Tin Can by Hiku
Tin Can is a mix of survival and simulation game.
You are the only passenger left of a colonisation spaceship that is travelling to another solar system. There is no more food supply inside the living area of your spaceship, but fortunately, you have access to the "Ark". The Ark is the host of all animal and plant species intended to colonise new worlds, but it is also your only source of food. Your aim in this game will be to survive by hunting animals and artificially maintain the local biodiversity. Hopefully, genetic research is still possible inside the spacecraft, so eggs of new species will sometimes be available and will help you to optimise food supplying. Don't forget that photosynthesis speed will decrease as you will travel further and further from the Sun.
How far will you be able to go through the deep space ?
Controls : * [Arrow keys] to move * [SPACE] to Attack * [ECHAP] to pause * Click on "New egg !" to spawn new eggs when they are available
| Link | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cvG0QD3OAFZN58XP1eEH_C2xEIeLdloO/view |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/tin-can |
Ratings
| Overall | 1129th | 3.15⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1171th | 2.875⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 850th | 3.15⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1162th | 3.15⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 871th | 3.425⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 808th | 2.9⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 858th | 2.658⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1094th | 3.075⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
The core mechanics is there, but some important explanatory fluff is missing:
- We are supposedly in space, but this is not apparent ingame
- There's no indication of decreasing photosyntesis, which is perhaps the most important mechanics that's supposed to limit your ability to just survive off trees forever.
If I didn't read the description here - I would be very confused!
Hard to say if the game is balanced, as finishing the run takes real dedication. The end doesn't feel inevitable - I spent good 20 minutes doing nothing but planting eggs, after which I got bored and killed everything manually, otherwise I fully expect it would self-sustain for at least an hour. It could well be a good simulation, but I am not dedicated enough to play it thoroughly.
Pixel art is cute though.
Btw I would appreciate if you could give my game a shot as well :grin:
That said, I think there is currently something missing that makes it hard for the gameplay to live up to its potential (because once again, I really see the potential!), and that is that there is no feedback about anything that the player is doing. It could all seem to be going right, and suddenly it goes wrong without knowing what is causing it to go wrong. We don't know:
- Is a population to big or to small?
- Which populations affect which other populations?
- How fast does the photosynthesis effect get applied?
- How fast can certain population types grow?
- ..
Of course this can be figured out by many runs and experience, but having some feedback on this while playing might make it more enjoyable. For example: a quick fix would be a target value for each population, or an alert when a population is growing/shrinking.
Nonetheless I think you did a great job, the pixel art looks nice as well :). Let me know if you ever decide to reiterate on this!
Had a great time! Nice soundtrack and visual. An interesting concept for the theme, but it is a pity that it is not disclosed in the game.
Appart from all of this, I think the idea and the directions where the game is going is very good. I guess you just need to think a little more about how is the player gonna feel while playing your game.
Those damn herbavores!
The one thing I notices very early on and that I kept on noticing:
when you are facing left and move up or down, the facing turns to the right. thus you either have to face left again or move so that the right facing side is ok to hit something.
Then again, as others have mentioned, some feedback mechanisms would be really helpful to feel more invested into the game.
Some suggestions for `quick fixes` to a few layers of complexity and player investment:
* Allow choosing what egg you want to use up. Basically egg inventory. So we don't need to put all the fox eggs only to be able to place snake eggs.
* Allow partitioning space a bit more via trenches or barricades. So player could have one chicken-fox area to try to balance foxes; And another chicken-only area to keep health population of chickens for emergency case. There could a change that some animals can escape their areas and wreck havoc in others.
* Allow player to move animals to other place. Via signaling, or just manually drag them to another place. That would play nice with different areas.
* You need some actions to gain something from the animals. For example keep cows for milk and foxes for furs.
* Some explanation / indication what causes player to lose health. I have no idea why I died.
* Some emergency, space-related events, that would introduce player to the situation over time.
Overall this looks very promising, just needs some extra touches.
Did I say, I that I love space related games? I saw tech-y / space related themes, though I had to look for it actively. Looking to forward to future updates if any :slight_smile: