LudumData

Probe Away by quadtree

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

Welcome to the Far Systems! We've detected a beacon of unknown origin, broadcasting using hyperstreams. Hyperstreams go further than normal signals, but are affected by gravity. We need to find the beacon so we can send an expedition to recover it. Use Space to launch probes and guide them with WASD. The probes will show the signal strength of areas they pass over, red is low, green is medium and blue is high, and white is very high. Once you think you know where the beacon is, click "Send Expeditions" and click where you think it is!

Note: This game generates levels during the "Loading Level..." screen, so if you have an older computer it may be slow on the HTML5 version. If this happens, use the Windows version if possible.

Controls: - Space - Launch Probe - WASD/Arrow Keys - Control Probe - Ctrl+R - Restart Level

Link https://quadtree.me/ld/ld59/html5/
Link https://quadtree.me/ld/ld59/win32/ld59.zip
Link https://github.com/Quadtree/LD59
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/probe-away

Ratings

Overall 60th 3.816⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 55th 3.737⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 8th 4.211⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 8th 4.474⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 191th 3.237⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 171th 3.105⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 166th 2.25⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Mood 108th 3.605⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 19🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

bereg
Apr 20th · 09:07 UTC
Interesting concept! The probes could use a bit more tuning - like battery charge, fuel, maybe even planet gravity. But overall it already plays well, and it feels fresh and unusual. This mechanic could totally work as a puzzle in something like Mass Effect 4. I really loved it!
graebor
Apr 21st · 01:55 UTC
This is awesome! It was so relaxing and fun to "paint" with the probes, and it's a great idea for a puzzle. I really enjoyed messing around with the gravity of the planets to try and get into tricky spots and cover more area than I'd be able to normally. This is really clever, well done!

I also eventually realized you could launch multiple probes at the same time and control them all together - it's a bit silly but it can make for some fun shapes :)
poddub
Apr 21st · 07:29 UTC
nice concept, very satisfying line painting and it nice that you can send multiple probes 🛰️
Jin9310
Apr 21st · 07:37 UTC
Very relaxing and honestly quite addictive since i just couldnt stop exploring. So cool to see that the objects have some gravity fields and such. Really lovely, great job
darkshadow
Apr 21st · 21:14 UTC
Brilliant sending out the probes is a lot of fun and seeing the colour map at the end is pretty satisfying. Nicely take on the theme
NE-Aquilon
Apr 22nd · 20:18 UTC
Awesome game. I adore the coloring of signal-space, but normal space would be better with improved visuals. I think you can easily turn this prototype in a full game, because from gameplay point of view it's already feature-complet.
Shoalmuse
Apr 23rd · 04:32 UTC
Really glad I read the comments because sending multiple probes really changes the game! Delightful little game and the music and graphics are strangely quite cozy.
OadT
May 03rd · 15:27 UTC
Cool game! I didn't fully get how you derived the map from the signals, but knowing that blue is close to the signal was enough to know for me and the maps look nice visually :smile: The gravity was a nice feature. Wished it was maybe even a bit stronger and allows doing things like sending the probes on an orbit. Fun relaxing game, good work!
remusnomos
May 05th · 15:26 UTC
The idea of generating the heat map by sending probes is really cool (if that's what's happening :D).
Only the amount of information I gain when sending my own probes could be a bit more. I mostly went for chasing the blue colors instead of really trying to trace a path.
But overall a very cool concept, I haven't seen so far.
13pilgrims
May 06th · 09:18 UTC
Really interesting concept — sending out probes to paint the map is relaxing and oddly addictive. The gravity fields from planets add a nice twist, and discovering you can launch multiple probes at once makes it even more fun. Seeing the final colour map is super satisfying. Some tuning (battery, fuel, visuals) could be improved, but the core mechanic already feels fresh and complete. Great job!
Kenoshka
May 06th · 10:48 UTC
nice idea, total theme match. love games that use space gravity
SteveOfStevesGames
May 06th · 11:23 UTC
One of my top 5. awesome game.
It went a bit laggy after a while but nothing i couldnt handle.
I managed to do it on medium, il try hard one day.
I could see this being a great game, with extra missions and a base of some sort, maybe even a battle level sort of like worms fort mode.