I really enjoy the music! The upgrades are satisfying and I like the tether mechanic too.

The web version seemed to work just fine for me (using Chrome). Nice atmospheric game, a bit too slow for my liking. I would've been nice to be able to look at the upgrade recipes when off-ship to make it easier to determine which rocks to prioritize.

Lol, I played this for 2 hours. Good job, very fun :D

@cogcomp

The game is very slow, that's for sure. I actually didn't know how long the game was until I got a chance to play through it after the compo... I believe my playthrough lasted around an hour or so. It is very much a tedious game to actually win -- this is, of course, the intended experience to some extent, although I would have liked to shoot for more like half an hour (and I would have liked to have more content so that there was a more constant sense of discovery, etc).

I personally am reasonably satisfied with the tedium and repetitiveness in its current state -- but I certainly am not expecting most people to get to the end of the game, as it's not really fun to play through IMO.



@rolferm

Wow, that's a long time. I'm not sure I personally would describe playing that long as "very fun" but hey -- glad to hear it! :smile: I hope you were able to get to the end, as I'm not sure anybody else who rates the game will, lol.

@honey-pony, I think it was kind of addictive, I kept trying to figure out if there is some system with the style of the planets, because i desperately needed more wood. Only read that the 3rd planet is more rich by the end.

Anyway, by the end, the countdown just wrapped around when it reached 0, so i feel like I didn't really get to the 'real' end?

@rolferm Did you happen to get a screenshot of the countdown getting messed up (or still have the game open and can take one)? That's pretty surprising to me. There *is* supposed to be a real ending (and it worked on my computer! :sweat_smile:)

If not that's fine, of course, but I would be really interested in seeing the bug if you had had one.

It's interesting what you say about the planets. I had intended to put enough UI stuff in the game so that it would be easy to tell which planet could have what, but I never got around to it. So, I guess it ended up being an unintentional mystery...

@honey-pony, sorry, I already closed it. To be honest I just suspected you didn't anticipate anybody to finish it and just left it out. But I also thought, maybe the new countdown was the real one, so maybe I should just continue playing. Again, another mystery!

Actually, the random feeling of the planets, gives me kind of a kick when I finally reach that tree-planet. I think it would be less exciting if I knew what I'd find on the planets.

@rolferm In any case, many thanks for putting so much time in my game and for answering all my questions. :smile:

And yeah, the tree planet is really fun to find. I actually had forgotten it was possible when I started my full-game playtest, and so it was a surprise even for me when I saw one. Made me want to add a bunch more surprising variations of the planets.

##### Semi-on-the-fly remarks:

1. Introduction screen, (soothing) music and background all feel very atmospheric.

2. The presentation of the written tutorial as an in-game manual is once again a sweet immersive idea; nevertheless, this is the classic problem of having to fit loads of information at once, which can be much of an intake for the player. Having a tutorial, either explicit or even better, implicit (and intuitive), is generally better, but this is easier said than done.

3. By the way, I notice that distance still decreases while reading said manual, which is nice here.

4. The whole idea of having to decide which aspect of the ship to enhance (speed / engine, charge / solar panels) in order to reach the destination faster reminds me of the spatial victory from *Civilization II*. (I think this was the same in *Civilization III*? Sudden doubt.)

5. Swinging wrench for resources: an equivalent for *Minecraft*’s versatile pickaxe? ;)

6. Finished reading the manual: quite a mouthful! Of course, you can get back to reading it depending on what you want further information about, but this is still much to take.

7. I was afraid when I read ‘WASD’ that the controls would not be layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), but they are. :)

8. Checking the upgrade station: wow, that is many resources combinations, for the costs! :o I anticipate that this and the presence of six types of resources will make things complicated.

9. By the way, I love the whole in-game interface, this is once again very immersive, and intuitive.

10. Gathering resources: a thought occurs to me: is there any defeat condition? I may have missed something, but it looks like there is not. Judging by the introduction, I thought there would be some time limit / countdown, but I do not see any. I think this would have added challenge; although the game apparently goes for somewhat long-term investment from the player, so it would be super frustrating to lose. I think some compromise between more challenge and shorter game-solving may have been a nice mix, but this all depends on the kind of time is aimed at. Alternatively and more reasonably, some kind of setback (instead of crudely losing) could fulfil this challenge role.

11. Wow, you can even visit the solar panels! I like the whole ship design, it is massive. By the way, the nice fading link when you go out in space (a nice visual addition!) disappears when you go towards the sides and back of the ship; is this expected? (I forgot to say how cute the main character is. :))

12. I may also have got this wrong, but where does the 10-second effect from the introduction show up? I would expect the distance to increase every ten seconds. Oh, wait, it does! X) I think maybe just a tiny visual effect would help realize this, such as having the distance counter get red and bigger for a split second. Also, mechanically/game-wise speaking, since the initial speed is 1 light year per second, this is equivalent to staying still, and more generally, to have a ‘real’ speed of ‘face speed’ - 1 ly/s. So, correct me if I am wrong, but this means that the theme is incorporated essentially *narratively*, but not really as a game mechanic, since what happens is reducible to merely having some speed (to increase). (Except if you get a 10-ly increase that makes you arrive in two distance updates instead of one, if one wants to get ultra rigorous about it.)

13. Visiting a first planet; ah, I see, the types of resources on the ground are different from those you find in outer space. By the way, I have not played *No Man’s Sky*, but I have seen a bit from it, and this may be reminiscent of it. (Including reaching the ‘centre of the universe’, I believe?)

14. Showing the ‘UPGRADE!’ buttons only when usable is a good idea, it simplifies a bit having to check what amount is right or not. The same for reddish numbers when a quantity is lacking.

(1/3)

(continued: 2/3)

15\. It looks like the battery is charging quite fast even at level 1, and so, the solar panels upgrade is relatively useless. (Unless I am again missing something.)

16\. The fact that there is (apparently) one type of resource on planets 1 and 2 (and I imagine 3) makes it more simple that I had imagined to care for resource collection. (Discard this, it does depend on each journey!)

17\. My strategy is simply to upgrade the wrench a bit (long-term investment to increase return on investment / resource collection speed), upgrade the battery whenever I can to reach all resources (and this is finished by level 3), and then have a mix of increasing the wrench and engine. Although I guess the optimal strategy would be to compute rather precisely an estimate of how to achieve the least time by increasing solely the wrench and then at some point only the engine? (Or you have to take into account the distance travelled while onboard, which makes things more complicated… Although I guess the previous speed stages are almost negligible compared to final speed, as the speed upgrades seem more or less exponential, so I think my strategy holds: only final speed is really worth something! **Suggestion:** change the environment, such as resources, depending on distance already travelled, so that there is an incentive not to delay upgrading the engine.)

18\. There might be a bug on the ‘Navigation’ screen, with the planets’ visuals; for example, once I unlocked planet 3, checking the screen also shows a green planet 1 instead of a white one. I think a similar phenomenon already happened after unlocking planet 2. (A bit after: I realize the planets are random, which is coherent with the fact that the ship is moving… Silly me, sorry!) (Later: thinking about it, isn’t it weird that the suggested planets stay the same for one boarding session, since the ship is travelling? I guess the most logical outcome would be to show one only once having clicked ‘FLY!’. I know, this is super nitpicking. X) Thinking about it, there is also the constant speed for the stars outside the ship. But I like the current poetry of the scenery!)

19\. Ah, two types of resources on planet 3 instead of one; and it looks like this makes planet 2 moot! Checking the manual once more, I notice it says that planet 3 is better than 2, which is true, but it also says that 2 is better than 1, while they have totally different incomparable resources, I think. NO, the planets are random, discard my previous sentences! Nevertheless, this means that planets 1 and 2 are moot and that the best strategy is to always select planet 3. Except if the coloured visual indicates which type of resources is dominant, in which case, depending on the player’s current needs, it may be a good idea to take this into account. No, apparently, the type of resource is independent on the colour/terrain. Later: apparently, the advantage of planet 1 (and possibly 2) is that the probability of getting rock may be higher. Or, if you are lucky, you have more of the only resource that you need more of.

20\. Silly small detail: the sixth resource (that you get by breaking the small red spheres) reminds me of the atom item from *Earthworm Jim*. (And you also have some space scenery in this latter game, by the way!)

21\. Personal experience: leaves are almost useless (and I end up having a lot), while wood is the scarcest while useful (and this is in accordance with rolferm’s experience). (Star dust may also be somewhat useless? And meteorites come as a close second for the scarce-and-useful category.) If the game intends at getting the player realize deforestation, then, well played. ;) Although we are encouraged to take part in it… Mixed signals, there!

22\. Tried to upgrade the solar panels, as this is now inexpensive to me: there is even a maximum level for them, so this is straightforward. And actually, the battery still takes some noticeable time to charge!

(2/3)

(continued: 3/3)

23\. Finally getting a tree-only planet!! (For planet 3.) First time this happens (and more than welcome), and my run is already really advanced.

24\. Final levels for engine and wrench: 19 and 17. Although 18 for engine would have been sufficient.

25\. Reached the centre!! Wow, once again, poetic scenery. Hey, what happens if you go way further? I do not want to risk a crashing bug at this point of the game! XD Going to the core… Nothing happens?? Is this normal? Letting the game run, I do not want to miss something!!

**Takeaway:** an immersive and sweet 2D take at spatial exploration with resource gathering and management, which once again reminds me of both *Minecraft* and (legitimately?) *No Man’s Sky*. My main criticism would be the lack of challenge/tension: the game would feel really complete and more engaging with some danger/risk element to put the player to the test! (Do add one if you can. :)) My secondary criticism would be that I wish the theme had a real impact on gameplay; it could be a good idea to solve both aspects at the same time: for example, every ten seconds, the fact that the ‘center of the universe’ draws away could have some dire consequences on the environment (planets and/or ship). Also as a minor note, some resource balancing could help, and also making the solar panels more useful (in some way), but this is mainly parameter tweaking business. ;)

Thanks for the space journey. :) (But this was a long one, and I am already such a slow reviewer while this is the second game I test and I still have not had the time to take care of my own v1.1; I wish there was a lifespan filter so I can alternate and check more games. XD)

PS: are you allowed to tweak the parameters so that the current playable version gets reasonably shorter? This would seem fair to me (parameter tweaking does not feel like ‘adding features’), and help more testers reach the end.

PPS: I forgot to say that some resource icons may be a little bit hard to distinguish, at least when starting the game; I then got used to them, so, nothing serious.

@mossieur-patate Wow, thanks for the detailed review.

So, first of all -- once you reach the core, that is the end. Nothing more after that. You can, I guess, take a picture, if you want to fulfill the goal laid out in the game intro screen. :wink:

I definitely agree with a lot of your suggestions for the game. I'm not sure exactly how I would want to implement a danger element -- although, originally the wrench was going to be used for ship repairs.

One thought on the manual: I had intended to sort of say, on one of the first pages, something like "stop reading this, go play the game, come back when you have more questions," but I didn't end up doing that very effectively. A tutorial would for sure be much better.

On AZERTY: wow, glad that works! I have in the past made at least one game where it didn't work. I think my keys are all implemented with SDL's scancodes, so it's using physical key locations rather than the corresponding character, or whatever. But I completely forgot to think about that while developing it, so I'm glad it turned out well.

As for the theme: I did think about adding some visual effects, as you suggest. If I'm going to be honest, though, if I were to extend this game out or remake it, I would probably entirely remove the 10-seconds element. I sort of had this idea that I wanted to make a space game (inspired by NASA's DART mission), and I thought I could technically tie in the Ludum Dare theme with a little bit of writing. But I certainly was not trying to meaningfully incorporate the theme.

I do think the solar panels are bugged. Actually, looking at the code ... the battery timer is being pulled from the battery level, not the solar panel level. Whoops! I may make a fixed version at some point here.

Speaking of new versions -- yeah, I'm really not sure if a balance tweak would be allowed or not. I may make a balance tweaked version and just let the reviewers play whichever one they prefer. In particular, it would probably be like a 2 minute change, with the only caveat being it took me an hour of playtesting (after the compo had ended) to figure out I needed that change.

I believe in my playtest I won with wrench level 14 and engine level 19. The wrench is, I think, not powerful enough -- in a balance tweak I would certainly make it better.

But yeah, thanks a lot for playing! And, sorry the game is so long! :sweat_smile:

@honey-pony Thanks for your answer!

> I thought I could technically tie in the Ludum Dare theme with a little bit of writing. But I certainly was not trying to meaningfully incorporate the theme.

This is evil, speaking as someone that legitimately only really brainstorm once the theme is out and lost a massive amount of time because of it. ;))

I totally forgot to put up my final screen capture!

**WARNING: SPOILER (apparently, Markdown does not allow you to make something wrap-unwrap…)**


That was a nice and very serene experience. Sometimes you just like to zone out and enjoy an easily digestible game loop.
That being said, I too experienced the overflow glitch:


but other than that, yeah, not much to be said but that I really enjoyed my time in space. My favourite moments were those expeditions I was greeted with a planet full of trees. It actually felt really rewarding every time I came around one of those :D

I think the last spur to the endgame felt a bit too long and grindy, but that's really just nitpicking at best, and maybe my own fault because I picked the wrong upgrades at the wrong time? (I always preferred the tool).

I figure what's especially great about this game is that you could easily add on other game elements with ease, essentially providing an outer gameplay hull.

Very relaxing experience. Thank you!

@trexxak

Wow, thanks for the screenshot. This is super bizarre to me! Could you also let me know if you were playing on web or PC? I think, if it is a web-specific bug, that would make more sense to me (although I still have no idea how it could happen at the moment :sweat_smile:)

I definitely agree that the ending gets too grindy. So, just to pull back the curtain a little bit... the formula for the wrench is to roll two random numbers between 1 and (wrench_level + 1), and then take the lower number. This means that, the maximum drops per swing at level 20 is *technically* 21 drops... but that good of roll will be 1/441, so it isn't that great.

That is to say--there is no good upgrade path, with the current game balance. Even if you leave the wrench at like, level 14, (which I *think* is what I did), it still is a grind to actually upgrade the engine to level 18 or 19 (or 20).

I think that taking the minimum of two rolls could be fine game design, but the increase in drop count needs to increase more. It should probably be more like 60 or so, so that it is at least somewhat likely to get 20 or 30 (even if it's still 1/3600 to get 60 in one swing). Also, perhaps the minimum drops could be increased, or made less likely. (Maybe, max of two minimums of two rolls each? I should graph this stuff...)

Anyways, thanks a lot for playing! :smile:

oh yeah, I played the web version :smile:

@trexxak @rolferm

OMG... do you know what the bug is...

It's that the light year display is getting cut off on the left hand side of the screen. Yep, that's right... in the web version, it displays as 291503127 at the beginning of the game when it *should* display as 1291503127.

So, if you thought the game was long before, it turns out you only got 22.5% of the way through. (Of course, by the time you got to wherever you were in the game, it was probably (?) only a matter of minutes left to get to the end? If you had the engine at level 19 or 20 it definitely would have been over reasonably soon.)

Well, now the web version is set to a resolution that will always display the full HUD. What a silly bug to lose two very advanced playthroughs to, though! Especially because you both were so close to the end!

Always pays to double-check your whole UI fits on the screen on your web upload, I guess. :sweat_smile: And thanks for the screenshot, made it pretty straightforward to figure out the bug.

Nice peaceful game, played it through about 2 hours. If I knew the engine upgrades went up so high, I would have first capped the wrench and then begun to upgrade engines to save lots of time.

I liked the idea of shortening the time by upgrading the engines, it felt like Cookie Clicker combined with Starbound with exponential feedback loop and resource gathering. Two different resource gathering sequences done with same mechanics was a nice touch.

I expected to get some hostile life forms or such for some action and was first disappointed when there was no conflict at all... But as I gathered stuff and got into game loop, I got myself into a flow state with the relaxing music and it just felt right.

As many have said the end was too grindy, trees were so scarce, until I found a tree planet... I had abundance of all other resources in the end, but no wood and got into non-satisfying loop of going on planet, if not tree-planet, then going right back, waiting battery to be full and going again just to see it's still no tree planet.

Anyways, mostly it was a positive experience and a solid game. Good job!

I would have to travel to the center of the universe to find any feedback that hasn't already been given, and I'd like to rest after getting back from my first trek there.

Amazing work! I looked up to see an hour had passed. I like the confetti at the end :P

PS: The wrench is slightly awkward to use, would be nice if it harvested in a full 360

@lone-wolf

Thanks for playing! I totally agree on the wrench. I watched one person play through the game, and they initially thought the wrench operated in 360 degrees -- I had to clarify for them that it only harvested things in the direction of the mouse cursor. This confusion could be totally avoided just by making the wrench work for the entire circle.

You need like 20 engine upgrades to reach the ending, and most of the time is spent doing the exact same grinding loop. I think you far, far overshot the target distance. Exponential scaling in gaming is a terrible idea 100% of the time; upgrading the engine is completely useless until the very end. You are severely bottlenecked by asteroids , basketballs and wood, while the other resources are useless. But I'm sure you know all of that and just didn't have the time to playtest it properly. You have a solid, polished base for a cute semi-idle game that could be a wonder to play with better balance, more minigames and some kind of a threat mechanic. As long as you remove exponential scaling

gave up grinding for wood after a while. it was fun as long as there was a point in doing different upgrades and trying different strategies; but after a while it got _very_ repetetive.

Love the mood. Music is really nice and atmospheric, controls feels snappy, all feels pretty polished. I found the connection to the theme a little hard to grasp, but overall I really enjoyed this one.

Appreciate the in-game manual - always feels better than an external manual. I like the calming music and the overall atmosphere. The game's easy enough to be understood quickly and the gameplay loop is quite addictive. Would be a nice extra if moving in space would feel different to moving inside the ship (I'm thinking of simplified space physics). The design of the little robot swinging his big wrench around looks cute. Love that. I was using the tether as kind of a compass so that I always knew exactly where I was in the game world. The sound and the animation when picking up ressources are really pleasing. I think it's one of the reasons this is so addictive. I didn't feel like upgrading the solar panels was necessary because the battery was charging quickly from the beginning. I don't know why but somehow I expected the solar panels to get damaged while travelling. My wrench was ready to repair them. :D Are the planets randomized? Took some time until I found some trees (picked the third option most of the time, when available) and then I found a planet full of them. The idea of being able to collect ressources not only on the surface of planets but also in space gives the time you spend away from planet surfaces more meaning and is quite motivating. I played the web version and had a bug where I inadvertently clicked outside of the game window while collecting ressources on a planet and couldn't move the robot after that. I clicked inside the game window but WASD wasn't working anymore. However, I could still throw my wrench around. :D I would've liked to finish the game if that didn't happen. But I might come back and try again with the downloadable version. I still want to see what's in the center of the universe (I travelled to the center of the galaxy in the first version of No Man's Sky btw, so that seems to be the kind of goal that has a big motivational effect on me). ;) Overall this game is a lot of fun!

I made it to the center! A lot of grinding towards the end, especially wood was always rare. But I had fun nevertheless. Screenshot blurred because of spoilers. ;)

@senover-games

Thanks for the feedback!

Sorry that the keyboard input got messed up on the web version, I think a similar bug must be the reason that it stops working if I enable the fullscreen button.

Yeah, unfortunately the solar panels are glitched--the recharge speed is supposed to be determined by the solar panel level, but in the current build it's (incorrectly) determined by the battery level, so the solar panels do absolutely nothing. (I suppose I am probably allowed to fix this bug under the Ludum Dare rules but I have not bothered so far :sweat_smile: )

I did originally intend the wrench to be used for repairing things as well as upgrading them... the ship gameplay was intended to be: going around making sure everything is still running, as well as of course collecting the space resources.

The planets are randomized, although they have a relatively small number of random properties. Basically, planets have flags for whether they are allowed to spawn each kind of resource (which is how all-tree planets end up being possible). Then, they have a random color, and of course the resources are randomly scattered on the planets.

And hey, cool to see you made it to the end! Thanks for playing! :smile:

The gameplay loop is simple yet fun! I like the effect shown below the character to make it appear to be some sort of advanced technology. The different planets are interesting. This is a cool game! Great entry.

Day 72940: Beep Boop Bot is running low on wood. Visited planets have only a handful of trees, max. Progress has been slow, but consistent.

Day 81059: At last, the robo-gods have blessed Beep Boop Bot with the fated "Tree Planet". Trees galore. The quantity of wood collected will last Beep Boop Bot at least 1000 years. Beep Boop Bot is grateful.

Day 97129: Beep Boop Bot feels the end is near. He may not have accomplished his goal, but he had a good run. It is time for Beep Boop Bot to dream of electric sheep. Beep Boop Bot is ready to beep his last boop.

Really, I had a lot of fun with this game. Some issues that I had, though:

I found the wrench to be pretty inconsistent in picking things up. The hitboxes on the resources seemed very finicky, but it wasn't so much of a problem that I found it unplayable.

After about 30 minutes of playing, I was on a planet collecting resources when my movement just stopped working. I'm not sure if I got stuck on a wall or something, but I couldn't move around anymore. I could still swing, though. I found myself genuinely sad when this happened, since I had to end my run there.

I found my space walks to be pretty disorienting. With the stars moving one direction and the resources moving the other direction, I found it pretty difficult to be out there.

Despite my complaints, I think this is a super solid entry overall. I spent way more time playing it than I thought I would, and had a chill, enjoyable time with it. Really great job!

Although bugs (in both versions) have prevented me from being able to complete or dive deep into the game, I got a good feel for it.

Considering that it's a compo game, the presentation is exceptionally well done. An intro, a starting area with a tutorial, wonderful music and sounds. There is lots to like. The ship design is also not blocky; you put time into the design, which is appreciated!

The game, as far as I could play it, seemed like an interesting loop. I also enjoyed the movement of the character, the swing of the wrench and basically everything I interacted with. The game is well constructed, which is more than you can say for most Compo entries.

You should be proud of the entry. Shame that the rating system has hidden it and that pesky bugs are making it harder to experience in depth (but that doesn't knock your ratings).

How is this so fun!? I lost track of time playing lol, but I finally made it to the end. I had really bad luck with trees during my entire playthrough (I did find the tree planet once though, that was awesome), so after a certain point I just gave up and left the game running in the background for like ~20 minutes to finish it.

But this game was incredibly well made, and had a ton of cool ideas. Walking out of your ship to collect debris was fun, and even though the planets were all basically the same thing, it still felt like I was exploring whenever I visited a new one.

The music/sfx and graphics all worked great together. The swinging wrench animation gave me strong Terraria vibes, and that's always a plus in my book :P

I think you should work on this a bit more, because it has a lot of potential.

The only potentially major issue I had were glitches with collisions. One time when I returned to the ship while holding the S key, the robot clipped through the wall under the upgrade station and was stuck. Luckily, I was able to glitch back out through one of the corners. And again later on, as I was walking back into the ship after collecting debris, I touched the corner of a wall and was completely stuck. Luckily though, mashing the WASD keys for a while seemed to free me.

Both of those bugs would have killed the playthrough and wasted a lot of time/progress. Obviously, bugs are reasonable for a LD game, but I think adding a simple "reset position" button somewhere would prevent a catastrophic situation like that from ruining someone's day!

Btw, it seriously sucks that the algorithm seems to be hurting this game so badly. This is a really good one. Good luck with jam, and I hope you at least reach the minimum 20 votes!

@Ale

Thanks for playing! I had thought there might be collision bugs, but I wasn't able to find any game-breaking ones when I playtested. I guess it's good to know that there are.

I have considered taking this game farther, although I might want to rebuild it from the ground up in a real game engine (and with better graphics, etc...).

And, I have reached 20 votes by now. Actually I somehow have 25. Seems a bit weird, at least to me, but I guess at least I'll be ranked. :sweat_smile:

Really fun game. I wouldn't mind to see some balancing update with extra stuff to do. Even tho i was doing the same thing for 99% of the game, i still wanted to see how it will end when i reach the destination (sadly game broke at the end when i left the ship - it stopped to recognize my kb input so i didn't really see whats there). Things i would love to see in the future :

- more uses for half of the resources that become useless in the first few minutes of the game
- more upgrades for the battery and range at which you can puck up stuff
- some info about resurces on the plants - there were trees on a moon-like planet which felt kinda weird
- point of reference when you're in the space - currently its hard to tell if you're moving or not when you're away from the ship
- upgrade tips on the upgrade bench not the other terminal
- less walking on the ship - put stuff closer together
- maybe some danger in space like fast flying debries

Overall good job. Even tho i was doing the same task over and over again, the progression caused by the engine upgrade made me keep playing it to the end.

Hmm I didn't know this was a thing. I thought that liking other people's comments was boosting that post/their game. On that note, I tried your game just now and could not get the little dude to move... using Chrome and web browser. As for your page, artwork and screenshots would be incredibly helpful because it shows people what the game play is like. LD51 was our first jam but not our last, and I see now how important it is to have lots of info and screenshots on the game page! I hope you can get more ratings, good luck!

@artofluba Specifically, the mechanic I was talking about in my post was this: If user A leaves a comment on user B's game, and then user C hearts the comment, then user A will be rewarded (which is good IMO), but user B will be penalized (which is a bad mechanic IMO).

Also, if user B hearts the comment, user A will be rewarded without the penalty for user B. (So game authors should heart helpful comments on their own game).

But I did end up getting (way more than) 20 ratings. I added a note to my post to hopefully make that clearer. :smile:

I think I have been very lucky and found a lot of hidden gems this Jam, but this entry is just insane. The amount of content is just out of this world (both literally and figuratively). In my 21 Ludum Dares I can count the number of compo entries on one hand that has had this much content and polish. The fact that you have nice sounds & Graphics just... Yeah I am at a loss of words.

The gameplay it self is really cool as well, I did not have the patience to reach the goal, but it was cool to see the variety of planets. It was also really cool that you could exit at the right, but move around the ship. I ended up surfing behind the ship and harvesting materials that way :smile:

I honestly think that this would make a killer mobile game if you expanded it.

If this is not 5/5, then I do not know what is. Regardless of the results this game is a winner!

I was finally able to borrow a Windows machine (on Linux, I couldn't get the keyboard to work in Firefox). At first it was soothing, exploring different planets and collecting resources. I played for 20-30 minutes and was able to get several upgrades. The mystery resource (it looks like a round rock) I was unable to find, alas.

The music adds to the ambiance, but a bit more variety would help. The planet graphics, though very simple, somehow added to the mood as well. I felt like I was playing a game from the 1980's: it was nostalgic. You are right, it did become tedious after a while, and it would help if you shortened the length of time needed to beat the game. Even so, this is an unusual game and it was fun exploring the world you created. A solid entry. Nice work, compadre.