COSMOSTRIDE by Catusfelony

In the endless expanse of space, there is only so much you can do to fend off the endless waves of killer units, how much of an impact can you make with your limited resources?
It's time to give those who remain hope that the enemy can be overcome.
There have been some known issues surrounding embedding HTML5 games made in Godot to the Ludum Dare website, for this reason I'm making the game available to play on itch.io or my website instead. Sorry for the inconvenience!
| Itch.io | https://kett.itch.io/cosmostride |
| Play on my Website | https://racc.at/games/cosmostride |
| Link | https://github.com/KettLovahr/COSMOSTRIDE |
| Post-Jam Leaderboard Version | https://racc.at/games/cosmostride-post-jam |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/cosmostride |
Ratings
| Overall | 579th | 3.558⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 408th | 3.63⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 860th | 2.981⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1058th | 2.731⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 642th | 3.481⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 555th | 3.13⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 861th | 2.184⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 829th | 3.188⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 32🗨️ |
Enjoyed the upgrade system!
@thomas-volpato I just think it looks cool :) It's a good indicator of the bullets' trajectory, and hammers home the StarFox inspiration
@diego-teran Thank you, I even had some pitch shifting in place to try and avoid making the shooting sounds too annoying but I guess that only goes so far, I should've just made or taken better sound effects.
@thenerdster I'm glad you liked it despite not playing many games like it!

@fupi Valeu! I only stuck with what I'm doing once I was sure I could make the basic controls fun! I am bad at games so I had a real hard time trying to set a difficulty, as far as I know, nobody made it past level 9, I'm going to add online leaderboards soon, just so I can be sure ;)
Nice little game, clearly too hard for me to grasp ahah
I'm a little bit disappointed that we cannot do a barrel roll though :laughing:
Did you use Bfxr or rfxgen for le sound effects ?
I found it difficult to gauge when exactly a projectile was close enough to hit me. Some of the enemies spawn up close and shoot just as they come on screen and if you happen to be in that corner there's not much chance to dodge it. I would like to see some stronger enemies who can fire at your trajectory rather than your position. Hopefully that would counter the dominant strategy of moving in a circle.
For the upgrades, I think it would be cool if instead of being offered upgrades from level 1 to level 3, if they were always level 1 and you powered them up by choosing multiple of the same upgrade over the course of the game. As it is now, I got a level 3 speed upgrade after the first level and level 3 shooting speed after the second. It didn't really make much sense to select other upgrades after that, especially since moving fast seems to be an unbeatable strategy (as long as you remember to keep moving when you hit the corner).
I think you could have enhanced the feeling of movement through space by adding a particle system sending little white dots towards the camera. Would hopefully look like you are zipping through the stars.
Cool Star-Foxy game, good job!
@freamdev Hehe, it takes a while for them to despawn after leaving the screen, better to not let them!
@furano I think the lack of shading on the bullets makes it pretty hard to tell how close they are! I actually intended to have a barrel roll module, there are sprites and references to it in the source code I linked, but I didn't know the best way to implement it, and I was running out of time!
I made the sound effects and the music all in [SunVox](https://warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/)! Manually placed notes and added pitch shift effects and all. Maybe more work than necessary considering the end result, but hey, I had it open.
The flat coloring of the bullets in 3D space definitely makes it more difficult to gauge distance, yes, as does it sometimes bledning in with the color of enemies, but yes, I'd definitely add more enemies and smarter enemies if only I had enough time.
I left the upgrades that way since they *can* stack so you could potentially make use of a Level 1 Fire Rate module even if you have a Level 2 one already.
That would definitely be a nice effect, though I would imagine stars would be bigger, and farther away x3
Thanks for the feedback!
I didn't see the point in having the maneuverability upgrade because I could easily dodge everything by going in a circle around the screen at all times so I opted for other upgrades, the upgrades add to the game nicely though
Well done! Take a candy! :candy:
A fun experience overall, I imagine it took some time to tune those controls to feel as smooth as they are now! I believe there are many things that can be improved, like upgrades, which was mentioned a lot by some previous comments. Maybe also more patterns/types of enemies... But the game how it is right now is a great foundation for all of that, so good job!
The graphics look good and the spaceships move very smoothly.The music was good but the shooting sound got a bit repetitive after a little while, maybe using lower volume for the shooting sound could help. I didn't understand why there were 2 aims, maybe I missed something but I felt that was distracting and because of that many times I thought I was going to hit the target but it didn't. Good job!
Now, for the feedback part: it was too easy, maybe a bit repetitive on the enemy side (I would never die or almost never get hit). This is a balancing problem - the game will retain attention for much longer if it has a bigger challenge (maybe?). Or maybe I wasn't patient enough for the game to progress (people are hasty today!)
My latter point would be super valid *only IF* you also bring additional stuff that happens with each level. E.g. a minor new element like a type of enemy, or type of *need-to-do-this-now-to-survive*. This will trigger a brain feedback loop which tells players *there is more to come*, hence greater interest. : ))
Final but you can totally ignore it - I would love shinier background (it IS perfectly fine, retro-style) but I am a bit of a lover for nebula and shiny space stuff :D (as my avatar shows.. I designed that).
Very solid entry, good luck and we want moooo' :D :smile:
Thank you! I'm not sure if I'm going to do much more post-jam work on this other than the Leaderboard mode I've already uploaded, but it's nice to know it's a good and fun base for a better game. :)
@tucan A theme about space kinda got me thinking about space! :sweat_smile:
Yeah I think I got the volume mixing all wrong, and should've given players an option to adjust it to their liking.
@aweskybear That's very flattering! I didn't think this game would make such a strong impression, hehe! x3
Yeah, for someone like me, with a very narrow attention span, it's kinda weird I've gone for such a repetitive loop with long levels!! Part of it is that I didn't really prioritize more enemy types because I certainly wouldn't have enough time for that, so I ended up going with just the two.
That is in fact what I tried to do with level 3 which only features the Armored type enemy, letting the player know there is more and things will get mixed up and more difficult, but it is very weak since that is the only other enemy type in the game and once you're past that, every level is the same but artificially more difficult with increased enemy damage, level length, and spawn rates.
Thank you for the feedback, and the praise! x3
In my opinion, levels for modules are redundant, as I always choose the highest level out of all. Also, it would be great to see visual feedback on taking damage by the player and enemies.
The graphics do a decent job at capturing the Star-Fox feel while managing to keep some charm
the music sets the mood pretty well as well as the sounds
The controls are smooth and intuitive.
the difficulty curve is enjoyable, I thought it scaled pretty well, tho I will say that the shooting does get a bit repetitive after a while.
the upgrades are cool little addition, but it would be nice if there was a little bit more variety rather than just simply stronger versions of the other ones.
at first I couldn't really see how this fits within the limited space theme until I got later in the game, tho I would still like something a little more specific, as to me it feels rater loosely linked.