LudumData

Stickleback by DustyStylus

[raw]
made by DustyStylus for LD29 (COMPO)
You are a modern day Captain Nemo, skulking beneath the surface in your fancy Stickleback Mark II booty acquisition vehicle. Ram your enemies as near perpendicular as you can with the afterburners on.

W/S - Speed Up / Down
Arrows - Control Vehicle Nose
L Shift - Afterburner (3 secs, needs full power)
Tab - toggle camera chase/track

HINTS
- Check the Youtube video if you want to see a playthrough
- Speed up to max to avoid gunfire.
- Sneak away from the 3 destroyers first to get outside guns which can hit you while speeding up.
- You can afterburner straight after cool-off. This is a bug... which feels wrong to fix at this stage. Use this to escape gunfire.
- Hit ships side-on, for Destroyers, charge towards them then do an L turn right into their sides.
Web http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47393248/Stickleback.html
Source http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/47393248/source.zip
Youtube (Playthrough) http://youtu.be/I1qB4TQLJ8E
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=15902

Ratings

Coolness 85% 2
Overall 2.98 745
Audio 2.84 515
Fun 2.82 736
Graphics 3.41 393
Humor 2.14 776
Innovation 3.41 320
Mood 2.90 639
Theme 3.59 275

Feedback

bzizizi
28. Apr 2014 路 08:19 UTC
I'm having a hard time killing ships. Do I need to ram them more than once? Nice game though, it's fun and innovative.
enosshenk
28. Apr 2014 路 08:19 UTC
A really cool concept. Very tough to play though, the armed ships are very unforgiving and the camera seems to make things harder than it should be.
Karmalis
28. Apr 2014 路 08:38 UTC
Agree with the praise on the fun and innovation. Not very easy to grasp though, but hey, more challenging and more fun.
spotco
28. Apr 2014 路 09:35 UTC
Took a while to get used to the controls (could be simplified?) But pretty fun!

Biggest problem I feel is the camera - you need to dive in order not to get shot, but if you dive you can't see anything. That was super annoying to deal with.
馃帳 DustyStylus
28. Apr 2014 路 11:26 UTC
Hi guys, thanks for the comments! Just back off the train, so will record and upload a video which probably works best!

- You have to hit them reasonably perpendicular and above 12000 speed. (just after afterburner)
- You don't need to hold down W to keep speed up and you can use afterburner immediately after it stops... which is a BUG. :( (which I probably shouldn't fix post-deadline)
- Use an 'L' with the red ships. At high speed charge towards them, and then at the last minute hang left/right and hit them side on.

Hopefully the FRAPS video will show this.
primaerfunktion
28. Apr 2014 路 13:51 UTC
This turned out really well. I'll defnetly come back later and give it another try!
CareForceOne
28. Apr 2014 路 17:59 UTC
A game where you ram bigger ships with your ship? YES
Spit Tex
28. Apr 2014 路 19:40 UTC
It was hard to know if you had enough speed when ramming the ships however overall this was a really fun game.
Marcus_siactro
28. Apr 2014 路 19:42 UTC
Really a fun game! I enjoyed playing it, great work.
MintArcade
28. Apr 2014 路 19:52 UTC
Cool. Those red destroyers are tough.
Covenant
28. Apr 2014 路 19:56 UTC
Very cool and innovative! :)
colludium
28. Apr 2014 路 21:38 UTC
Great concept but actually quite hard to get right!
vilya
28. Apr 2014 路 21:39 UTC
Cool idea, liked it!
tinykidtoo
28. Apr 2014 路 21:40 UTC
Very good it is really fun to play. But the red ships are really hard to kill.
marccspro
28. Apr 2014 路 21:41 UTC
Cool Game !
maffydub
28. Apr 2014 路 21:58 UTC
Nice idea and graphics. The camera was a little fiddly, but generally a lot of fun.
AlbertoSM
28. Apr 2014 路 22:27 UTC
Cool concept... I keep messing the controls though :P
TyrusPeace
29. Apr 2014 路 04:09 UTC
I like how the game encourages you to be stealthy, but I definitely had a tough time with the controls. I like the design of the player's ship! Very cool, especially with the low poly style you used for the game.
dusho
29. Apr 2014 路 15:03 UTC
when diving you can't really see anything cause camera is pointing to the bottom of the see, not really helpful
also controls are hard to get into
Lyje
29. Apr 2014 路 15:05 UTC
Really hard - but I love the premise of it. Tried several times but I think I wasn't near the surface enough. Love the low poly style, my kind of graphics :)
DarkEngineer
29. Apr 2014 路 15:48 UTC
Really cool concept but hard to kill armed ships
wdebowicz
29. Apr 2014 路 16:11 UTC
It take me a while killing the first sheep, but it was fun!
wdebowicz
29. Apr 2014 路 16:12 UTC
It take me a while killing the first ship, but it was fun!
dook
29. Apr 2014 路 21:58 UTC
I had a hard time figuring out how exactly to approach the ships without getting hit, and I never found a way for the stealth to make sense. The overall idea seemed alright, though, it might work well with a few tweaks :)
Aaants
30. Apr 2014 路 11:37 UTC
Nice work :D
馃帳 DustyStylus
01. May 2014 路 10:39 UTC
Hi guys, thanks for the comments. Yeah, unfortunately I never found a way to make the stealth aspect work properly (other than initially escaping from the destroyer range).

dusho: I forgot to put a depth limit in that would've prevented that. :(

Lyje: Thanks, I started to get a little nostalgic about an old Activision game called "Hunter" as I worked on this which had some nice simple geometry in it (by necessity!).
rorycooke
02. May 2014 路 09:10 UTC
that was fun, I liked the controls they felt good.
DarkMaster
03. May 2014 路 16:26 UTC
Seeing how good some of the Unity's features can be, it could be a lot better. Is hard to understand the main point of the game, even after reading the tutorial: you just run and get shot by the ships until you're dead and there's no way to play again without refreshing the page.

The main idea is okay, but is very unfinished. :/
Oye Beto
06. May 2014 路 08:04 UTC
You could scale the "[+]" indicators depending on the distance to the ships.
elefantopia
07. May 2014 路 04:23 UTC
Graphics are very cool. It's difficult to control, but still had fun driving the stickleback. I rammed those red ships quite a bit, but no luck. Great game!