was supposed to be a spaceship instead of a jetpack. Hold the grip button on your VR controller to grab them.

The right joystick controls rotation. Turn the joystick in the direction you want to turn.
The left joystick controls movement. Move the joystick in the direction you want to accelerate. Note that the 3d model of the joystick rotates in response to your movements, because this was a last minute change. Ignore how it looks: the left stick does not respond to how you rotate your controller.
Since you will inevitably loose control and spin out, i have added a cheat button that resets your momentum, so you're not forced to relaunch the game for that lol: press the A or X button (again, while holding the virtual joystick). Left/right side reset rotation and speed separately.

Small, short inputs can be helpful, as overcorrecting is easy.

Last reminder that there is absolutely no gameplay or secret easter egg or interactable objects: don't go searching for something lol

Project notes

Daily progress: 1. I developed the game directly from within my VR headset, since the Godot editor can be installed there. I had motion sickness issues that made this experiment unfun, and inefficient. 2. Due to previous issues, i moved the project file to my laptop and resumed development there. This was an improvement for me, but i only had the morning. 3. Busy so i just exported it and called it a day. Also, change the 3d model at the last second to make this a jetpack instead of a spaceship, because it made much more sense for the unfinished release.

I had a gameplay loop that i was actually looking forward to... it is what it is. Even if i had all 3 full days available, i am nowhere near fast enough yet to pull that off solo. That does count as a lesson. This is one of my first times i attempt 3d in Godot, and VR. I did get more comfortable with the basics of both.

The hand system is extremely simple, but it does what i want and is clean enough. It's a good start.