Red Planet Rendezvous by csimpson

Overview
Land a rover on Mars! Try to place the rover as close to the target as possible, but watch your fuel level and don't land too hard. The scientists hate it when their equipment breaks.
How to play
Controls
- Up/down arrow keys: increase/decrease thrust
- Left/right arrow keys: rotate the sky crane left/right
- Space bar: progresses through states (retracted, lowered, detached)
Suggested Strategy
- Descend and maneuver toward the target (follow the green arrow)
- Lower the rover (press space)
- Set the rover on the target and detach (press space again)
- Maneuver and land the sky crane anywhere on the ground
Tools used:
- Game Engine: Godot 4.0.1
- Art: Inkscape
- Sound Effects: Bfxr
- Music: BeepBox
- Coffee: Costco
This is my first game jam, and my first released game. I had a great time making this and I am looking forward to receiving feedback!
| HTML5 (web) | https://csimpson88.itch.io/red-planet-rendezvous |
| Source Code | https://github.com/csimpson88/red-planet-rendezvous |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/red-planet-rendezvous |
Ratings
| Overall | 715th | 3.462⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 612th | 3.404⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 553th | 3.385⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 420th | 4.077⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 830th | 3.269⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 536th | 3.271⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 897th | 2.543⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 848th | 3.24⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 36🗨️ |
All assets were nice, but the music and SFX really shined. If there were more levels I would play them all just to hear the main theme song.
The controls took a bit to adjust to, but weren't bad at all, and after a few runs I can safely say I am a master at piloting the rover!
Great entry and even more so for a first jam! I too had this as my first jam. Whatever the result, we both can only go up from here!

Congratulation for your first jam !
thanks

@calcopod it makes me very happy to hear that you like the audio! I have never written music or sound effects before, so that was as much of a learning experience for me as the rest of the game. I was surprised to read that this was also your first jam. Your game is one of my favorites that I have played.
@seurimas I'm glad you like it!
@jm-studio Oops, it is not supposed to be possible to land with the rover retracted like that. The win condition requires both the rover and the sky crane to be in contact with the ground. Looks like I have some adjustments to make!
@sodoj It's definitely more challenging than I meant it to be, but maybe that's a good thing. I made some adjustments throughout the development process to make it less frustrating for me to debug again and again, so I guess that translates into a less frustrating experience for the player too.
@peterfiftyfour lunar lander was my inspiration! I initially had the same art style, but couldn't make it look good, so I finally went with the only type of illustration I have any experience with. Glad you enjoyed it!
@adam-gallina I definitely underestimated the difficulty. Glad it's fun to try again though!
@pincushion Happy to hear! (You're not supposed to be able to land that way btw!)
@ismael-rodriguez I'm glad you like it! I think I bankrupted NASA with all of my crashes!
I think you can improve the controls by making the same slightly slower and have some momentum in your controls instead of instantly rotating at max speed.
I could see the engine gas feeling better / easier to use on a joystick vs the keyboard. Also it would be nice if the sky crane started with the gas on right way at least 1/4 or 1/2 of the full power.
Congratulations, good game!