LudumData

Darkstar Sailor by darzu

[raw]
made by darzu for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

Screen Shot 2022-10-02 at 2.49.48 PM.png Screen Shot 2022-10-03 at 3.37.37 PM.png

Play in Chrome PC/Mac

  • https://sprig.land/ld51
  • https://sprig.land/ld51-betterperf (same gameplay; much better performance; went beyond Jam hrs)

NOTE: Only works on Chrome >106 on PC & Mac! (Uses WebGPU, which is in preview and isn't released for Firefox or Safari, or Chrome Linux.)

Description

Your ship is under attack! They will broadside you every 10 seconds. Perhaps you can use their own weapons against them?

MORE CANNON BALLS COME FROM ENEMIES ONCE THEY BREACH YOUR WALLS! (Sorry about the lull after your first three, this was definitely a gameplay design mistake. The idea is enemy cannon balls get stuck inside ur ship and you can fire them back.)

Dev Backstory

This game was built using my own engine, Sprigland, which is free, open-source (but not in a great place for others to use yet.) Me and a friend wrote the engine from scratch including a renderer, physics engine, ECS, and netcode for peer-to-peer coop.

Right now, we're building a roguelite coop sailing game set in hyperspace. You can follow our progress here: https://twitter.com/sprigland

Note this was originally a Compo submission, this was resubmitted to Jam b/c I spent another half-day on performance updates. If you are still getting significant performance issues and you want to be a real hero please mention ur CPU, graphics card, and RAM amount. :)

All Sprigland LD games: - https://sprig.land/ld50 - https://sprig.land/ld51

Source Code https://github.com/darzu/ld51
Submission https://sprig.land/ld51
(same gameplay; much better performance; went beyond Jam hrs) https://sprig.land/ld51-betterperf
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/darkstar-sailor

Ratings

Overall 983th 3.095⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1015th 2.857⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 787th 3.095⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1112th 2.81⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 618th 3.595⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 712th 2.738⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 821th 2.382⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 948th 3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 36🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

DrunkardWolf
03. Oct 2022 · 12:38 UTC
Performance felt a bit rough on my PC, but otherwise a solid entry. Really like the shader you've used too :)
Dfyzet
03. Oct 2022 · 12:44 UTC
The game looks great! The idea is also very, very good!
To enjoy the game really interferes with performance a little - I had sometimes serious difficulties.
Oliver Richmeier
20. Oct 2022 · 04:22 UTC
Really cool idea! Performance wasn't bad on either version for me. This would have also worked really well for Delay the Inevitable lol
LePoulet
20. Oct 2022 · 05:36 UTC
The game runs perfectly on my pc. I've spend some time without cannon balls and it was a bit frustrating. Anyway good job for this game.
epb9000
20. Oct 2022 · 06:14 UTC
WebGPU doesn't appear to be available for Chrome 106 (or 107) for Linux. :( Oof

[Edit, for Linux users: launch with `--enable-unsafe-webgpu --enable-features=Vulkan,UseSkiaRenderer` and you can play]

The hull is pretty durable, I managed to get 60 kills.
AJ Studio
20. Oct 2022 · 06:24 UTC
It’s pretty nice you made it available in browser. Overall a cool game.

Thanks for supporting community and other game players!

You got my 5 stars ⭐️😉
Doraemon
20. Oct 2022 · 07:29 UTC
Great game!
Daniel - Wither
20. Oct 2022 · 07:46 UTC
Interesting concept and good graphics
Vetche Studio
20. Oct 2022 · 11:04 UTC
Amazing that you used your own engine! That's impressive, I thought I was playing something made in unity! :D For some reason there only spawned 3 cannon balls and nothing more, but I liked the concept! Well done!
LDJam user 281060
20. Oct 2022 · 15:40 UTC
@vetche-studio, thanks!!
Oh you eventually get more cannon balls from the enemies, once they breach your walls their balls will get stuck inside and you can pick them up. But yeah, it's not obvious and a game design mistake.
Btw, I LOVED your game, my favorite game of LD51!
Druvsaft
20. Oct 2022 · 21:16 UTC
Pretty cool to have created your own engine with HTML5 support! Overall the game worked well, had a bug with the audio that started crackling after a while and then disappeared. The cannonballs should probably have started to arrive sooner after the first three like you said.
Cole and Jordan Studios
20. Oct 2022 · 22:49 UTC
It was pretty fun once the cannon balls came back! I got 134 kills
Hawkin
21. Oct 2022 · 01:15 UTC
Your _own engine??_ Wow, super impressive!

Some notes on my experience: visually, very intriguing! The music errored out after a little while, and stopped altogether. As far as game design, since it was more of a tech demo, I would have given the player much more cannonballs (and even cannons) to just go wild. As it was, I used the first 3, then balls spawned, what, every 10 seconds (ah I guess I get it). A lot of waiting around watching my hull get pummeled, but overall not very much skill required!

Also, requiring people to download a beta browser isn't the best tactic to get ratings :(
macaroni.dev
21. Oct 2022 · 02:07 UTC
I liked the core idea of loading cannons. Even with the minimal graphics, I felt like I was on a ship.

Also super cool that you made your own engine! It definitely felt very good on my Dell G5 5587 (from 2019). Good luck!
OadT
21. Oct 2022 · 18:45 UTC
Very cool graphics style! Especially the damage animations are sick! Also relaxing sound and the controls felt pretty smooth (though the position of the player was a bit unusual, but I somehow still managed to hit the enemies :smile:) I would have just wished some additional mechanic would have been introduced after a while because of course the gameplay gets a bit repetitive after a while (But yeah, we all know there wasn't much time) Great entry!
Caveman54
31. Oct 2022 · 00:42 UTC
I ran a short youtube shorts series where I rated Ludum Dare games and this happened to be one of them! Here's the link in case you wanna see the feedback. https://youtube.com/shorts/BPMKIAx2xuU?feature=share