LudumData

Xenith by Richard Vollebregt

[raw]
made by Richard Vollebregt for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

Unfortunately we couldn't get the WebGL embed to work here on the site. Check it out on on Itch.io (see HTML5 web link below!)

Xenith

You are the captain of a starship called the "Nebula Chaser," which has been tasked with a critical mission by the Galactic Federation.

The galaxy is facing a severe shortage of a rare and valuable resource called "Xenithium," which is crucial for powering advanced technologies and maintaining the infrastructure of space habitats and colonies.

As the Nebula Chaser's captain, it is your job to scour the galaxy for deposits of Xenithium and harvest it. Bring all the resources back to Xenith, your base.

Assets used: - Synty Sci-fi pack - Sci-fi GUI Pro pack - Highlight Plus - Incompetech - Neon Laser Horizon (https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html)

Unfortunately we couldn't get the WebGL embed to work here on the site. Check it out on on Itch.io (see HTML5 web link below!)

Link https://richardvlbt.itch.io/xenith
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/xenith

Ratings

Overall 518th 3.326⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Fun 379th 3.413⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 708th 2.696⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 711th 3.043⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 390th 3.478⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 24🗨️

Feedback

dob
10. Jan 2023 · 18:36 UTC
Fun game with slick movement, music, and graphics. I found it hard to fail, and there wasn't anything different to do as the game progressed (except for the weirdly more expensive ship repairs). Fun, nice looking, very polished. Nice work.
Bearacus
10. Jan 2023 · 18:36 UTC
Love the visuals and the soundtrack. Dodging enemy bullets is rough. The harvesting context becomes more of a byproduct of what is, at heart, a 2d space shooter. I experienced no issues during gameplay, it was start game -> get into the action and that's feels snappy and gives off a plug and play vibe which I love. Good work.
Thierry
10. Jan 2023 · 18:37 UTC
The gameplay is solid and fun. Overall, the game feels very polished, and I especially like the visual effects.
🎤 Richard Vollebregt
10. Jan 2023 · 18:49 UTC
@dob Thanks! We hoped to implement upgrades as well, but didn't have the time left. The expensive ship repairs where to make it a bit harder at later stages. Lots of ideas, too little time..

@bearacus Thanks for the review! Yeah, we didn't want to go with the farming theme most games have, but in the end it is kind of hard to think of something else I guess.

@thierry Thanks for the review!
ThunderChief
10. Jan 2023 · 18:50 UTC
Very Polished Game for a Jam. Outstanding graphics, Cool Gameplay, solid audio, no game breaking bugs. Very Good entry overall
Rhanzoc
10. Jan 2023 · 19:00 UTC
I got to 10.5k xenithium and had a blast! I liked the overall feel, gameplay and music was very catchy.
Few things bothered me though:
- Enemy encounters seemed too hard for me. They always came somewhere outside of the screen and managed to catch me off guard
- Player shooting range is almost infinite, so sometimes when low on health I just retreated a bit and shot all ships just by directing guns in that general direction
- When I started to go a bit further from the central mothership I lost my orientation on way back. Small direction indicator would be a great help
- I discovered that you can destroy the floating asteroids only at the very end of my playthrough. Maybe it'd be good to give a hint to a player that it is possible
🎤 Richard Vollebregt
10. Jan 2023 · 19:10 UTC
@rhanzoc
Thanks for the great feedback!
For the enemy encounters, did you also use the warp functionality? I agree that we could do some more work on that, as this was a really basic in range script to attack. We also built patrol routes for the enemies, but didn't have time to implement them in the level. Now it was basically randomly spawned enemies, while we wanted to manually place some encounters etc.
We also wanted to build a mini map, as we had the same issue when venturing a bit further.
greenphox
10. Jan 2023 · 20:51 UTC
Really nice game! The graphics were very good and the movements were smooth.
It was too hard tho, and too punishing. Also it was hard to hit the enemies while avoiding their bullets, as in order to aim them, I had to point them with the cursor, and that way I was unable to avoid their shots. Probably it is a feature but annoyed me very much in my first games.
EX3D0
11. Jan 2023 · 03:52 UTC
Fun game overall, found the enemy encounters a bit difficult as they would just shoot from off screen and a lot of the time I'd be out of warp charges but it was a very polished experience.
n.feofentov
13. Jan 2023 · 21:15 UTC
Nice movement controller, but avoiding and trying to shoot down enemies is a bit hard. Overall nice job.
beardywombat
14. Jan 2023 · 06:04 UTC
Nice little game, It took me a little while to get the movement, but I liked how responsive turning was. One improvement would be to allow the camera to look ahead of your ship so you can see the enemies before they start shooting you.
AbsoluteTundra
14. Jan 2023 · 10:35 UTC
@beardywombat Thanks for playing!
We will right it down as something to improve on in the future :)
It would make the game a bit more fair if the camera would look ahead.
Dorzhieva Yana
14. Jan 2023 · 10:58 UTC
it was very satisfying to control ship. also graphic is very good. Nice game!
thomasward
15. Jan 2023 · 15:00 UTC
The game wasn't as hard as some others mentioned above, actually it was pretty easy, if you mastered the warp drive. I played for about 10 minutes and got bored. I really liked the music which had this unique spacesyth vibe (and I really like spacesynth, although it is a dead music genre nowadays). Also, I really enjoyed controlling the ship.
dry-squid
16. Jan 2023 · 01:35 UTC
The curation of art and music was well done. The style was super cohesive and loved the 2d space shooter Arcady vibe. Really cool game, loved how you tied sci-fi into harvesting. It would be cool if the enemies were a little worse at their jobs. ALso, wish the player had greater health. Otherwise, good work!
Fluburbio
17. Jan 2023 · 22:13 UTC
Cool game! The controls are nice, though I had a bit of trouble controlling the ship when the mouse is near it. The UI and graphics are very well assorted, it has a nice polish!
francoisvn
23. Jan 2023 · 22:04 UTC
Nice core! I would have appreciated a better indicator of ship health. Also wanted some variety after a while
Schmalex
23. Jan 2023 · 22:05 UTC
For some reason this gave me Chicken Invaders vibes haha. Quite enjoyable and it was satisfying to transfer resources to the mothership. I only wish the enamies would be cued somehow. I did find that sometimes, depending on my position on the screen, i'd take a couple of hits before realising someone was coming from that direction. Nevertheless, well done!