Planet Sweeper by pansapiens

[raw]
made by pansapiens for LD30 (JAM)
TL;DR: Left click to try and find planets. It's a bit like Minesweeper meets Battleships in space.

You are a member of the elite Planet Sweeper team, tasked with discovering new planets throughout the galaxy. Fire anti-graviton bursts to detect gravity wells and discover new worlds - but don't delay - there are other entities within the galaxy also searching for planets to colonize.

= How to play =

* Click the left mouse button to fire anti-graviton particle bursts.
* Try to click on a planet to discover it.
* Watch the flow of particles to detect the location of planets - anti-gravitons are repelled by mass and take a path around or away from gravity wells.
* You may fire one anti-graviton burst each turn, after which your turn ends.
* Turns last a maximum of 15 seconds before the opposing players turn automatically starts.
* Anti-graviton bursts leave a zone of depletion that prevents another burst being fired in the vicinity for the next turn.
* The first player to discover 16 planets wins.

[Minor bug note: It looks like if you miss your turn, the AI (and UI popups) go a bit haywire .. so don't miss your turn :) -- thx MarekkPie for uncovering this]


= Notes =

The AI cheats a little, but I've also tried to make its moves somewhat plausible.

There are two game modes - Human vs. AI, and a local Human vs. Human mode. For the local two player game, each player needs to pass the mouse to the other player when their turn is done. This is a bit of a dumb way to do a two player game, but the ultimate intention is for players to take turns when sharing a tablet device (or use gamepads and/or network play).

= Credits & tools =

All code from scratch, except for generic stuff from my base code repo (SoundManager, MusicManager, SiteLock, Autoscreenshot from https://github.com/omgwtfgames/unity-bowerbird) and libraries (NGUI, GoKit, LeanTween, TouchScript [unused], Chevy Ray's great little ObjectPool, CSharpMessengerExtended).

Music made with NodeBeat, extra synth tone sfx made with Abelton Live 8 (Pad-Sweet Meditation).

I basically followed compo rules except for two sound effects that I couldn't be bothered making new versions of in bfxr ... oh, and having a relaxed jam by taking 72 hours.

The font is Orbitron Black.

Ratings

Coolness 70% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.63 126
Audio(Jam) 3.34 255
Fun(Jam) 3.57 108
Graphics(Jam) 3.78 221
Innovation(Jam) 4.14 24
Mood(Jam) 3.66 121
Theme(Jam) 3.43 260

Feedback

Maxium
26. Aug 2014 路 00:06 UTC
It seems as though the game will not start when I click on either option on the title screen.
馃帳 pansapiens
26. Aug 2014 路 02:18 UTC
@Maxium - it's probably the Unity web player being flakey - I've uploaded standalone builds as an alternative.
Reyn
27. Aug 2014 路 06:22 UTC
Nice particle effects. Makes me think of battle star galactica :P
rustybroomhandle
27. Aug 2014 路 06:27 UTC
This is awesome! Really fun, love the visuals, very relaxing watching the little anti-gravitons flying off ^.^
jackyjjc
27. Aug 2014 路 06:28 UTC
One of my favorite game of this LD, what an incredible game this is! The graphics is really nice and the idea is fresh and interesting. It is a bit hard in the beginning but I was slowly catching up with the AI. The only issue is that it does not reflect the theme too much (a little but not too much I think). But yea wow that was a great game, well done!
jackyjjc
27. Aug 2014 路 06:32 UTC
Oh one suggestion, I wish I can place down markers for future reference like what you do in mine sweeper because I can spot multiple planets at once but I have to use my fingers to mark the locations on the screen right now.
Dabuuker
27. Aug 2014 路 06:32 UTC
This is a fun game. It took some time to figure it out but I had lots of fun. Great game and awesome idea :)
Cake&Code
27. Aug 2014 路 06:51 UTC
Wow, I love everything about this game! It has space, it has physics, it has cool graphics... this is amazing, well done!

The AI might be cheating a bit, but I still managed to win! Hooray for the human race :D
Nuclear Napalm
27. Aug 2014 路 06:55 UTC
Great game! Particles just beautiful! It's really fun to play with 2 players! Good job!
jackyjjc
27. Aug 2014 路 07:29 UTC
would be nice to have single player mode and see how quickly you can find all the planets
PixlWalkr
27. Aug 2014 路 07:29 UTC
Nice game and good use of those particles :)
Artamus
27. Aug 2014 路 08:05 UTC
Nice game, congrats!
MarekkPie
28. Aug 2014 路 00:36 UTC
Super fun. AI is a cheater at the end.
steve
28. Aug 2014 路 21:52 UTC
Lovely game, would be awesome on an ipad!
rojo
29. Aug 2014 路 03:10 UTC
Really liked the concept behind this game. It was fun to watch the particles fly around the screen and try to figure out where stuff is. Good job!
dtruby
30. Aug 2014 路 02:59 UTC
Very pretty, nice concept. Unfortunately mouse clicks are mirrored on the x axis for me, so it was very difficult to play. I don't know if this was to strengthen ties to battleship, or if it's a bug, but it doesn't seem to add anything to me.
馃帳 pansapiens
30. Aug 2014 路 07:11 UTC
@dtruby - not a feature so presumably a bug (mine or Unity's). Were you using the web player version, or one of the standalone builds ?
psychonull
31. Aug 2014 路 04:25 UTC
loved the particles, calm music, entertaining. nice work!
veryfinestlions
01. Sep 2014 路 10:11 UTC
This is pretty great.
mrexcessive
02. Sep 2014 路 16:01 UTC
Hi there. Lovely graphics. Players might need to switch Tabs in browser and back to get the start menu to work... Like the sound, played a couple of games. Love the motion of the purple particles. Good job!
INC$D021
07. Sep 2014 路 13:13 UTC
Awesome, one of the best games. I played it again and again. :) The small planets are hard to hit ;)
It's almost like meditating ;)
CogComp
07. Sep 2014 路 13:59 UTC
Beautiful game! Really relaxing and tricky!
TimtheBo
07. Sep 2014 路 14:30 UTC
Awesome game! The end took a while, though.
AtkinsSJ
07. Sep 2014 路 14:31 UTC
Neat! I enjoyed playing against the AI, even if it was tricky to click exactly on some of the smaller planets. It looks really pretty with the little particle trails, and the music is nice and calming.
airdeck
09. Sep 2014 路 04:12 UTC
This was a really cool idea and a lot of fun to play. You should really continue to work on thus further post-jam.
qualia
09. Sep 2014 路 16:05 UTC
(same poster as dtruby) Web player or download? I think I was on Windows, so probably the web player? The linux download seems to behave itself :)
This game is a lot more fun when it works! I think it might be the best game I've played this LD. Nice work!

Thanks for your suggestions on our game! I'm getting around to working on a post-compo version. I've already implemented green planet depletion, but I hadn't thought of red planets killing you instantly - thanks :)

- Qualia
voxel
10. Sep 2014 路 17:40 UTC
Nice original idea