LudumData

Astral Abyss by darthone

[raw]
made by darthone for Ludum Dare 48 (COMPO)

A space exploration game where the goal is to get deepest into space by settling up settlements to further supply your colony. The white dotted line indicates the settled planet farthest to your home planet which is marked by a green circle. The goal is maximize this distance, getting your colony deeper into space.

Your resources and tick rate are shown in the top bar - WASD - move the camera around - Q/E or scroll - to zoom in/out - M - toggle sound off/on - Click on an unsettled planet and press C to settle it - The cost to settle is shown in the bottom left and is based on how far it is from your closet other settled planet. - If there are enemies, send enough of the correct attack ships to eliminate them. The cost to send these ships are based on how far it is to your closest settled planet. - 1 - sends a rock ship, costs more blue mineral - 2 - sends a paper ship, costs more green gas - 3 - sends a scissors ship, costs more red ore - Press F to send an exploring ship in the direction your mouse is pointing - Hold it longer to send the ship farther which will cost more - Right click to cancel

Tools Used - Engine: Unity - Audio: FL Studio, Serum, Vital, Pendulate - GFX: Aseprite

Link https://www.dropbox.com/s/pr2c1r510pdm38w/Scripts.zip?dl=0
Link https://darthone.itch.io/ld-48
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/astral-abyss

Ratings

Overall 249th 3.7⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 481th 3.28⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 292th 3.5⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 427th 3.62⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 494th 3.38⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 386th 3.26⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 184th 3.7⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 30🗨️

Feedback

Tim77
26. Apr 2021 · 11:00 UTC
Cool concept. Music was atmospheric and fit the game. I liked the art style - planets were well rendered. Were they procedurally generated? I was curious about what was "out there" which spurred me on. I felt the controls got in the way a bit. I really wanted to hold space and move my mouse to pan the camera around rather than using WASD! I think it's a common enough input design pattern that players would expect it. I didn't quite get to understand the paper/rock/scissors mechanic. It wasn't clear to me what would beat what. Really interesting overall. Well done on a productive 48 hours!
mrnyarlathotep
26. Apr 2021 · 11:07 UTC
This is a crazily ambitious compo entry! I'd quibble the theme a little bit, but I'm impressed how much game there is here and how you nail the feel of heading out into the unknown
Ariorick
26. Apr 2021 · 11:33 UTC
The game really needs some texts and a simple tutorial cause there are A LOT of buttonns. I didn't really get much feedback from the game also. I think if you're trying to do an action that you don't have enough resources for, this resources should blink or something
Sorry if it sounds harsh, i think the game would work with slight improvements, you definitely put a lot of work into it. Art and music are nice and it runs perfectly
JustusPan
28. Apr 2021 · 08:57 UTC
The concept is very good and let me feel lots of potential extension gameplay. The attack ship part confused me a little. The mood and pixel art are very good. Well done!
ASTALAVISTICH
28. Apr 2021 · 09:08 UTC
As the game that made in two days, it made very well. I like this concept, and would like to see a more expanded version of the game.
Last Angle
28. Apr 2021 · 09:40 UTC
This is an really impressive game for such a short amount of time! I love the relaxed mood, the music really helps with that. Sending out the ships to discover more of the map is really fun. There is a lot going on in this game, and not everything was clear to me. I tried attacking the satellites/enemies that were circling some planets by pressing the number keys, but nothing ever happend. Also, the meaning of all the numbers you see when you click the planet were not completely clear to me.

I think you could really build on this idea, and make bigger project out of it! Amazing job overall!:)
GameDev and Architecture
30. Apr 2021 · 11:31 UTC
Cool game !
It took me a few seconds to understand how the game works (still not sure I understand the attacking mechanic).
But it still was a fun and calming experience.

Good job! :)
Nick Rafalski
02. May 2021 · 03:32 UTC
This is so cool! I love the art and the music. There are so many well done elements like the fog of war, automatically selecting the nearest planet to launch a settler/surveyor from, etc. The UI isn't exactly amazing but it gets the job done.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out the rock/paper/scissors thing. Overall I'm just really enjoying playing this :)
bentglasstube
02. May 2021 · 06:50 UTC
This is a very cool concept for a game. I didn't really get the resource management part of it, as it seemed like I could just keep exploring and as long as a found a new planet I could proceed. The music was superb, though, and made me keep playing for a long while.
SamarthMP5002
02. May 2021 · 06:51 UTC
Cool game! Interesting content, Keep up the good work!
BoxedMeatRevolution
02. May 2021 · 07:02 UTC
What a slick experience! The smooth controls, intuitive UI, and visual details (e.g. parallax background, animated planet FOV, etc.) made this game captivating and enjoyable to play. I stuck around long enough to reach 665 million miles into deep space :smile:

My main feedback is that, after exploring and expanding for a while, it becomes quite repetitive. Perhaps consider adding some strategic/puzzle elements to keep the player engaged, or maybe add a progression system to reward the playing for going deeper into space.
marksht
02. May 2021 · 07:05 UTC
Wonderful! I really liked it but I'm not sure how combat system working.
Japayne
02. May 2021 · 07:46 UTC
Brilliant game! I didn't immediately understand the game, but after I did I enjoyed for quite a while.
reheated
02. May 2021 · 07:51 UTC
This seems like not _quite_ an awesome game but the basic framework on which an awesome game is built. What's missing is the challenge. In fact, if I'm trying to expand my settlements as far as possible, there seems to be no motivation to attack occupied planets, since it costs a lot of resources and they don't threaten me in any way. All I do is spray exploring ships in every direction, and then colonise any unoccupied planets I discover. This got me a long way (before quitting) and I didn't even think about the resource production of the planets. A couple of ideas on how to create the challenge: (i) enemy bases can attack the player, so wiping out nearby ones removes a threat? (ii) have a time limit, after which the game ends, and however far you got, that's your score?

Good music. No sound effects?
Harmadillo
02. May 2021 · 09:15 UTC
This was great. Spent far too long playing. I did skip the lot of combat. Mostly it wasn't necessary to continue expanding. Would have liked to zoom out to see the whole of my glorious empire.
The found the explore/settle loop combined with the music made it very chill.
Zephi_Sero
02. May 2021 · 10:52 UTC
Game was really fun, played it for a while after leaving rating, lol.
José Bonilla
12. May 2021 · 00:52 UTC
Congratulations on submitting your compo game! I agree with comments above in the sense that the main thing lacking is motivation to keep playing and exploring. The enemies are passive and do not pose a threat and you can basically keep expanding forever. You can work on improving this to make a much more interesting and balanced game.
dmitriy3342
12. May 2021 · 01:03 UTC
Great! I liked this game! I got interesting experience, thanks!
![Image 3.png](///raw/09f/a3/z/425fc.png)