Adrift by Coda Highland
A rough trip through the asteroid belt has knocked out your main thruster and your navigational computer!
Your tiny space ship has limited space to store supplies, so you'll have to put on your space suit and go out to collect resources from the asteroids in order to build replacement parts. Watch your oxygen levels! Take your suit off when you don't need it! Keep your shield charged to protect the ship.
When you've built a new thruster and a new navigational computer, you can fly back to base for proper repairs!
Controls
- Move: WASD / Arrow Keys
- Interact: Z / Space
- Close Window: Escape
How to Play
- Oxygen depletes as long as you're wearing your suit.
- Use the switch on the top level to exit the ship.
- Capture asteroids and carry them back to the hatch to collect resources.
- Space is limited: Click items in your inventory to jettison them.
- Asteroids that hit your ship will deal damage!
- Use the stations to refine resources and build components.
- Most crafting requires hydrogen fuel.
- Combine four Thruster Parts to replace the Thruster.
- Combine four Circuit Boards to replace the NavComp.
- Build a Thruster and a NavComp to win!
Postjam Update
The version of the game that I published during the submission hour turns out to have a gamebreaking bug that prevents the victory message from being displayed. Not that it matters -- it was also impossibly hard because I didn't do a good job of tuning the game balance.
The postjam version posted below makes the following changes:
- Fixed victory message
- Rebalanced the frequency of different rock types
- Fixed hitboxes on rocks
- Balanced Hydrogen and Oxygen rates by increasing the Water yield from the Melt operation
- Made crafting recipes remain visible at all times
Software copyright (c) 2023 Adam Higerd
Graphics copyright (c) 2023 Ginny Higerd
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
| Link | https://bitbucket.org/ahigerd/ld54 |
| Postjam - HTML5 (web) | https://xmpps.greenmaw.com/~coda/ld54-postjam/ |
| Postjam - HTML5 (web, alternate link) | http://greenmaw.com/webgames/ld54-postjam/ |
| Link | https://xmpps.greenmaw.com/~coda/ld54/ |
| HTML5 (web, alternate link) | http://greenmaw.com/webgames/ld54/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/adrift |
Ratings
| Given | 6🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
@pen-island-games Interesting perspective, thanks. I was actually aiming for it being more of an exploration thing -- since the instructions say what you're trying to aim for, I figured people would want to try to figure out how to get there.
@jozgames Yeah, that's not a bad idea.
This game has a real information overload problem. When I start the game staring down four different stations each with their own confusing-looking UI, my brain kind of shuts down. I think the solution in these cases is to give the player one station at a time and force them to make use of it to unlock the next one. That way they figure out what that station can do for them before a new one enters the mix. It's a combinatorics problem. Maybe I can figure out these four stations on their own, but anything I do in one station is completely meaningless unless I know how to use the created resource in the other stations. "I turned rock into Silicon. Cool, but how does that help me? Heck, maybe doing that screwed me over completely because I needed that rock for something else." That's my sort of thought process.
It's problematic that you can't see crafting recipes you don't have the resources for. How am I supposed to know what to collect in order to craft what I need? Once my inventory is full, I need to jettison something. How do I know what to jettison unless I know how much of it I'm going to need? I had to look at your source code to figure out how whether I really needed all of that Silicon. (I didn't.)
I can never seem to get enough ice to offset the loss of oxygen from obtaining it. I need to collect an ice ball every five seconds or else I'll end the excursion with a net oxygen loss. I found that to be impossible even without collecting the other asteroid types. The collision with the asteroids was also really buggy. Sometimes I was able to hold two at once but most of the time the second asteroid would bounce off me or teleport around. I was never able to beat the game because I always ran out of oxygen before I crafted my third thruster part.
There's definitely some cool mechanics in this game, but there's a lot to be desired in the polish and balance departments.
You're not supposed to be able to hold two rocks. Trying is supposed to just bounce the other one off.
Too much information at once
I stuck in wall lol
@scott-cooper Thanks! I don't know if there's quite enough to this one to keep going with it long-term; there are other games in my back catalogue that I'd rather return to -- Nullified is the one I'm most interested in building out.
@zungryware Thanks for taking another look! You're probably right about shortening the overall game duration like that given what I have here.
I will play more!
Now, while you've seemingly gotten better balance (judging by comments; I didn't play the original initial, only the updated) you still have something I call UX issues - and those are the worst to fight (I had a lot in my game, even when trying to avoid at all cost). They are unpleasant to deal with especially when prioritizing time to more meaningful tasks. What do I mean: what players need to do in the game is not self-evident; or worse - they may not have a clear way to learn it (or it could require additional effort). Examples: many people don't read instructions. If I didn't read them, I would never be able to leave the ship in the first place. What about a small pulsing indicator on objects you can interact with? [Z] itself (on player over) may not be enough. Same thing for stuff outside the ship - ok, maybe after bringing a few asteroids *and* interacting with the ship systems I *will* know what the blue asteroid is, what the grey asteroid is (etc.) but I don't know from the beginning. I don't have a way to check either. That's basically should apply for any object the player may be interested in. : )) From this point of view, some players will persevere and enjoy, some will not even bother.
I myself like the gameplay loop. I will play more! Maybe I also learn something more about how our world works in the process ^^ And - big congrats on the effort! This is not a small feat!!!