Backwater Rider by Dyn
The game tells about the captain stuck in the distant corner of the universe. To leave this outskirts, he is looking for a new parts of the new ship in the nearest planets. His only assistant and best friend in this difficult journey is the on-board computer GO-1.
- Explore space and fly from one system to another seeking adventures
- Interact with the planets and learn interesting details
- Communicate , share and trade with the locals.
- Run droids in mysterious labyrinth to get so valuable part of the ship or other bonuses.
Controls:
- Spacemap
Click on the star and you will see panel with description about it.
If you have enought fuel you will also see jump button.
- Planet interaction
You will get here after you will jump to a new star. You can receive credits, fuel or some other info during interaction. Also you can get into the maze from here.
After interaction you will go back - to the starmap
- the maze
here you're controlling your drone (wasd or click on buttons). you need to find a special block here to complete it. other instructions - in the dialog before this screen.
What's new in post-LD version
- Added saves
- Fixed trading
- Reduced number of bla-bla dialogs at start
- added help info at the bottom of the starmap screen
- button menu added :)
- each star can now be visited only once
- jump speed increased
- fixed error exitin maze with lack of fuel
- added new type of planets (with textures)
- added special offers while interacting with planets
- some of bug fixes
- Explore space and fly from one system to another seeking adventures
- Interact with the planets and learn interesting details
- Communicate , share and trade with the locals.
- Run droids in mysterious labyrinth to get so valuable part of the ship or other bonuses.
Controls:
- Spacemap
Click on the star and you will see panel with description about it.
If you have enought fuel you will also see jump button.
- Planet interaction
You will get here after you will jump to a new star. You can receive credits, fuel or some other info during interaction. Also you can get into the maze from here.
After interaction you will go back - to the starmap
- the maze
here you're controlling your drone (wasd or click on buttons). you need to find a special block here to complete it. other instructions - in the dialog before this screen.
What's new in post-LD version
- Added saves
- Fixed trading
- Reduced number of bla-bla dialogs at start
- added help info at the bottom of the starmap screen
- button menu added :)
- each star can now be visited only once
- jump speed increased
- fixed error exitin maze with lack of fuel
- added new type of planets (with textures)
- added special offers while interacting with planets
- some of bug fixes
| Web (Post-LD) | http://dynergy.ru/backwater-rider/ |
| Web (Unity) | http://test.dynergy.ru/backwater |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=18632 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 2.85 | 370 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.18 | 174 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.50 | 401 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 3.08 | 305 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.23 | 298 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 2.65 | 345 |
| Mood(Jam) | 2.96 | 235 |
| Theme(Jam) | 2.40 | 385 |
click on one of the stars and press jump button to warp to it. :)
The starmap needs some kind of explanation: it took me a while to figure out how to jump to another system and it wasn't clear what to expect beyond the fuel cost of jumping.
I liked the music a lot though.
Uploaded new build with this critical fix.
Most of times you will not get into maze while interacting in the planets. In the maze you will find parts or credits/fuel. and they become harder after some time.
Uploaded post-LD version with fixes and few improvements.
How do you get minerals? I had a lot of smugglers offer to trade, but I guess I din't have any trade goods? (played compo version)
I noticed it was taking a while to start up so I watched the network progress, this game is 11mb. But the game itself doesn't have high-poly models with giant textures or anything. Did most of that go towards the music?
As a fan of space exploration games this one is right up my alley. It鈥檚 overall a competent build and worth further development but the ambitious scope shows as some issues.
Star map:
Some stars cannot be clicked very easily (the hitbox seems to be a bit off). This makes it impossible to select stars very close to each other. Stars under the hud cannot be selected either. I also find it odd that in a 2d representation of space two stars close to each other can have wildly different distances from your position (e.g. 48 parsecs & 186 parsecs).
Gameplay:
The cave exploration is a tad bugged. Sometimes the droid flies through walls, doesn't go to the selected direction or is lost when there still is an unexplored direction to go.
Interface:
There should be a summary for acquired parts, fuel and money after the action turn. I found the automatically scrolling text to be annoying as it goes on too fast. I'd rather just have next and skip buttons.
World generation:
It seems the game uses a randomized event based system for generating the interactions in the galaxy.
This causes a severe discord between the properties of the planets and the events taking place there. It would be nice to be able to deduce the best choice of action based on the planets appearance and stats. For instance a planet with volcanic activity wouldn't have much sentient life on it and a planet with signs of an ancient civilization would always have ruins.
Easiest way of achieving this is to tie events into planetary stats. A harder path is to introduce more complex simulation elements into the world.
Let's end on some high notes.
The graphics are quite nice with a fancy galaxy background and moons orbiting planets on the planetary screen. The menus are sleek and functional as well.
Indeed almost of all you said is because of lack of time.
Regarding star distance difference - it's all because of stars are actually placed in 3d space. and that confuses a lot. We're trying to find now how to bypass this issue.