Orion by Ben Toosey
Overview
As you're fighting through hoards of enemies, you can only look up the the stars for help. Summon minions using the power of celestial magic to make your way through countless waves of increasing difficulty.
How to play:
Orion is a PoC autobattler, heavily inspired by Super Auto Pets. Instead of purchasing minions between rounds, you summon them using celestial magic by selecting stars in the sky to form constellations! Do you decide to make smaller constellations, or do you save between turns to summon more powerful minions? Tip: different coloured stars provide different stats for their summoned minions.
If you lose a round at the moment, the only way to restart the run is to refresh the page, sorry about that!
Almost everything was created by myself within 72 hours for the Ludum Dare game jam #55, including the game design, art and code. The only premade asset used is the font: Alagard.
Controls:
RMB = Reorder summons, navigate using buttons, select stars for constellations, and fight!
Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the upload on this site working, as it has an issue with Godot exports. I do, however, have a link to a working version on itch.io, so please check it out there instead!
For my most ambitious LD attempt yet, I didn't have enough time to get some things done in time. I'd have loved to make music, draw lines between the stars to make visible constellations, add a lose screen, and rebalance the difficulty of the levels. But that's just the nature of game jams; you'll never accomplish EVERYTHING you want to!
Tools Used:
Godot 4 & Aseprite
Please leave a rating and feedback.
Thanks for playing, and enjoy!
| Play it here! | https://btoosey.itch.io/orion |
| Github repo | https://github.com/btoosey/Ludum-Dare-55 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/orion |
Ratings
| Overall | 698th | 3.471⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 955th | 3.067⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 103th | 3.962⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 222th | 4.125⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 148th | 4.368⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 974th | 2.293⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 744th | 3.41⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 55🗨️ |
I can tell that you didn't really have time to finish off the game, but the concept is 5/5.
Got to level 8.
@lovefromtom To make a constellation, each star has to be within a certain distance to your last selected one to work, yes! And a strategy I find works well is to loop constellations back onto themselves to summon some pretty high-level minions!
@bananplyte Thanks a lot! Didn't have nearly enough time to add everything I wanted. Drawing lines between stars within a constellation and a proper difficulty curve would've gone a really long way!
@skullpaca That's the highest I've seen so far!
Definitely satisfying when it clicks how all the summoning bits work!
Perhaps stars will be able to give abilities to characters. For example, red ones have a certain chance of dealing critical damage.
Also if the character wins, the stars can be upgraded. And in the future it will be possible to create stronger characters from high level stars.
Your game has excited my imagination, thanks!
@ashketchdem If I had time I'd have loved to add a preview for what each constellation would give you! I just ran out of time to add everything I wanted to, including sounds and twinkling lights unfortunately!
@julienlussiez thanks! I can see how it can be confusing for people seeing it for the first time. A tutorial is definitely something I'd want to add moving forward!
@aviv-levy Thanks for the feedback! For this game jam there's only one type of minion you can summon, only the stats change depending on the stars :)
@jhax Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
@bloketta You and I are on the exact same wavelength! :) I have so many ideas on how to improve the game with abilities, even events like lunar eclipses, meteor showers and auroras giving bonuses to certain types of minions. I feel like there's a lot of potential for mechanics!
@amarokczukay A preview for a given constellation is one of the first things I'd like to add!
@alkemiste I agree, more feedback is necessary, especially when making the constellations!
@godknows You can use as many stars as you have available. You can even decide not to make any constellations on any given round to save up more for the next!
@enad96 haha thanks, you're gonna have to race me though!
@d0vid Seems like lots of people are coming across the level 8 hurdle (myself included)!
@patrick-pang That's unbelievably kind of you, thank you! From the feedback I've received so far, I'll definitely be looking into remaking it into a proper project :)
I read about what you didn't manage to finish, and it is a bummer, but what you have achieved alone is very commendable anyway. Heads up! What you planned to do sounds great, especially the lines creating constellations. People in the comments are throwing cool ideas too. I wish you enough motivation to finish and polish your game :)
I have some feedback for the auto-battling part though.
The way it is resolved right now doesn't enhance what I thought would be desirable player behavior of building specialized units using different-colored stars (tanks with blue, and damage dealers with red) and reshuffling their position on the board.
It doesn't happen for two reasons:
1) Given a 2 vs 1 scenario, the unit in the 2nd position won't ever attack until the unit in the 1st position is alive. So if I manage to create a 2/8 attacker, it won't have a chance to shine until an 8/2 tank dies, and then it dies too because it has low HP.
2) Given a 2 vs 1 scenario again, the enemy will be able to attack twice, so again, having a 'glass cannon' attacker at the back doesn't work.
Personally, I would see that each unit, starting from the center, attacks once the closest to them enemy until everyone made its move, then repeat until only one side is alive.
Good luck!
@sodoj interesting, care to share what idea you guys were originally planning on doing? Is it similar in terms of being an auto-battler, or had it do with constellation forming? A lot of tiny QoL changes and feedback with lights/SFX would've added a whole load to the game, I agree!
@nick-blackwood I've considered the distance between stars as an idea for the future! I like the idea of having intersections as it would help player-made constellations resemble real life ones, but there could definitely be a bonus if you actively build a run with no intersections in mind!
More visual feedback (Circle around star before selection,...) and sound would really help your to game make us understand what's happening on screen.
And an in-game tutorial would be a plus
There's definitely potential here. Some animation on the stars twinkling would really help, as well as an in-game glossary of how the stars affect summons. Sound and simple music (something ambient and really reverby) could take the vibe up a level.
Solid entry, especially for a solo dev!
I understood what I had to do, but I found the difficulty disproportionate. I couldn't get very far, because I couldn't get anything to recover my energy lost in battles and I always summoned warriors with the same skill. I lost badly.
With balance this game will be very interesting.
Congratulations for the game