Space Rover by Harmadillo

[raw]
made by Harmadillo for Ludum Dare 59 (COMPO)

Pilot a space rover via pre recorded commands or manually.

The signal limits you to 5 commands.

The signal give a delay to all manual controls.

Manual Controls:

Forwards - w

Rotate Left - a

Rotate Right - d

Camera Controls:

Pan - Right mouse button

Zoom - mouse wheel

screen1.JPG screen2.JPG screen3.JPG screen4.JPG

Ratings

Overall 270th 2.775⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 269th 2.525⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 180th 3.225⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 166th 3.575⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 253th 2.85⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 233th 1.853⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Humor 197th 1.967⭐ 17🧑‍⚖️
Mood 271th 2.441⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

Liam
Apr 20th · 14:39 UTC
Interesting take on the theme, nicely done, appreciated that you had two game modes in there! I think I had some audio glitches in mine (music disappeared etc) but could be Firefox. Enjoyed figuring out how to compensate for the delay or try to complete a mission with as few sets of instructions.

Manual mode could be cool if the signal delay fluctuated and both modes: that since there is a delay, if there was something realtime that you had to deal with it would make it a lot more challenging. Thought it was cool that you started off in a sort of testing lab and then went off planet! Thanks for making!
TasakaSama
Apr 20th · 17:41 UTC
I have the impression that there are two ideas in one, with these two modes of movement, too bad I would have pushed the automatic one a little more. Congratulations for your participation
SteveOfStevesGames
Apr 22nd · 18:06 UTC
Very cool, I remember back in the 90s they had a little robot that you could input commands like this, im sure people brought one to my school or something like that.
I got to the level called untested and after pressing restat it kept sending the robot out straight away so i couldnt input any commands.
🎤 Harmadillo
Apr 22nd · 18:56 UTC
@liam The audio was added last so i may not be Firefox. I had planned to make the delay on the manual mode increase when you got to moon/mars levels.
🎤 Harmadillo
Apr 22nd · 19:05 UTC
@tasakasama I experimented with the 2 control modes and since they both worked I left them both in. I would be interest to know which mode most people prefer.
🎤 Harmadillo
Apr 22nd · 19:08 UTC
@steveofstevesgames I titled the last 2 levels "untested" because didn't really get around to testing them :).
Liam
Apr 22nd · 19:20 UTC
@harmadillo I think I preferred the commands mode, I think that had the most potential for some quirky game mechanics and I enjoyed it more setting myself challenges.
cogcomp
Apr 22nd · 20:38 UTC
Cool idea. This is only the second "pre-record the commands" kind of game I've encountered so far and this was definitely the better of the them. The list of commands is easy to understand and I naturally got a better idea of how far you could go in different time periods during the game. Well done on a interesting game!
Wizard
Apr 24th · 20:22 UTC
Very easy to pick up and understand, would have been nice to know roughly how far the rover would travel at certain speeds, instead of having to trial and error it as much but other than that really cool and interesting game.
amirrajan
Apr 24th · 20:28 UTC
Reminds me of Logos the Turtle. I felt manual mode was a bit more approachable then automatic mode (the complicated UI scared me off lol). Responsiveness of the bot was unclear when in manual mode. It was hard to gauge how long I should hold down for rotation and movement.
Ben Morledge-Hampton
Apr 27th · 18:49 UTC
It's impressive that you were able to implement two separate game modes for the compo! Both modes present interesting challenges to overcome, but they're held back somewhat by the level design, which is pretty basic. Still, there's a good foundation here!
Pegasus
Apr 27th · 18:59 UTC
I think this game is held back a little bit by the controls, it's a little awkward not being able to edit the instructions and the rotations feel like they should be relative rather than absolute. Nevertheless the instruction system is pretty cool and it brings back fond memories of those little programming robots you could direct in a similar way to this. Great job!
LDJam user 234567
Apr 27th · 19:31 UTC
The game accurately captures the latency involved in controlling a rover on another planet, where you have to issue commands in advance and wait for the results to come back.

Well done :thumbsup:
Zirrrus
Apr 28th · 18:36 UTC
Neat!
I expected the rotation to be relative not absolute... took me a second to figure out that the game wasn't buggy :)
🎤 Harmadillo
Apr 28th · 19:38 UTC
@zirrrus That was not intentional. It was intended to be relative rotation. I mostly tested on the first 2 levels where it does't make a difference.
I have updated the instructions on the itch.io page and now it is a feature(not a bug).
Jimbly
Apr 28th · 19:51 UTC
Neat game. I also expected relative rotation and that confused me =). I sometimes hit "reset" and the UI for entering commands didn't appear for quite a while. I enjoyed queuing up the commands, I think I would have enjoyed it more if it was a "author whole set of commands, then watch it go" kind of thing instead of doing a few (or, just 1, when I was lazy), watching it, and then continuing from where it was. It was fun when I had to keep track in my head where I thought the rover would be (and then amusing to see how far off my estimates were :laughing:). I made it through all the levels in command mode, only did one in manual mode and it just seemed frustrating =).
Baturinsky
Apr 29th · 18:58 UTC
Isn't positive rotation anti-clockwise usually?
Pastry chef
Apr 29th · 20:14 UTC
Thanks for the entry! It feels like you could make a compelling puzzle game by putting everything on a grid
MajoMirez
May 01st · 01:56 UTC
It's an interesting concept, but the rotation confused me, I expected a relative rotation haha, also the speed didn't make sense to me when I can just use Fast every time (maybe it could use distance instead of speed?). Overall it's very fun, good job!
kkritselis
May 02nd · 00:00 UTC
Nice work. It would be interesting to add in energy guage... power is important and you could score against energy use.
auxiliarymoose
May 03rd · 00:56 UTC
This game reminded me of my time piloting underwater robots and trying to make autonomous navigation programs for land robots. Really captured the tricky parts and the overall feeling. I think it provides a solid base for a larger game about piloting space rovers. I imagine it could be fun to have some more planning tools (e.g. onscreen ruler & protractor), but also obstacles/failure conditions to make planning more important. Thanks for sharing your game!