LudumData

Time Surge 3: A Giant Leap Too Far by HitchH1k3r

[raw]
made by HitchH1k3r for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

Responding to a mysterious distress signal you arrive at a derelict spaceship. Will you be brave enough to board it, clever enough to uncover it's mysteries, and fast enough to find your way back?

It's one small step for a game, one Time Surge 3: A Giant Leap Too Far for us all. Climb aboard and find yourself...

Reading Ship's Logs Terminal.PNG

Going For A Space Walks SpaceWalk.PNG

Playing With Mirrors Mirrors.PNG

Running For Your Life Run.PNG

...but you better hope your equipment doesn't malfunction or every 10 seconds you might lose yourself.

Controls

  • Move - Arrows / WASD / ZQSD
  • Primary Action (High Energy Remote Agitator) - *X / N / Enter *
  • Secondary Action (Emergency Recall Button) - C / M / Space

Tips and Tricks

  • In the event your equipment is vandalized, and now seems to operate fully automatically, it is worth learning what holding down the button once assigned to it does.
  • The final challenge involved 8 terminals, if you get stuck, try re-reading them all (pay close attention to the last line of each).

Known Bugs

  • None so far (Oct. 3, 2022)

Version History

Oct. 3, 2022 :: v1.0 - Jam release

Karma Questions

Answer questions in the comments to get hearts (this is a temporary measure, to get better quality comments, while the site improves)!

We have 2 hearts to promise

  • Question 1 (½ :heart:) Did you get stuck, where (why if you can), did you persevere or quit?
  • Question 2 (½ :heart:) What "area" of the game was your favorite, lest favorite, and how many did you see?
  • Question 3 (0 :heart:) If a future ludum dare theme is "10 seconds" or "loop" related (maybe even "outer space"), should we make another installment of Time Surge?
  • Question 4 (1½ :heart:) We had a few more ideas cut for time, but out of curiosity what are some ideas for more non-lethal obsticles to slow down the player.
Itch.io (HTML5) https://hitchh1k3r.itch.io/time-surge-3
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/time-surge-3-a-giant-leap-too-far

Ratings

Overall 459th 3.632⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 544th 3.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 366th 3.579⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 928th 3.263⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 707th 3.447⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 445th 3.083⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 452th 3.583⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 13🗳️ 8🗨️

Feedback

Sean Esopenko
04. Oct 2022 · 00:25 UTC
The mood and music is good, and the recall mechanic is interesting. It took some time to figure out what activates what, and it wasn't apparent immediately that I didn't start with the equipment. Once I got the equipment things started to become clear. It was nice to be introduced to the equipment slowly, so that I could figure out recalling before the zapper.
MrBamboo
04. Oct 2022 · 01:07 UTC
I had great fun to play it. I was stuck in the circle room with 4 "C" in each corners
pianoman373
04. Oct 2022 · 02:54 UTC
Wow this was way longer than I expected any jam game to be! Some of the puzzles were really well thought out and stumped me for a good while. Excelent job!
Rose
04. Oct 2022 · 03:09 UTC
Very impressive amount of content for 72 hours! I enjoyed all the puzzles and the progression of the storyline. It was great how you introduced the warp mechanic first and then the 10s mechanic tied into that. It took me a while to figure out that I could shoot diagonally. I managed to escape eventually though!
Numb
06. Oct 2022 · 17:55 UTC
This is one of the most content filled games in here, really liked it, good job
Magnus Lindh
06. Oct 2022 · 17:57 UTC
I didn't understand this game so I wont rate it.
Stratcat66
06. Oct 2022 · 18:35 UTC
A very interesting puzzle game. The ship really is a maze and I think that the idea could be expanded to a larger title. The story and the messages where humerous.
At first I was also thinking that the 10 second part was missing, but after the arrest it was there. I think that if I would expand the game, I would probably scratch the "every 10 second teleport" and stay with the button teleport (since I think that it was a bit annoying and not tied to a deep puzzle mechanic).

And last but not least: I was enjoying the music. Thank you for your great work!

EDIT:
I forgot to answer your questions...

1) I didn't really got stuck, I just had to look around a bit, since the ship has a maze like structure. The puzzles were also not too hard

2) I think my favorite part was when you first got the gun and learned the teleport mechanic. My least favourite part where the corridors, where you just had to go to the crew chambers, because otherwise you would not have enough time

3) To be honest, I don't think that the loop mechanic was the best part of the game. I think sticking to the teleport based puzzles is enough.

4) Conveyer belts, time based doors (which automatically open and close), carrying a heavy object
alexz
10. Oct 2022 · 21:23 UTC
I really enjoyed playing this game, I love the shooting / teleportation mechanics. The sound ambiance is great in the background. A little downside on the 10s theme: the forced teleportation every 10s is more frustrating than interesting for the gameplay.
oozer
10. Oct 2022 · 21:33 UTC
some of the puzzles were a bit too difficult for me to crack but loved the cute sprite art and animations
hadri
10. Oct 2022 · 22:17 UTC
Very nice game, the concept is really interesting and I needed a little bit of time before unlocking the puzzles. However I got stuck at the picture you call "Playing with mirrors", I could not unlock every door.
Much liked the space bit, quite easy but it's much fun after scratching my head to understand the rest haha

A very small problem for me is that sometimes I would unlock things without understanding why, so probably I've missed a few things ..

Music is also very cool, still listening to it as I'm writing this :)
Doraemon
11. Oct 2022 · 04:07 UTC
Great game, great mood, and great music:)
antbrl
17. Oct 2022 · 21:19 UTC
Love the universe you went with! It fits the gameplay very well, especially being able to spacewalk between platforms. For me the main difficulty was to understand how the mechanics worked: how to open doors, and realize that I could shoot in 8 and not 4 directions (especially when the character only has 4 animated directions). Music is kinda goofy but it fits the general aesthetic. Well done!
LDJam user 298496
19. Oct 2022 · 08:18 UTC
There's a really interesting core mechanic here and the experiments form a really nice tutorial. I was temporarily stuck when attempting to open the warp core (I kept running to read the EULA etc. but ran out of time a couple times, this made me think that it was an easter egg/joke so I walked around to try other things).

The final puzzle was also far more simple than I expected, which slowed me down a little as I suspected I was missing something more complex. The nature of the game also makes you rush read everything, which can make you overlook details in the story. It would also be great if there as an audio cue when a terminal locked/unlocked something, as this isn't always clear.

I also expected the mirrors to play a larger role, but it seems they're only vital in the tutorial sections.

In all, great work!
Lukski Lukilj
19. Oct 2022 · 09:37 UTC
Very impressive for a 72 hour game with the amount of content it has and also how polished it feels.
I did get stuck a bit during the tutorial, because I didn't think of trying to shoot diagonally and then later I got more stuck in the warp core room, but I did manage to solve it eventually.
To me the 10 second mechanic felt like a frustrating addition, really liked the puzzles and teleport mechanic though.
Yoni
19. Oct 2022 · 19:16 UTC
Fantastic game! "Among Us" meets "Portal" :)
Innovative gameplay!
Had a blast playing it, one of my favorites of this Ludum Dare!