Dude, where's my planet by Zamando

[raw]
made by Zamando for LD23 (JAM)
Press enter to start at title screen and to reset current level.
Arrow keys to move.
__________

Made by:
Alexander Batsis : Programming
Teo Mathlein : Graphics (teo.mathlein.se)
Martin Petrini : Programming


The music during levels is credited to www.audionautix.com

Ratings

Coolness 75% 2
Overall(Jam) 4.01 10
Audio(Jam) 3.88 21
Fun(Jam) 3.48 37
Graphics(Jam) 4.79 2
Humor(Jam) 3.04 55
Innovation(Jam) 3.65 35
Mood(Jam) 3.83 12
Theme(Jam) 3.82 18

Feedback

SpaceToaster
24. Apr 2012 · 04:06 UTC
I really like the art style!
Toast
24. Apr 2012 · 09:57 UTC
Nice art style. Unfortunately there's quite a few games like this given the theme, but the "run-up" mechanic is fairly original.
GreyShock
24. Apr 2012 · 10:03 UTC
Best art i've seen so far at LD23
derosa
24. Apr 2012 · 10:57 UTC
Love the graphics! Also, the jumping dynamic is different from the classic "jump" button. I went into deep space a pair of times before realizing how to do it well!
Transmit
24. Apr 2012 · 12:00 UTC
Fantastic art, good gameplay, great fitting audio!
jeroenimooo
24. Apr 2012 · 12:07 UTC
Awesome design and a fun way to travel from planet to planet :D
GFM
24. Apr 2012 · 13:35 UTC
This game is really beautyful.
And original in the way you travel from one planet to another.

But sometimes I felt that the gravity could be stronger... Since I'm not pulled into a planet, except if I'm really close to the planet... (or so it semmed to me)
JaJ
24. Apr 2012 · 16:33 UTC
Looks and sounds beautiful. Game is nice too, but it can get annoying when you have to wait while hanging still in the air because of the lack of gravity.
🎤 Zamando
24. Apr 2012 · 17:29 UTC
Thank you all for the feedback. For those of you hanging in the air, press enter to restart level! But i guess we'll fix that in the future :)
Canard Sauvage
24. Apr 2012 · 21:18 UTC
Best jam entry so far. Everything is great about this game - the art, the music, the gameplay and the idea! It prevents me from playing and rating more games, as I need to play it more...
Jacic
24. Apr 2012 · 21:35 UTC
Nice mechanic, and great art!
Monkey Armada
24. Apr 2012 · 21:38 UTC
I really enjoyed this one. Graphics and audio superb.
Rex Peppers
24. Apr 2012 · 21:39 UTC
Really enjoying this game. Well done!
ziomorti
24. Apr 2012 · 21:43 UTC
Outstanding music and art. And good gameplay also! One of the best entries I've seen so far.
devwil
24. Apr 2012 · 21:53 UTC
beautiful sprites, but i found the mechanics and controls off-putting.
Jimjam
24. Apr 2012 · 22:01 UTC
Holy crap! 10/5 for graphics. This is a thing of beauty!
Riccardo Stucchi
24. Apr 2012 · 22:02 UTC
It's incredible, i love it!!! :D.. The style is great, the gameplay is amazing and the character is so cute!! It's a beautiful game!! Good Job!!! :)
Nocturne
24. Apr 2012 · 22:20 UTC
This is probably my highest rated game yet... stunning stuff! A really simple mechanic (done it myself (whistle...)) but beautifully tweaked to give it that innovative twist. Add some wonderful graphics, fitting music and ingenious music and you get one of the best games in the competition. Great stuff!
Norgg
24. Apr 2012 · 23:46 UTC
Love the art, like the mechanic.
jrasmussen24
25. Apr 2012 · 01:18 UTC
Great style going on with this. The aesthetics and music are beautiful-- the game mechanic seems a bit overdone within LD23, but you guys executed it perfectly.
TaoPhoenix
25. Apr 2012 · 05:13 UTC
I coudn't find anything to do. After the left and right arrows running my hands over the keys did nothing. And Bad Physics, if you're gonna let me run "under the planet", don't kill me by making me "fly off at Australia".
kasarun
25. Apr 2012 · 06:48 UTC
Good mechanics, but i need something to show me when i will leave the ground (like a speed indicator)
tripleVisionGames
25. Apr 2012 · 18:05 UTC
Every kind of awesome. Great graphics music and gameplay!
Keirua
25. Apr 2012 · 19:35 UTC
Wow. Graphics here are really original !
KevinWorkman
26. Apr 2012 · 04:26 UTC
Great game, one of my favorites. I try not to repeat what other people said, but they said it all. Great art, fun gameplay, good use of the theme. Nice work.
daandruff
26. Apr 2012 · 15:34 UTC
Amazing graphics and sound! Gameplay was a bit hard. I didn't really felt that I had any precision without a jump-button
dcolgan
27. Apr 2012 · 03:41 UTC
Really well done. The graphics are awesome, has a lot of polish. Controls were a bit frustrating and hard to figure out at first, but once I understood them, they worked well.
Danik
27. Apr 2012 · 09:51 UTC
The art is absolutely amazing!
The gameplay is interesting but hard. It was a little hard to control the character. Being able to jump would have been nice. But that might have made it less interesting, I'm not sure.
FunkyDelPueblo
28. Apr 2012 · 00:50 UTC
Graphics are amazing! The mechanic is innovative, but I'm really struggling with it. It just feels fairly awkward for me.
Digitalis
28. Apr 2012 · 02:01 UTC
Gorgeous art style and music!
I really enjoyed the gameplay as well- simple but really challenging with nice progression in difficulty.
The only, only thing that annoyed me was that, for some reason, I thought the pink house in one of the levels was mine, and got frustrated that nothing happened.

This is my favourite entry so far :D
Zemmi
28. Apr 2012 · 02:03 UTC
Dude, that was cool. I'm sad that I suck at it, but I had a lot of fun flinging the flailing rocket man through the air. When the demon came in I had to give up, maybe most people are better than me but I would slow him down a bit. Stellar art and music too by the way.
vitou3d
28. Apr 2012 · 04:57 UTC
the control is a bit frustrating. But it has Best audio and graphic so far. I love it!!!!
Lacutis
28. Apr 2012 · 06:49 UTC
The game was a lot of fun although the cloud monster that chases you is a little fast and it was frustrating trying to run away from him when I had no clue where I was going.
Great mechanic, like the game.
greg20man
28. Apr 2012 · 08:10 UTC
One of my favorite games so far, great art, great audio, the game was kind of hard but I just couldn't stop looking at it so I trudged on to victory.
gritfish
28. Apr 2012 · 08:25 UTC
AMAZING graphics, but for the love of god, let me jump! :D
Somehow this is like mario galaxy as a precision platformer... without jumping! Every jump hast to be JUST right (start about opposite from the direction you want to go?). Those clouds, man... how could I be angry drifting off into space in front of those?
bytegrove
28. Apr 2012 · 10:06 UTC
Lovely art style and great music, they both reminded me a little of the game Rock of Ages. Got some pretty annoying framerate issues on the level with the monster. Also, you might want to add some instructions in the beginning on how the planet hopping works.
Jedi
28. Apr 2012 · 12:19 UTC
The best overall entry I've seen so far! AWESOME! AMAZING! 5 stars left and right!

It's just too hard! I'm stuck at the 2nd level with the tentacled-monster-that-moves-way-too-fast. It's much, much too hard for the average Ludum Dare game but it's one of those rare entries that's good enough that it can be really hard; you don't mind spending extra time to get good at it. However, this one is still harder than that :). I turned my sound off so I can respawn indefinitely and come back. I intend to beat this :).

The music you found fits the game perfectly, although it gets repetitive after a while, especially since you hear the beginning so much.

While all of the artwork is amazing, I want to say that I thought designing the character to look a bit like a rocket was a REALLY nice touch :).
tlaine
28. Apr 2012 · 15:19 UTC
Awesome music, awesome graphics, awesome way to move. The second level with the Cthulhu creature was a bit too hard, I tried it around 15-20 times and couldn't beat it.
strega
28. Apr 2012 · 16:30 UTC
Beautiful art in a very unique style, and the music was great too!
kddekadenz
28. Apr 2012 · 16:48 UTC
This game is art!
dastry
28. Apr 2012 · 20:06 UTC
So good!!! I love it!
ilo
28. Apr 2012 · 22:04 UTC
The art style (which reminded me a little of Braid) was very accomplished. In particular, the charming rocket-shaped avatar and layers of clouds I liked a lot.

The jumping mechanic is intuitive, pleasing when you manage to successfully thread the character between two spiked planets, and you can keep adding new elements to the game to keep levels fresh.

However, I felt that, while the difference in the planet size or mass affecting how far you have to run to get into orbit added depth to the gameplay, it was frustrating to have to run a little bit, then stop, then run a bit more, then stop, until you get into a position to start a run up. This becomes most apparent when you're being chased by the monster. If the player controlled when they jumped, it would be easier, but then you'd need to change how the planet size affects the player.

If you were to develop this idea further, the gameplay could be more focused. I liked the challenge of accuracy in the early levels, but I'm not sure the monster chase complemented it. The monster could always be reconfigured as an area that the player must avoid falling into, like the spiky planets, rather than an a moving adversary, and more emphasis could be placed on the accuracy/puzzle/exploration part of levels. Or you could instead focus on the monster pursuing the player through hazards, but give the player more control over their jumping. Just a thought.

Also, since you restart a lot, it would be good to find a way of restarting without having the music restart, as it got a little irritating.
DDRKirby(ISQ)
29. Apr 2012 · 06:41 UTC
Cute, fun, and with an interesting learning curve. I didn't think the gameplay was quite that intuitive with the Z key fixing your radius. I'd also echo the previous comments about getting stuck in the air being a little annoying.
Jigxor
29. Apr 2012 · 09:52 UTC
This is the most beautiful game I've seen so far. I absolutely love the graphics, the presentation and the music is amazing! Very professional. I did find the later levels quite hard, but it was fun nonetheless. I could easily see this game being expanded into a very polished complete game, and I hope you do just that!

Overall, amazing game! I enjoyed it a lot :)
🎤 Zamando
29. Apr 2012 · 11:05 UTC
First of all I want to thank everybody for the great feedback and responses!

There is a lot of things we are going to change in future versions. For example removing the wait time when you get lost in space, music not restarting and such smaller things. We are going to tweak the gravity/radius each planet has and see if there is any way we can make that better. And we are also going to test every level we make more thoroughly, and make the difficulty cure less steep, and add more levels of course :D

Another thing i want to note is that we only made the music which plays during the title screen! The level music is credited to: www.audionautix.com. We are going to make our own music in the future, and it will be just as good ;) trust me on this one!

Finally for those who have used the Z key and found out that there is i kind of rope. That is actually not supposed to be there! So please do not play the game using the Z key :)

And once again thanks for all the responses, all kind of feedback we get makes us happy :D
/The team
Christina Antoinette Neofotistou
29. Apr 2012 · 21:37 UTC
This is awesome, you guys! Full marks :))
bompo
30. Apr 2012 · 07:46 UTC
Amazing art style!
tequibo
30. Apr 2012 · 10:03 UTC
Beautiful visuals!
I found it horribly hard to travel from one planet to another. I think character controls needs more work.
But one of the nicest looking game on Ludum Dare.
dray
30. Apr 2012 · 10:25 UTC
Beautiful art style !
MrDanH
30. Apr 2012 · 12:44 UTC
Occassionally infuriating but often entertaining, a nice idea for a short game
gelatindesign
30. Apr 2012 · 17:41 UTC
Spot on, loved it. Only minor gripe is the music resetting each time.
Julian Spillane
30. Apr 2012 · 17:44 UTC
Wow! What a breathtakingly beautiful visual style and a really fun mechanic. Great job! :)
mildmojo
30. Apr 2012 · 22:29 UTC
Like everyone else has said, beautiful art and great difficulty progression. It took me forever to get through the last level. =)

I really liked the tentacle monster as a pressure mechanic, and you made a great choice in keeping its collision area small. Several times, I was nearly engulfed in tentacles, trying to push the arrow key through the keyboard, going "aaaaAAAAAH!"

I'd make the cannon tip/fire animation run a lot faster. It should be a really gratifying reward at the end of a stressful level, and it feels a little sluggish right now.

My GGJ entry (Flare) was a planet-hopper and my LD23 entry (Single Cycles) is a one-button planet racer that penalizes you for building up too much speed and taking off. So you could say this game's up my alley. =) Nice work.
mooosh
30. Apr 2012 · 23:37 UTC
holy cow. the art, idea, and music in this is mind-blowing. I feel like I should have payed money for this.
Shadow
01. May 2012 · 02:46 UTC
Amazing art and music. Sadly there are a few "gravity-based games on small planets" this time around so it's not that innovative I'm afraid :/
The quality of this game however make it a top-notch entry and definitely one of the best games I've tried so far.
Pierrec
01. May 2012 · 16:21 UTC
Planet jumping is hard (especially taking of from bigger planets) but the game is lovely
Rémi
01. May 2012 · 19:49 UTC
EYE CANDY!
Thotep
02. May 2012 · 12:52 UTC
Amazing art style, I love it! The gameplay is a little bit frustrating, one bad move and I often have to restart the whole level...
MrBarnslig
03. May 2012 · 05:43 UTC
Wow, incredible art, really cool. I love it all, the backgrounds, the clouds, the little guy, the painting type planets. Didn't really match the title though, which was more goofy I thought. The music was great too, reminded me of Super Mario RPG.
Tomalla
03. May 2012 · 16:37 UTC
I love the idea of the 'jumping' technique. The graphics are astonishing! I just wish the background music wasn't restarting every single time I die. From what I see it's quite long and during my normal play-through I'm not ever going to listen to the whole piece.
marudziik
06. May 2012 · 13:39 UTC
Lovely, lovely graphics. Audio also works really well, and the gameplay is pretty solid. However, without checkpoints, the game does get frustrating quite soon. The monster level was too much for me, even with 'Z' cheat. I actually would prefer some kind of rope-like mechanic, jump button, or anything that would give me more control.
Oye Beto
07. May 2012 · 00:03 UTC
Amazing art and fun to play. Audio fits perfectly.

My only suggestions are:
- Don't reset the music.
- Slow down the dark blob or make easier levels.

Good job!
Wyzfen
07. May 2012 · 10:02 UTC
Beautiful game. loved the art, the music and the mechanics.
The third level was too hard for me :)
tcstyle
07. May 2012 · 18:41 UTC
What an awesome game. The graphics are great and the whole game feels very consistent. Awesome work. One of the best games I played so far.
Personally I found the flying monster too difficult.
BenW
08. May 2012 · 01:22 UTC
Best music I've heard so far. I don't like that I have to go slowly to the spot that I want to start running from. I wish there were some sort of key I could hold that would keep me stuck to the planet so I can line up my launch.
AD-Edge
08. May 2012 · 07:50 UTC
Innovative use of the whole 'little planet gravity' idea, I found timing the jumps a bit frustrating at times though.
Graphics were very nice!
heuermh
10. May 2012 · 05:36 UTC
Beautiful game. I still can't quite get the hang of it after playing for a while though.
ehtd
11. May 2012 · 01:16 UTC
Wow, great art!
thristhart
11. May 2012 · 11:56 UTC
Very pretty, but lack of checkpoints made it quickly tedious.
JonathanG
12. May 2012 · 16:56 UTC
Very good! The graphics are lovely :) I found the game quite hard though, it's difficult to judge how much of a run-up is needed and often I would just fly off the screen.
johanp
13. May 2012 · 07:38 UTC
Absolutely gorgeous! Nice gameplay idea but it is really hard to know where to start running in order to lift off from the correct position.
JellyFame
13. May 2012 · 12:10 UTC
Well done. So much fun, feels finished and polished which is rare in LD games.
But, Dude where are checkpoints? :D Too hard!
teomath
14. May 2012 · 09:37 UTC
Woohoo! Thanks for the votes everyone :D
csanyk
15. May 2012 · 04:38 UTC
This is completely amazing.