Rim Runner by pinkemma
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You stole a space ship, and now you need to get to the outer rim with as much money and supplies as you can before the space police catches up with you. Their search area is ever expanding.
Trading and upgrading your ship along the way, you'll need to make the money to get the upgrades.
| Web build at Itch.io | https://pinkemma.itch.io/rim-runner |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/rim-runner |
Ratings
| Overall | 132th | 3.7⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 124th | 3.7⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 134th | 3.6⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 118th | 3.925⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 300th | 2.875⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 222th | 2.975⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 206th | 2.467⭐ | 17🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 177th | 3.333⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
First score from me is in the Discord!
Great fun, I kept forgetting what I paid and lost money all the time :D
@vedrfolnir There absolutely should have been a dinglebop trade goods, but I ran out of time to properly draw and spec the various goods :(
Played it 4 times so far, but didn't manage to (fully) win yet. First time I got caught (damn you, Space Cops!), second time was same (though with a bit better score). Third time I suddenly won the game by reaching the Rim, but I didn't have enough fuel upgrades to reach a settlement. That win made me think the distance to the rim shouldn't be displayed by your ship and affected by zoom, but rather as a GUI element like oxygen, fuel, and the rest.
The fourth time surprised me as well, because I've bought 2 oxygen upgrades and 1 fuel upgrade, so I had 200 oxygen and 200 fuel capacity, yet I still got the "you didn't reach settlement because low fuel" message.
Also, a funny thing - consider adding a warning to come to a full and complete stop before docking with a space station. Otherwise, depending on your ship's orientation, you can cause yourself a lot of neck pain. :D

And speaking of orientation - is there a way to rotate an item in your cargo hold? The tetris-like shapes made me think there should be.
Oh, and I've also found a bug with upgrades for your ship - once you buy it and put it in the cargo, it disappears, and instead of the sprite there's only a slight tint where it was placed. It's still there, cause you can pick it up and can't place other items there, it's just invisible:

Overall, it's a very enjoyable game. The more you play it the more you learn about general pricing of all goods and get better at predicting what's a good trade and what isn't. And the need to be constantly on the move adds a lot of tension.
I just tested with 200 fuel and got the right win condition. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong for you
Rotation was always planned, but due to having to reimplement the way I did drag-and-drop I ended up not having time unfortunately. I think that would have brought a much needed improvement to the gameplay.
The tinted squares after putting in an upgrade isn't actually a bug per say. I just didn't have time to get the graphic in there, so reused the highlight mechanic with a different tint to indicate where they were :) But yes, also would have been an improvement to gameplay.
The music was cool, though it got a bit repetitive, and the simple graphics in game did the job. The UI was functional but could have been a bit more styled to suit the style of the game.
Overall, I enjoyed it! Good work.
I managed to get to the outer rim, but had not enough fuel to reach the settlement.
I didn't know about this requirement. :D
I wish the game would give you a reminder like "you bought this for X credits" instead of making the player memorize the number, but I guess it's a compo game so it's understandable.
The space traveling remind me of Star Control 2 hyper space a bit. Even the music sounds like some sort of remix. :)
Overall, I didn't expect this game to be as entertaining. I learned the prices and made some good deals. I wish there was more upgrades and vessel management.
Interesting game!
the only "major" issue i had is the ship will get stuck in the rotation you dock at the moment of docking, so if you dock as soon as you're in range, sometimes you end up upside down or turned left/right, but it wasn't any game breaking for me so i successfully "lost" by going to the outer rim with 200 fuel and 100 oxy :smile:
Once I figured out I needed to immediately gun it I managed to escape safely, and then I traded my way to where the red arrow marker was pointing (the outer rim). I had badly misread the text at the start of the game so I didn't realize I had to collect oxygen/fuel first, I figured those were options that would allow me to get through dense clusters of enemy planets without having to stop, and the speed upgrades were for a risky run and ~~gun~~ evade approach, so I made it out, but didn't win.
Looking back on my playthrough I think the game is a lacking in polish (See other reviewer's comments) and 'gamer accessibility'. That last bit is optional though, I swear I'm normally smarter than I was when playing this game...
With that said though I personally didn't feel the lack of polish while playing, because you nailed the gameplay, and if I'm immersed in the gameplay for the short amount of time LD games normally go for I don't really have time to notice the polish, so nice job!