LudumData

Solar Trucker by peremily

[raw]
made by peremily for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

Be a trucker in space, press m to get the mission board and take out a mission, then press b to buy the needed cargo (you may need to travel), load up your ship using wasd to move cargo and tab to switch between then press space to fly to your delivery target

There are 3 buildings you can fly between: Hospital, Ship Yard and Grocery. Each building sells a different set of items, and they will all be able to give you missions.

There is an indicator to point to the target station, if you press m while flying this will allow to pick the active mission or change the target.

When delivering items the mission the item you are delivering for must be active.

See how much money you can make - how many missions can you solve with one load?

I can't find any other stations?

If you press m while flying that will bring up a menu where you can set a target station, you should then be able to see a red target indicator pointing you towards the station. This target will automatically link to the active mission.

Inititally the webview had the inidcator cut off, i've since rebuilt the webgl version so it can now be seen. I should've made it more obvious in the first place.

CONTROLS:

There are some controller mappings but they don't work with the menus.

Flight:

  • Accelerate = W/S
  • Turn = A/D
  • Dock = R
  • Nav Menu = M

Ship Loading:

  • Switch object = Tab
  • Movement = WASD
  • Rotate = Q/E
  • Leave Station = Space
  • Buy items = B
  • Mission board = m
  • Sell/Deliver Item = R

CHANGELOG:

  • Rebuilt webgl to adjust viewport size due to edges cutting off target inidicator
  • Rebuilt webgl again to fix not working on firefox
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/solar-trucker

Ratings

Overall 1115th 2.556⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1114th 2.352⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 983th 2.75⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 760th 3.346⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 941th 2.685⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 922th 2.981⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Given 40🗳️ 34🗨️

Feedback

Robert Li
02. Oct 2023 · 19:52 UTC
I love how the camera zooms out a little when my ship's speed is up! But I'm having a hard time finding the ship yard or the grocery store :(
LDJam user 0
02. Oct 2023 · 19:57 UTC
The controls feel good and the graphics are ok, but I think the UI can use a lot of more work. The concept itself is not that fun.
LDJam user 237945
02. Oct 2023 · 20:16 UTC
Very nice entry, I bet it was hard to program the missions system within this timeframe!
Pointer to the stations would be nice tho'
🎤 peremily
02. Oct 2023 · 20:29 UTC
Thank you! There is a pointer, unfortunately I think the LD embed cuts it off, you should be able to see it in fullscreen
Alpie
02. Oct 2023 · 23:30 UTC
Idea of being space trucker is very cool, would be cool to mine the asteroids/ice in space too
VerttiXPertti
03. Oct 2023 · 16:47 UTC
Cool controls and concept, but there should somehow be more urgency to completing the missions and the music didn't play sometimes.
LDJam user 268934
03. Oct 2023 · 22:34 UTC
Rated your game , good jam game. Love the ambiance with the music really relaxing.
deadjolly
04. Oct 2023 · 02:06 UTC
It was super easy to softlock the game right at the beginning due to complicated controls. I bought items then accidentally hit space and lost my money and items right from the start. Think the concept is perfect for the theme. The mission system is a solid idea, just needs a little more friendly UI. Liked the ambient music!
TomKnocker44
04. Oct 2023 · 06:56 UTC
The concept is neat, but I never got any missions. Also the music stops after a minute or so.
LDJam user 206001
04. Oct 2023 · 07:01 UTC
I like flying aimlessly through space, but there is a moment when the stars end and I'm in total black. As for the theme, it was the opposite of limited space.
Christian Zommerfelds
04. Oct 2023 · 07:12 UTC
The game got me very excited, I think there is potential! My main criticism is that is was hard to know what to press, when. I ended up not really knowing what to do.

I recommend working on a more intuitive UX that informs you about missions and showns things on screen. Good job on implementing all the UI so far though, I know it's not easy :)
badunius
04. Oct 2023 · 07:13 UTC
I like the idea, but it needs more... convenience? I tried but failed to find any other station besides the starting one (and I lost that one too XD)

Also, I reached the limits of space! yay!
(And, apparently, limits of the soundtrack)
Thomas Volpato
04. Oct 2023 · 07:20 UTC
once I get the itens, I couldn't sell/deliver it, am I missing some control? I can buy the item, then I fly to the object point, but once dock (R) the nav on the target, I can't sell or delivery anything (R)
🎤 peremily
04. Oct 2023 · 16:42 UTC
Thank you all for your feedback! A lot of it didn't shock me but I ran out of time to fix :). I'll definitely take on board the need for better UX.

If you do softlock yourself you can press esc to go to the main menu and hit clear save - but obviously not the best solution!

@badunius while flying you can press m which will bring up a list of mission but also the stations and you set the station as active, this will show a target indicator to point you towards the station - I've adjusted the web build viewport size so it shouldn't cutoff the indicator but I probably should've made it bigger to begin with!

@thomas-volpato Sorry that happened! Did you move the bought item into the ship? If you leave a station any cargo not in the ship will be lost. If you have a mission it needs to be set to active in the mission menu (m) to deliver it, but you should've still been able to sell it - if you have the cargo move it to the orange section to deliver or the green section to sell
Thomas Volpato
04. Oct 2023 · 17:51 UTC
ok, I get it, but I think you need some UI on the screen explaining it, once I got, I had no clue I had to move it around. otherwise good game =)
🎤 peremily
04. Oct 2023 · 17:59 UTC
@thomas-volpato Thanks for the feedback!
Phaix
05. Oct 2023 · 00:51 UTC
Nice little game, i first was lost but then i had read the description. The docking is a bit tricky as it mostly just works at the left pad if i perfectly fit the ship. Also if i press Escape i can cheat as i get the last items i had in my ship spawned again.
StvUP
05. Oct 2023 · 17:40 UTC
The game concept is pretty good, would love to see it further expanded. Biggest issues for me would be single pixel stars background, everything flickers when moving. The other issue would be lack of an in-game tutorial. E.g after buying an item, a small window pop up that tells you to control the cargo using WASD and Tab.
Henk Fan
06. Oct 2023 · 19:26 UTC
Really like the idea but the level design could be more polished. I have a hard time finding the three buildings as there are no directions guidance.
RicardoBusta
07. Oct 2023 · 08:25 UTC
I liked the concept. Driving a ship and carrying cargo is an interesting game idea. I feel the controls and UI are a bit misleading. It took me a while to figure out what to do. Already starting the game with some objective and having it being tracked automatically by default would help guiding people to do it :)
LDJam user 0
14. Oct 2023 · 16:27 UTC
The idea and theme was great! The music, graphics and ship controls worked well. Too bad that the game was kinda confusing with other controls and mechanics. I struggled so long with the delivery cause I didn't understand how it worked. Maybe if the game guided people more clearly, it would be easier to get into :)
EgorMnc
19. Oct 2023 · 22:10 UTC
I liked the game interesting gameplay