LudumData

Unlimited space by Recher

[raw]
made by Recher for Ludum Dare 54 (COMPO)

You are a galactic taxi-driver. Get customers, drive them to their destination, earn enough money to retire to a beautiful green and blue planet.

You can use the button or the arrow keys.

Use the key "1" or the button "1" to display your status in the log, on the lower part of the screen.

The log displays : - your money, next to the wallet emoji "💼" - your current coordinates, next to your head "👽" - the coordinates of your objective.

For example, when you see that in the status:

👽 🇽 🇾: (-14, 1)

❇️💚 🇽 🇾: (26, 44)

It means you are at the coordinates (-14, 1), and you have to go to the coordinates (16, 44). So it’s to the right, and a little to the down.

Objectives can be either the location of a customer to pick, or the destination of the customer you are currently carrying.

Don't have an objective yet ? Move around and find radars. Some of them will tell you customers coordinates.

Use the button "2" to show and cycle through the list of your known customers.

screenshot<em>unlimited</em>space.png

When you get a crown in your wallet, you have enough money to retire. Go back to the coordinates (0, 0) and win !

Some customers pay well, some others not. Some customers want to go far, some others not. You can guess it from their name, appearance and dialogues... Or not. Some customers may not exactly corresponds to their supposed stereotypes.

Everybody in this universe use the universal language of emoji. You may not understand everything, try to deal with it as best as you can !

Link to the game http://squarity.fr/#fetchez_githubgist_darkrecher/099fdc3c77980e90b3c89d2e26cde792/raw/unlimited-space.txt
Link https://gist.github.com/darkrecher/099fdc3c77980e90b3c89d2e26cde792
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/unlimited-space

Ratings

Overall 329th 2.891⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Fun 338th 2.646⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 219th 3.283⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 346th 2.521⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 306th 2.833⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 93th 3.239⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 258th 3.022⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 377116
02. Oct 2023 · 00:19 UTC
I dont know where the green friend wants to go, i could not find his family :(
Interesting tho!
🎤 Recher
02. Oct 2023 · 09:09 UTC
@2thegamechanger : when you press the button "1", the status is written on the text zone at the lower part of the screen. You have an exemple in the screenshot.

For example, when you see that in the status:

👽 🇽 🇾: (-13, -26)

🏁 🇽 🇾: (7, -22)

It means you are at the coordinates (-13, -26), and you have to go to the coordinates (7, -22). So it's to the right, and a little to the down.

If you are not sure of how the coordinates will change, you can make a little move in any direction, then press the button "1" again.
Martin Bousquet
02. Oct 2023 · 22:13 UTC
It was very confusing at first even though I had read the description. Maybe you should have shown the inventory and goal at any time in the hud instead of having the player to press 1, because a) it's annoying b) you are missing the fake dialogs that seem fun. Oh also having Y pointing down is confusing.

Still I finished it, I retired!
Marcus Otterstrom
02. Oct 2023 · 23:49 UTC
Great job, cool that you made it in your own engine :)

💖 ✨ 🤩 🎉 🎊 🎇 🏖️ 🏝️ 🏞️
akitl
03. Oct 2023 · 09:19 UTC
Hey my unlimited space friend !
🎤 Recher
04. Oct 2023 · 07:10 UTC
@martin-bousquet : you are completely right. But the current version of my game engine does not allow to write some text (even simple text) in the game screen itself. So I have to put it in the log.

I will improve my game engine, I promise !

@marcus-otterstrom : congratulations, you win and retired !
🎤 Recher
04. Oct 2023 · 07:10 UTC
(deleted message because duplicate of the previous)
TheLastSlowpoke
04. Oct 2023 · 19:55 UTC
I didn't know I knew french better than emoji, but "un moteur de jeux 2D, en python" is infinitely more understandable than "🧟🛤️🍐🌞🌵" ^^ So cool of you to make your own game engine! The ride was a bit exotic, but in a good way :smile:
Togis
07. Oct 2023 · 21:20 UTC
:alien: :crown: :video_game: :star: :star: :moneybag: :smiley:
LDJam user 239490
08. Oct 2023 · 00:21 UTC
Sorry I tried to play for a little bit but couldn't figure out what was going on. Maybe you can have a short tutorial level to show the players how to play in a simple example.
🎤 Recher
08. Oct 2023 · 08:23 UTC
@siberpunk01 : it's a little hard to understand because most of the informations are given in the logs and not in the game. I can't (for the moment) display texts directly in the game.

I'm afraid a tutorial would be even more confusing, because it would add more explanations in the log. Maybe I could do a sort of auto-play for the first client, where the spaceship would automatically pick and deliver one, but I'm afraid this would be confusing too.

One interesting solution would be to display an arrow in the game showing the direction of your objective. I'm not sure I'm allowed to do that during the Ludum Dare. I made a compo, with quite strict rules, and I guess they would break if I modified the game after the deadline. So, I will certainly add this arrow after the rating period.

I added a coordinate example in the game description, that's the only thing I can do for now.

Thank you for your feedback.
BlueDandelion
08. Oct 2023 · 10:16 UTC
Cool game, I find it cool that you made it in your own engine. It was a bit hard to understand what exactly was going on with all the french and emojis but I eventually got the hang of it. I wish you could view your coordinates at all times without having to constantly press "1". Overall great game and nice job!
Likirus
08. Oct 2023 · 10:31 UTC
Interesting game although I'm not sure how unlimited space adheres to limited space ;) I didn't have too many problems understanding how to play with your descriptions and I managed to deliver a few passengers. I like that the alies only speak in emoji so you have no idea what they are saying, it adds character to the game. Stricly following the coordinates gets a bit tedious after a while and a graphical direction indicator would have been nice, but you are right, you shouldn't alter LD games during their rating period (although you could add a second post-jam version so people can still judge to original version, but also experience the improvements if they want). As a fellow self-made engine user, I always like to see custom engine games. Good job!
🎤 Recher
08. Oct 2023 · 11:14 UTC
Thank you very much @bluedandelion and @likirus , for your reviews and for the support about my own game engine. I definitely must continue to improve it. Some small details like a fullscreen mode by default would reduce the mess in the UI, and the English / French confusion.

Your comments give me the incentive to continue. Now I just need to find spare time for it !
henk
08. Oct 2023 · 16:09 UTC
I like the creative use of emoji for game UI, and I chuckled at the similarities between the various passenger types and the emojis used to represent them.

Some animation would really help this, I think. Moving between squares is discrete and instantaneous, for example, which somewhat breaks the illusion of traveling around in a large space.
cheesepencil
09. Oct 2023 · 00:42 UTC
I love that the ride passengers just emit streams of emoji nonsense, talking your ear off the entire ride XD
ellaris
09. Oct 2023 · 12:07 UTC
- Interesting idea, I liked the emoji language, even if sometimes hard to understand.
- I found the coordinates a bit annoying until I figured I can just hold to zoom across the space and the customer will jump out when he needs to, would be cool to see the current coordinates in real time instead the log.
- I often found myself either having a customer and passing by many others, or not having a customer and zooming across a lot of empty destinations. Maybe you could generate the customers more evenly, or generate few extra customers not too far after a customer is delivered.
🎤 Recher
09. Oct 2023 · 22:07 UTC
@henk : one more feature I need to add in my game engine: showing smooth moves or smooth scrolling when an object moves from one tile to another. I'm working on it (almost)...

@ellaris : showing coordinates directly on the game screen is planned, for the next version of the game. Also almost working on it.

We definitely need more content: more alien types, more sceneries, more emojis, etc.

Thank you for your feedback.
hinesite
12. Oct 2023 · 22:37 UTC
That's pretty neat. I gave you bonus points for using a global game seed to make a infinitely random but repeatable world. These sorts of games are always underrated. Great job! Your Squarity game engine is pretty cool too.
LDJam user 206001
13. Oct 2023 · 04:16 UTC
With the explanation on the page I was able to understand. Very simple but interesting
bentglasstube
13. Oct 2023 · 04:41 UTC
At first I found the UI confusing and frustrating but after a little while it was quite easy to use. I actually felt like the unusual interface made it feel more like I was an alien taxi driver, and in the end it was one of the most charming parts of this game. The little emoji conversations were cute and flying around to deliver entities to their destinations was relaxing. I would say some ambient music and sound effects would have added a lot to the mood, but I'm sure you had your hands full with what you did add. Great job and thanks for sharing.
🎤 Recher
14. Oct 2023 · 14:11 UTC
@hinesite : Thank you very much for having remarked the global game seed trick ! That's one of the first thing I implemented in the game. Unlimited Space must be really unlimited ! And thank you for finding my game engine cool. I hope that someday, someone other than me will use it to participate to Ludum Dare.

@bentglasstube : Thank you for being indulgent (and charmed) by my clumsy UI. Ambient sound would be a great idea, but there are two barriers to it :

- Squarity does not allow to play any sound. I'm working on it (almost)...

- I do not know anything about music and sound. The most significant thing I did about it was me shouting "PAW" in front of a microphone because I needed a shotgun sound for a very old game I did.
cagibi
14. Oct 2023 · 15:33 UTC
Unique game, impressive considering the engine's current limitations. I wonder if the art style/consistency would be improved if things on the main viewport were also emoji-based, and with variations on planets/stars in the background.

My only nitpick is that the camera lags behind the player. Not a lot of taxi drivers are interested in what's behind them! If it were me I'd center the camera constantly (or anticipate the player's moves if it isn't too jarring).
Bytomancer
14. Oct 2023 · 20:12 UTC
I've never heard of Squarity before, but looking into it I'm extremely impressed by what you've done with it. As a programmer, it's kind of fun to me just browsing through the code while playing the game.

I love all the charm squeezed into this game. Excellent job creating unique passengers with quirky vocabularies to give them all different personalities.
jdemattos
14. Oct 2023 · 22:21 UTC
Loved seeing the code in the side of the window, nice execution. The use of emojis was brilliant and gave me a lot of ideas. I really liked the execution of this game, very technically proficient and clean!
🎤 Recher
15. Oct 2023 · 20:35 UTC
@cagibi @bytomancer @jdemattos : Thank you very much for all your words of courage. It's nice to see people starting to get interested in Squarity, and the fact that every elements of the game is directly accessible (tilesets, config and source code). That's important, to give an incentive to players to explore and modify these elements.

A significant part of the compo time was used to browse all existing emojis and find the appropriate ones for each extra-terrestial types. So I'm happy this emoji thing has a nice impact on people. I was inspired by Captain Blood, a French old video games from the 80's where you meet aliens and have dialogues with them through a weird interface full of symbols.

@cagibi : I took a very quick'n dirty decision about camera. Maybe the solution would have been to gradually move it so that the player can see what is in the front. But the "graduality" would have been square by square. Not sure it's a good idea. Camera handling in 2D video games is a big big subject. Just for your information: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/scroll-back-the-theory-and-practice-of-cameras-in-side-scrollers