There are no gameplay or balance fixes, as I am saving game updates for post competition.<\/p>\n
The biggest problem people are finding with the game is with the control.\u00a0 I did conciously choose to use sim-based controls rather than arcade, as I find them much more interesting.\u00a0 Unfortunately they seem to be harder to pick up than I realized.\u00a0 As for future versions, I’m not sure how much I am willing to dumb the controls down, but I’ll admit they might be a little excessive at this point.\u00a0 One thing I had been planning to add at some point were better ships that had more engines (perhaps a reverse thruster) or better engines (easier turning).<\/p>\n
Personally I do find the control a little hard, but also a lot more fun than it would be if there were velocity or angular speed limits.\u00a0 You can’t just hold your thrusters down, because you will continually accelerate (both in turning or moving forward).\u00a0 Just a little bit of force is enough to get you turning.\u00a0 If you want to turn faster, hold it down more.\u00a0 If you want to turn slower, hold the opposite key slightly.\u00a0 I am really glad I tweaked turning before release (It was twice as fast before one of the final changes I made), but apparently I didn’t tweak it enough.<\/p>\n
Game balance in general is pretty random I admit.\u00a0 I spent the majority of my time on physics, particle effects, and ai, saving the very last few hours to actually balance the game.\u00a0 Not only are the trade runs rife with exploits or the planet names rediculous, but the random spawns are far too random, and most enemies shoot too fast to put up with them.\u00a0 For the immediate future, I hope to have some variety with enemies, and keep most of the starting areas much safer.\u00a0 I also want the game to be less random in general, with more simulation behind the scenes.\u00a0 I just didn’t have time for this before.\u00a0 The game would be more satisfying if you could go toe to toe with some enemies more often, instead of having to constantly run away ![\":)\"](\"http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/simple-smile.png\")
\u00a0 I have had a few fights that were very exciting and winnable, but they are very rare.\u00a0 It’s also possible to be killed 3 seconds into the game, which is just dumb.<\/p>\n
There is also a bug with the planet police.\u00a0 If a pirate attacks you and manages to hit a civillian ship, the police will come out and think you are the culprit!\u00a0 The police were invented to protect the exploit of camping the civilian ships for all of their cargo.\u00a0 (If you haven’t ever won a fight, you may not know that ships drop cargo when they die)\u00a0 So I made the police extremely tough.\u00a0 As a result of the bug and the strong police, any fight near a planet will quickly result in destruction, as a stray bullet from the fight hits a civilian ship <\/p>\n
I also received several comments to this effect: “This game is so tiny!\u00a0 But how does it fit the minimal theme?”\u00a0 This may have not been communicated adequately,\u00a0 but I went for minimal window size and minimal code size.\u00a0 I also went for a minimal space sim, and there weren’t any features that I felt I could take away.\u00a0 But the screen size was the main source of minimal.\u00a0 This fixed release kind of takes that away, but I suppose it had to be done.<\/p>\n
I will be improving this game once voting is over.\u00a0 First I will tackle the bugs, and then I will tackle the spawn system.\u00a0 I plan on adding some semblance of story or an overall goal too, with trading being a means of completing that goal; and numerous interesting events and things to see throughout the system.\u00a0 I don’t plan on adding any form of hyperspace, and I probably wont add quests like they are usually implemented.\u00a0 Oh yeah, and there will be a way to save your game!\u00a0 I’m real sorry I didn’t have time for that one <\/p>","time":"April 25th, 2008 9:20 am","title":"Space Trader small fix, and some comment responses"}