Sunfarers by Tim Leach
You have been chosen to lead a small group to a miniature planet, and help them build up from budding settlement to thriving community.

No pressure, no time limits – the only limited resource is the surface of the tiny planet!

Play in the browser by following the link below (fullscreen, headphones, and a relaxed environment recommended)!
Want to relax without worrying where to place your trees? You can listen to the soundtrack here.
| Link | https://timleach.itch.io/sunfarers-ld54 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/sunfarers |
Ratings
| Overall | 84th | 4.15⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 134th | 3.983⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 511th | 3.431⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 35th | 4.534⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 276th | 4.1⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 37th | 4.232⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 818th | 2.326⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 64th | 4.217⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 12🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
What was a bit finicky was the placement; the collision radiuses never matched the 3D models, so it was always guesswork. Maybe draw a debug circle around each object, or use something like tiles/hex tiles to make it more obvious.
The one soundtrack with the synth and piano is incredibly beautiful and contributes a lot to the mood. Did you make it yourself? Does it have a name?
We had an unofficial challenge in playtesting that we think it might be possible to meet the needs of 4 colonies in endless mode, so if you're looking for a bit of extra difficulty, feel free to attempt that!
Visible collision circles are a great suggestion! Due to the somewhat weird way the collision is calculated (which I probably wouldn't repeat if we did this again) all the radiuses are sort of eyeballed, so being able to see them would probably have helped us get them to match more accurately...
All the music in the game was made for it by the wonderful @tim-leach. I believe the tracks are named (in order of appearance) Breathe, Survive, and Develop after the first 3 phases of the game.
* Relaxing and nice take on the theme.
* Just feels pleasant to put things down on the planet
* I left the game running so I could keep listening to the music because I enjoyed it so much. Fits nicely with the scifi/colonization theme with some pleasant synths and sits in the background without feeling like it's just background music (I really struggle with making distinct but unobtrusive background music when I produce, so it's nice to hear some good examples to learn from :smile:).
Minuses:
* There are only 3 tracks to listen to and they don't loop, so the game goes silent once there's no more music :cry:
* Colliders for the objects make placing things a bit tricky
Additional recommendations:
* Adding some resource production/subtraction feedback each time a building is placed would be a very helpful UI/UX touch - that information is available in the bottom right but I didn't really notice until mid-game :sweat_smile:
I Had a great time figuring out the best ways to optimize the colony. The interface is very intuitive as well.
Sorry about the music cutting out! It's supposed to loop (this might be a problem with the built version, so this might be fixable).
> Adding some resource production/subtraction feedback each time a building is placed would be a very helpful UI/UX touch
I completely agree- this was on our notes after playtesting but we ran out of time!
One addition i would add is to colour mark the resources, which are in the negatives. Because otherwise that get's ignored very easily, especially given, that there is no time pressure
If you still need it, you can see the seed/wood cost of each plant/building in the bottom right corner of the screen when it's selected. I'm not surprised it wasn't obvious though, I think the UI could definitely be improved!
The music was me! I'm so happy you found it unobtrusive, I also struggle to walk the balance between "doesn't distract from the game" and "is good and interesting" :sweat_smile:
There's been a lot of love for the music, so I'm thinking of putting it up somewhere by itself so people can listen at leisure!
Great work!
Seriously though, the difficulty felt just right and the level of polish and gradual introduction of new mechanics make it very easy to pick up. If I had to nitpick something, a button to rotate buildings would have been useful (I may have missed it?), and sometimes rotating the planet around felt like it lead to gimbal lock, but overall as someone who really enjoys management/city building games this was a lot of fun!
The game walks you through the mechanics but I never felt like I wanted to rush things along. The opposite actually, I took my time to build up resources before trying the new one. It did eventually cause my demise, I didn't manage to destroy my buildings and was missing just one potato field to finish things up. I had the building description overlap with the destroy button, although I may have misunderstood something.
Regardless, well done!
I meant the very first song, starting with piano and then synth -- so probably "Breathe". It's always amazing to find such gems in unexpected places like game jams.
Great music and 3D
Could be a real game, with more planets, events, etc...
I enjoyed it soo much I challenged myself to get a forth colony and sustain it :heart:

I almost missed the UI in the bottom right that showed me details about specific buildings.
1) What you build
2) Building Costs
3) abillities/productions/maintanance
4) Tootltip & Flavor text
Allowing playing sandbox after completing the "missions" was a nice addition

I see a bearded man, what do you see? Tell us in the comment section below!