LudumData

Uplink by thormoth

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

Defend an orbital satellite as it transmits vital data back to your home world. Pilot your ship, destroy incoming enemies, and survive long enough for each upload to complete. Every successful transmission grants a new upgrade. Hold the line and keep the signal alive.

screen03.png

screen02.png

screen01.png

Controls

  • WASD - Move
  • Mouse - Aim
  • Left Click - Shoot

Tutorial

  • Pilot your ship to intercept and destroy incoming enemies.

  • Enemy Jamming ships will block the Satellite's signal when they get close.

  • The Satellite loses signal when it orbits behind the planet.

  • If the signal is lost for too long, the mission fails..

  • Survive until a data packet is uploaded to earn an upgrade.

  • Choose upgrades to improve weapons, shields, or support abilities.

  • Hold the line as enemy waves grow stronger.

Link https://thormy95.itch.io/uplink
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/uplink

Ratings

Overall 483th 3.5⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 273th 3.613⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 704th 2.855⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 410th 3.774⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 421th 3.766⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Audio 429th 3.258⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Mood 611th 3.3⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 38🗨️

Feedback

Trav
Apr 20th · 09:47 UTC
This is a great little game, I love your artwork :) I did want to see where the signal goes to but there are asteroids in the way.
LDJam user 424198
Apr 21st · 01:26 UTC
Parallax effect is very cool
LDJam user 426074
Apr 21st · 12:11 UTC
Really like the clouds over the planet, looks great .artwork is cool overall.
Idea is clear and I enjoyed playing :)
Pavlo
Apr 21st · 12:22 UTC
Looks nice!! Great work
Byte Bark
Apr 21st · 20:13 UTC
Great artwork and fun game to play. Good job!
2Inkling
Apr 22nd · 04:48 UTC
Very charming pixel art and I love to see the theme employed in so many aspects of core gameplay!
Haoxuan
Apr 22nd · 08:22 UTC
good game overall better if i can see the signals
zpdlf003
Apr 22nd · 08:28 UTC
It was fun aiming. The graphics were good, and the sound was excellent, so I liked it.
Winbion
Apr 22nd · 10:35 UTC
It's a nice game, but it lacks dynamics and a variety of upgrade.
JHax
Apr 22nd · 10:55 UTC
Played this for a pretty long time! It's good fun! As others have said, pixel art is brilliant, particularly the planet. I do think the difficulty could maybe ramp up a little bit more, but all good other than that!
3blackpixels
Apr 22nd · 17:40 UTC
Not bad, but needs ingame tutorial
JoeGreen
Apr 22nd · 18:16 UTC
I'm unstoppable!
Cool, complete game. Great work!
![Снимок экрана — 2026-04-22 в 21.14.56.png](///raw/6c3/86/z/7255a.png)
Sound Steppe
Apr 23rd · 16:28 UTC
looks nice, good work
Minus
Apr 23rd · 16:40 UTC
The game seems to be quite fun, artstyle is clean and quite coherent, whole jamming situation is a good idea to execute theme, however in general game really fast becomes repeatetive and after just 5-6 packets sent if you had enough luck to get increased fire rate and reduction of damage you are almost unstoppable. Audio is okay, but music could be a little bit more interesting. Overall quite good game idea, possibly worthy of continuing development and exploring how far you can get it :)
Stratcat66
Apr 23rd · 16:40 UTC
There are quite a lot things I like about your game: The feel, the mood, even the sound.
Being an unkillable space ship is also fun, but I was really never nowhere near dying and found it a bit too easy (also the pause between the different waves is a bit long for my taste.

Overall a nice entry and as you can see from my image, I played it for quite a while :)

![im.png](///raw/df8/2/z/727b1.png)
Enver Arco
Apr 23rd · 16:46 UTC
Very fun game! And well done on the enemy AI they would move unpredictably which made they a challenge initially
kkritselis
Apr 26th · 00:08 UTC
That was fun! I really liked the design and it controlled well. Nice job!
thunderklaus
Apr 26th · 09:58 UTC
Quite nice! Congratulations on a complete game!
NonDev
Apr 26th · 13:50 UTC
Fun little game! The enemy ships sure are a crack shot, but once I had a little bit of regen they were very manageable. I think ultrawide display messed with the HUD, because I couldn't see the satellite health/signal strength. I do wish there was a bit more variety or more difficulty ramping. It felt pretty rare that I got anything but one enemy ship that fired, the rest were just signal jammers.

Still, I had fun and it felt good. Good job!
Tygrak
May 02nd · 19:44 UTC
Pretty fun game! The art looks really nice! The gameplay is basically a twist on asteroids, but that's good -- it's a classic for a reason, it's always fun to shoot some things with a spaceship :D. The balance seemed a bit off after a few of the upgrades because I was regenerating more health than the enemies could deal, so it could use some balancing and or more scaling on the enemies but that's fine!
Planetary
May 07th · 19:56 UTC
That... was awesome!! I really like it! About the upgrades, I didn't got that deep into the game, but they stack? I mean, I got damage reduction 10% and after another with 20%, so that means I get 30% damage reduction? And if that's the case, what about getting too much damage reduction so you go get 100% and your ship is invincible. Also, consider spawning more and stronger enemies over time in current game, to get competition.

Overall, that was a good game!