Last stop before the Depths by thegrottman

[raw]
made by thegrottman for Ludum Dare 57 (JAM)

Welcome to the Last stop before the Depths! Here, a lovely Drinks the Drone will take care of your spaceship needs! Try to get the highest score!

Coding - thegrottman

Art - thegrottman's fiancee, Iga

Music/SFX - sfxr, Martin Landstrom (dl'd from Epidemic Sound (using free trial.))

Hope you'll like it!

Itch.io link: https://thegrottman.itch.io/last-stop-before-the-depths

Ratings

Overall 853th 2.615⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 813th 2.58⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 840th 2.36⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 859th 2.06⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 700th 2.96⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 490th 2.674⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 802th 2.771⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 20🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

sarellano
08. Apr 2025 · 15:58 UTC
I'd suggest providing an itch.io link so we can play on html version, as LD site usually won't work on some of us who use mac :(
🎤 thegrottman
08. Apr 2025 · 18:49 UTC
Yep, I'm working on it! :) Will be up soon :)

Edit: It's up! :) https://thegrottman.itch.io/last-stop-before-the-depths
floppynub
14. Apr 2025 · 20:17 UTC
Hey! Congrats on your first jam, you got a game out, and it works too! No easy feat. I liked the game and enjoyed the structure. The art was very appealing and the vibes were awesome. Good choice in music too - even if you didn't make it, you still had to pick something fitting, and you did!

For my tastes, the character controller felt a bit floaty. It was a bit difficult to precisely control where I was going. I felt kinda like a clunky robot... perhaps it was intentional :P

Beyond that, I think the timers on the ships were a bit too aggressive. If the camera was zoomed out and I could see what each ship wanted at all times, the timers would probably work well, but as is I have to be just about perfect to go see what a ship needs and return with it.

One last note since this is your first jam - if you're wondering why you only have 2 comments and 3 ratings received, it's because you yourself have only rated 2 games! The way the algorithm works is that it will push the games of people who leave feedback/ratings out to others for review. I apologize if you already know this, but I just wanted to make sure you weren't wondering where all the reviews are!

Anyways, good work, this is a great entry, especially for your first time. I'd be super proud of this.
Houmgaor
14. Apr 2025 · 20:24 UTC
Funny little game, they are a few since that are bugging me though:

- Docks number are not clearly related to docks position. You learn by playing a bit, but adding the number to the map, or the dock color to the top bar would help a lot!
- When there is a new spaceship, you have to go the good dock, look at the requested item, go to the item storage, come back to the ship, and fix it. The time is very limited so it makes it very challenging. One cool addition would be to indicate what item is requested directly on the top bar.

Other than that the game runs well from your submission on itch.io. I had fun playing, the graphics are great and the music is really chill. So well done!
rensun
14. Apr 2025 · 23:55 UTC
The toy looks cool! Really liked the dynamics of the game and the overall idea of what we basically need to do in this game.

Highlighted for the complexity of movement, it is too dynamic and I sometimes just do not have time to turn normally, and the field of view of the robot is a real pain for me, I did not have time to fly to the ship - then to the object and again to the ship, it would be cool to see some auxiliary icons on top, and your robot is just lovely :3

Great work, I wish you much success!
Papu_kweh
15. Apr 2025 · 00:24 UTC
Hey, there!

I thought the art and music were charming and the main mechanic is fun, nicely done!

I'll echo some of the feedback on previous comments:
- The movement for the bot felt a bit odd and floating, too much acceleration perhaps? It made it difficult to deliver the items on time.
- The game is pretty unforgiving with the time. You have to walk to the ships to see what they need, then run for the supply and back to the ship, and the time for that is veery short.
- I think the game could have used a short tutorial or explainer text somewhere hahah it took me a while to realize what to do xD
Eugenik
16. Apr 2025 · 10:45 UTC
Fun game.
JHax
16. Apr 2025 · 20:42 UTC
The character movement was initially a bit frustrating, particularly when missing a ship completely wipes out your score. However, once I started to get the hang of it, the movement started to feel a bit more funny than frustrating! Was enjoying seeing the little robot frantically careening around the port trying to get things sorted. The robot design is pretty cute too! All in all, a bit frustrating to begin with, but does come together for a fun time in the end!
CodeChomper
17. Apr 2025 · 04:30 UTC
I liked the sliding movement when you gained a lot of speed. I was franticly driving around gather ship parts and it had a sense of intensity. At first I didn't realize I could drive over the docks, I thought I would fall into space. That made it more difficult on myself than it had to be. Very good entry.
jk5000
17. Apr 2025 · 06:21 UTC
The game idea was fun. The visuals and the music is all pretty good. The difficulty seem a bit high, and my score was nearly always 0. But overall a okay little jam game.
Patatje
17. Apr 2025 · 14:51 UTC
Fun expirience! i used the bounciness of the robot to my advantage to deliver the items quicker!
Keith Wang
17. Apr 2025 · 20:47 UTC
Liked the concept, remind me of Awaria.
The control is a bit difficult while the timer is really tight. Basically I need to check what the ship needs, grab the item and deliver it to the ship. The time is almost never enough for all of them.
HolyBlackCat
20. Apr 2025 · 14:57 UTC
Fun little game, but it took me a few minutes to understand how to play. (Didn't realize I had to use E to pick up items at first, and then didn't realize I can dump unwanted ones into the holes.)
LDJam user 410172
22. Apr 2025 · 12:00 UTC
The idea is really cool, my gripes were only with trying to figure out the controls/navigation:

It might be just me being very dumb, but it took me a few minutes to figure out E picks stuff up. I completely ignored the help button and forgot it exists, so I checked the description for info and couldn't find much in there. I think my issue at first was that I kept standing on the energy pads pressing all buttons and wondering why nothing's happening, and was concluding I am pressing the wrong keys. :sweat_smile:

Maybe a bit more of a zoom out would be good as well? Sometimes it felt a bit too claustrophic.

Having arrows, at least at the start, pointing at the edges of the screen to all the components could be useful. They don't have to be around forever (eg. can disappear past a certain score), but it would help with memorisation where components are.

And I'll just echo what others said, having less of a floaty feel to things would be cool. I like the idea of the movement being a bit fiddly and something you need to master, but floatiness feels like you don't have much room for that.