muniverse by namuol
Written in HTML5/Javascript(CoffeeScript) and using Akihabara (http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/).
Most notable missing features are a proper HUD and sound/music. (But I have begun to add SFX to the post-jam version.)
Update:
If you're interested in seeing what I do with this, follow my devlog (muniverse-game.tumblr.com) or @louroboros on twitter. Cheers!
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The biggest problem was that I didn't have the time to do any real playtesting, so there will definitely be bugs and balance problems, heh.
Anyway, enough excuses. Let me explain the game.
(mu)niverse is a very simplified version of a space exploration/trade/action game. It feels a bit like Elite but with top-down 2D of Star Control II, if you're familiar with either of those games. You select a star system, then a planet/moon, and there you can gather resources, visit space stations, pick up passengers, trade goods, and encounter simple enemies.
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Instructions:
Star Map:
- Arrow Keys move cursor to select star system, highlighted with green circle.
- Large turquoise circle is the range of your FTL fuel.
- 'Z' selects star system
- 'C' returns to Flight Mode
Planet Map:
- Arrow Keys move cursor to select a planet you wish to visit.
- 'Z' travels to that planet (instantaneously) and puts you in Flight Mode
- 'C' returns to Star Map
Flight Mode:
- Arrow Keys -- control is much like classic Asteroids.
* Down is afterburner ("brake").
- 'Z' fire cannon.
- "Park" over a space station for a few seconds to enter the Station Screen
- Blinking pixels on and around planets are resources -- fly into them to collect them.
Station Screen:
- 'C' to exit the Station.
- Up/Down to select different items on current screen.
- Left/Right change screen (Cargo[trade], Missions, Hangar)
* Cargo
- 'Z' - Buy selected good
- 'X' - Sell selected good
* Missions
- 'Z' - Accept/Abandon selected mission
* Hangar
- 'Z' - Purchase selected upgrade
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Some stuff that I want to be able to happen in the final version:
- More visual variety of planets, stations, enemies, etc.
- More than Taxi missions.
* Research missions -- acquire and return goods from a remote planet.
* Transporting unruly prisoners...
* Bounty hunting.
- FTFTL (faster than FTL) jumping to different sectors of the Galaxy (Galaxy Screen and Jump-gates).
- Building a reputation against the police. :)
- Hiring crewmembers
* Mechanic - Automatically repairs your ship mid-flight if you have scrap metal.
* Smuggler - Reduces your chance of being caught with fugitive passengers or illegal goods.
* Muscle - Keeps unruly passengers in order.
- Jettisoning anything and everything, including passengers and bombs...
Full disclosure: yes, I have fixed a handful of bugs -- mostly crash-bugs -- post-jam. Anything major added feature-wise will be on the "Post-Jam Online" version. I intend to continue working on this game so let me know if you have any ideas!
Most notable missing features are a proper HUD and sound/music. (But I have begun to add SFX to the post-jam version.)
Update:
If you're interested in seeing what I do with this, follow my devlog (muniverse-game.tumblr.com) or @louroboros on twitter. Cheers!
---
The biggest problem was that I didn't have the time to do any real playtesting, so there will definitely be bugs and balance problems, heh.
Anyway, enough excuses. Let me explain the game.
(mu)niverse is a very simplified version of a space exploration/trade/action game. It feels a bit like Elite but with top-down 2D of Star Control II, if you're familiar with either of those games. You select a star system, then a planet/moon, and there you can gather resources, visit space stations, pick up passengers, trade goods, and encounter simple enemies.
---
Instructions:
Star Map:
- Arrow Keys move cursor to select star system, highlighted with green circle.
- Large turquoise circle is the range of your FTL fuel.
- 'Z' selects star system
- 'C' returns to Flight Mode
Planet Map:
- Arrow Keys move cursor to select a planet you wish to visit.
- 'Z' travels to that planet (instantaneously) and puts you in Flight Mode
- 'C' returns to Star Map
Flight Mode:
- Arrow Keys -- control is much like classic Asteroids.
* Down is afterburner ("brake").
- 'Z' fire cannon.
- "Park" over a space station for a few seconds to enter the Station Screen
- Blinking pixels on and around planets are resources -- fly into them to collect them.
Station Screen:
- 'C' to exit the Station.
- Up/Down to select different items on current screen.
- Left/Right change screen (Cargo[trade], Missions, Hangar)
* Cargo
- 'Z' - Buy selected good
- 'X' - Sell selected good
* Missions
- 'Z' - Accept/Abandon selected mission
* Hangar
- 'Z' - Purchase selected upgrade
---
Some stuff that I want to be able to happen in the final version:
- More visual variety of planets, stations, enemies, etc.
- More than Taxi missions.
* Research missions -- acquire and return goods from a remote planet.
* Transporting unruly prisoners...
* Bounty hunting.
- FTFTL (faster than FTL) jumping to different sectors of the Galaxy (Galaxy Screen and Jump-gates).
- Building a reputation against the police. :)
- Hiring crewmembers
* Mechanic - Automatically repairs your ship mid-flight if you have scrap metal.
* Smuggler - Reduces your chance of being caught with fugitive passengers or illegal goods.
* Muscle - Keeps unruly passengers in order.
- Jettisoning anything and everything, including passengers and bombs...
Full disclosure: yes, I have fixed a handful of bugs -- mostly crash-bugs -- post-jam. Anything major added feature-wise will be on the "Post-Jam Online" version. I intend to continue working on this game so let me know if you have any ideas!
| Web | http://namuol.github.com/tinyverse |
| Source | http://github.com/namuol/tinyverse |
| Web (post-jam) | http://namuol.github.com/muniverse |
| Source (post-jam) | http://github.com/namuol/muniverse |
| Devlog | http://muniverse-game.tumblr.com/ |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=12236 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 89% | 2 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.50 | 58 |
| Audio(Jam) | 1.56 | 197 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.13 | 69 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 3.08 | 144 |
| Humor(Jam) | 1.90 | 181 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.19 | 92 |
| Mood(Jam) | 3.05 | 91 |
| Theme(Jam) | 2.54 | 187 |
With more content this could be a great game, I hope you keep working on it.
Thanks, guys! Just keep an eye on http://github.com/namuol/muniverse to see if I've been actively developing stuff for it. I may start keeping a development log once I clean up the code-base and ready it for serious development.
Thanks! I was trying to go for a small-worlds among an epic galaxy vibe. ;)
The controls -are- difficult -- it really takes some practice, which I had a little too much of for my own good, probably. My only advice is to try to use the thrusters in short bursts, and to press the 'down' key to gradually bring yourself to a stop without careening in circles by trying to do so with the thrusters.
In the final version I'm going to have two flight modes, automatic and manual -- automatic will always apply afterburner when you're not using thrusters, manual will require you to do so... manually.
Anyway, I'd love to see where this goes from here. I'll try to keep my eye on this, but just in case, feel free to message me here and poke me as well to try it out!
My biggest issue is the controls in flight mode. There's way too much inertia on that thing. A video game spaceship needs to go from 0 to max speed in a couple seconds at most.
I thought it was a nice touch to have moons to the planets in a somewhat realistic way.
Picking up fuel and minerals is a bit tedious due to their small size though. Combat works very well.
The only negative is the lack of any sound and the rather steep difficulty level.
Excellent game!
I was mostly trying to shrink the perceived "epicness" of the space-trade/exploration genre by making it a less "invested" experience -- sorta like what Desktop Dungeons did for roguelikes. Still working on that, though...
I like that you can buy and sell stuff and take missions... this reminds me of a very nice game, Freelancer. And since I mentioned Freelancer, you could add jump gates to make travelling faster and reduce the maximum speed when in piloting mode so you can better maneuver in combat.
I did notice a bug: when piloting at relatively low speed chunks of the star-background in the lower right corner will not render. This however is not happening when travelling at high speed.
oh, and it's all done in HTML5/JavaScript... really really nice!
All in all, I'd like to say that this game has LOTS of potential...
The starmap only shows a small region (about 1/100,000th) of the full size of the galaxy. :)
Also, surprised to see Akihabara! Brings back memories... You might want to check out EnchantJs, though, which has a much neater codebase, even if the examples are less complete:
http://enchantjs.com
I'm probably going to wind up creating my own backend to replace akihabara at some point, but I'll keep enchant in mind!
Nice job!