LudumData

Space and keys by JavaSaurus

[raw]
made by JavaSaurus for Ludum Dare 49 (COMPO)

banner<em>space</em>and_keys.png

A captain on an exploratory mission finds himself stranded with a defective board computer. As the situation worsens, the ship redirects all power to stabilize a malfunctioning core and engage the auto-pilot, damaging the linguistics processor in the process. Unfortunately, the computer can no longer provide the correct terminology and naming for the many interesting enemies and objects the vessel encounters on its journey.

It is up to you, captain, to resolve the issue and manually scan any objects, while the auto-pilot is heading home. But stay cautious... typing errors will cause extra stress on the ship's core, rendering it more unstable.

Best of luck captain, may you arrive at home-base safely.

testBeam.png

AUDIO : Scroll over the score indicator to raise/lower the volume.

Note : Space and Keys is a simple typing game. I found myself in a very difficult spot, trying out no more than 3 very distinct game concepts before arriving at this concept on Sunday morning. In a way, I'm extra proud as I managed to squeeze this game out in a little over 12 hours, and in spite of the lack of certain features I had in mind, still managed to deliver a working prototype. Let's call it the minimal viable product !

Maybe it's experience as a game-jammer, but I want to use this entry as proof to everyone that even with limited time, it may be worth submitting something !

ALSO the humor probably starts after the intro, with random sentences being made and enemy sprites appearing with random words to take down.

Link https://javasaurus.itch.io/space-and-keys
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/space-and-keys

Ratings

Overall 324th 3.375⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 360th 3.125⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 407th 2.975⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 444th 2.95⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 217th 3.6⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 173th 3.45⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 113th 3.353⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 112th 3.639⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 13🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

candlesan
04. Oct 2021 · 08:49 UTC
Really impressive for 12 hours! Always enjoy a good typing game.
Adiwan
04. Oct 2021 · 11:21 UTC
I have a soft spot for typing games. :keyboard:
RatoGodoy
04. Oct 2021 · 18:42 UTC
nice game, i enjoyed the pacing and the graphics, the only thing i didn't like that the game starts at full volume and i couldn't see any sound options
🎤 JavaSaurus
04. Oct 2021 · 20:20 UTC
@candlesan thanks ! glad you liked it :) I think it was the stress, but the final product is growing on me :id:
@adiwan I hope you enjoyed it :)
@ratogodoy there actually should be an audio bar when you scroll over the score indicator (I should have put that somewhere...it was inspired by how Tetr.io handles it).
Aquachain
05. Oct 2021 · 10:31 UTC
Great typing game and great 1 Bit art. For 12 hours this is awesome.
gamepopper
05. Oct 2021 · 14:52 UTC
Great typing game, although it isn't clear that you also need to type spaces in between words, other typing games tend not to require you to press space.
Bauke Regnerus
05. Oct 2021 · 18:11 UTC
That's a fun little game Java. The 1 bit art is really nice. I panicked a few times, trying to type the words in time. XD
shores
06. Oct 2021 · 09:08 UTC
It was fun to play! Nice graphics! My ship got hurt really bad because I didn't know you also had to press space bar when typing, I would've liked it if the game just skipped spaces. All in all, fun little game, good job!
megamasterx
06. Oct 2021 · 18:00 UTC
Well done on getting this one across the finish line! I enjoyed this quite a bit. Typing games are hard to put together in a short amount of time so major kudos on that front.
BOOtak
06. Oct 2021 · 18:49 UTC
Enjoyed this very much. I love sound effect of the letterbeam! So punchy! Visuals are great, too. Congrats on making such a good and polished game in just 12hrs!
peterfiftyfour
07. Oct 2021 · 13:25 UTC
Did you make the music too? It's great! Got a really improvisational feel
🎤 JavaSaurus
08. Oct 2021 · 08:14 UTC
@aquachain Hey ! Thank you :) I like doing 1bit art, it is very calming in a way... It was also a design decision because knowing myself, I would have spent way too long on getting the sprites look right and in this case it was important to give priority to the words in terms of visibility !
@gamepopper Hey ! Thanks for playing... And yes you are right, I probably should have excluded spacebar hits... my bad there ! But in the spirit of the jam I'll leave it as is :)
@bauke-regnerus Thank you so much ! I'm happy I at least got to raise your heartbeat for a brief moment !
@shores Yeah I'm very sorry about the space bar, it totally slipped my mind, I initially only wanted to have people type single words and it totally slipped my mind space would cause issues...
@megamasterx Thank you so much ! I love this feedback ! It was a really battle getting anything submitted, this theme was a toughy !
@bootak I made the audio based off an existing tune I heard somewhere, but I tried to make it sound more "spacey"! I wanted something that was the 1bit equivalent of music... But that didn't turn out well... So in the end, I'm not an audio-expert but I think that's "sampling"? Either way, glad you like it !
lesinvisible
08. Oct 2021 · 13:23 UTC
The art in this game is just incredible, game feels extremely carefully put together and polished, this is astonishing. Also, typing games genre is unusual but welcomed guest in LDs.
mhorth
08. Oct 2021 · 22:52 UTC
This is pretty solid for a full game jam, even more impressive that you did it in just 12 hours. I was a bit worried that the initial "systems check" might actually be checking our average typing speed and then scaling the difficulty up. Maybe could be fun?

The only critique I have is that I wish the words wouldn't have overlapped with the instructional dialogue at the top of the screen. Maybe they don't appear until passing below, maybe the dialogue goes away... plenty of ways to handle it. It was just a bit frustrating seeing a word there to type but not being able to start on it yet. Similar for the phrases that wrapped to multiple lines. Seeing the 2nd word first was a (very small) pain point. Maybe scaling down the font size so that it'll never wrap?

Aside from that, I actually enjoyed it a lot, good job!
elysiagriffin
11. Oct 2021 · 14:15 UTC
Hi Java! Thanks for submitting your game for me to play live during my Twitch stream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1173664587

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
pdotjpg
11. Oct 2021 · 16:36 UTC
This is so charming. Huge props for making it in just 12 hours! The presentation - music, sound, art, writing - are all lovely and really create a lovely, funny mood combined with the silly typing gameplay. I loove how the gameplay and story are integrated.
🎤 JavaSaurus
12. Oct 2021 · 20:25 UTC
@lesinvisible Hey there, Thank you for playing, very glad you've enjoyed the game ! :)

@mhorth That dynamic increase of skill level was on the planning side, but I never got around it. You're absolutely right, this would have been awesome ! You're also completely right about the the font size and the placement of the words, but ... I chose to go compo instead of spending the next day to fix it all. Still very glad with the outcome and I hope you've enjoyed it !

@elysiagriffin Hi there, thank YOU for playing it ! Shame there were no buttons to even have feedback on this time... I'll make it up to you next LD ! :id:

@pdotjpg Thank you so much, it feels great to have landed on a small scope in the end, especially considering it was the third prototype in a single jam, I don't think I've ever made this much vertical slices in one sitting. Thank you !