Escape Velocity by Jedi
You're an indentured pilot, working for EscaCorp interstellar delivery company.
Your father was also a pilot but he crashed the company's ship, leaving you with his debt.
Your boss gives you so little fuel for each trip, you're lucky not to slam into a planet or be lost careening into deep space! You have no choice though; you're just a few deliveries away from earning your freedom!
You have to use the gravity of stars and planets to slingshot your way to the delivery zone!
Use the arrow keys to accelerate but watch your fuel! (METER ON THE LEFT)
F5 resets the game. I said F5 RESETS THE GAME!
Pause pauses :)
Note: The delivery zone is always to your right somewhere.
Thanks for playing! :)
By the way, this is my first Ludum Dare entry. I really appreciate every comment that lets me know someone has played it and REALLY appreciate the great feedback I've been getting!
Post-compo EDITS:
I now have 3 executables in my .zip. See readme.txt and take your pick! Extra-crispy is the latest and greatest and by far the tastiest but is VERY post-compo [latest is v1.2].
New Features Added:
Multiple ships (extra lives).
Menu with multiple difficulties.
Target zone indicator.
Animation and more.
The compo executable is there too (EV_Gross_Compo.exe) and none of it's original assets have been fiddled with.
I now have a linux executable and source! THANKS JohanAR!
Your father was also a pilot but he crashed the company's ship, leaving you with his debt.
Your boss gives you so little fuel for each trip, you're lucky not to slam into a planet or be lost careening into deep space! You have no choice though; you're just a few deliveries away from earning your freedom!
You have to use the gravity of stars and planets to slingshot your way to the delivery zone!
Use the arrow keys to accelerate but watch your fuel! (METER ON THE LEFT)
F5 resets the game. I said F5 RESETS THE GAME!
Pause pauses :)
Note: The delivery zone is always to your right somewhere.
Thanks for playing! :)
By the way, this is my first Ludum Dare entry. I really appreciate every comment that lets me know someone has played it and REALLY appreciate the great feedback I've been getting!
Post-compo EDITS:
I now have 3 executables in my .zip. See readme.txt and take your pick! Extra-crispy is the latest and greatest and by far the tastiest but is VERY post-compo [latest is v1.2].
New Features Added:
Multiple ships (extra lives).
Menu with multiple difficulties.
Target zone indicator.
Animation and more.
The compo executable is there too (EV_Gross_Compo.exe) and none of it's original assets have been fiddled with.
I now have a linux executable and source! THANKS JohanAR!
| Windows + source | http://sites.google.com/site/ajedisjourney/home/EscapeVelocity.zip |
| Timelapse | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CCW04m6kGc |
| Linux-64 + source | http://sites.google.com/site/ajedisjourney/home/Jedi_Escape.zip |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=4799 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 16% | 20 |
| Overall(Jam) | 2.38 | 61 |
| Audio(Jam) | 1.94 | 49 |
| Community | 2.88 | 161 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.24 | 49 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 1.60 | 85 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.19 | 35 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 2.85 | 28 |
| Theme(Jam) | 2.53 | 56 |
I wonder if what you're describing isn't what I would call "featurey" though ;). I worked hard to tweak the Star-Trek-(go-back-in-time)-slingshot-feel of the gravity and I like it for the gameplay.
For the record, BlueShaman, it's definitely not down to luck! (Unless you're seeing a bug, which is quite possible) I can beat the 1st level w/ over 90% fuel left about 90% of the time.
I've (hopefully) fixed it so it's framerate independent and at least rocks or sucks the same on most every pc.
It was a small change: I was updating the physics every frame feeding it the amount of time passed, now I update the physics with a set stepping (1/200th of a second), updating it multiple times if necessary.
I made this change so the game would play for everyone but RIGHT away I noticed the playability on my pc went up about 150%! I said, "Yup. That was it." ;)
I left the physics otherwise alone. I can now beat my own game about 25% of the time and, at least for me, it's always fun :). Keep the comments coming, please!
I didn't see the escape theme at all, but it's a nice entry. Try balancing a little bit the game, by either reducing the speed or giving the player more fuel and perhaps a way to slow down or stop (that may consume fuel too). Overall quite interesting. Hope you finish it someday.
However, the game still has very little content despite being promising. I feel that you should keep developing it further.
I have a new version up, 1.2, that I hope addresses some of the issues you guys had with the earlier stuff. Check it out!
Andrew - thanks! Do you mind if I ask what gave you the impression it would be less fun than it was? Was it the crappy Paint graphics?
ointment - thanks! I wasn't expecting a high anything-rating :P. I appreciate the encouragement.
Rudy - I know they don't look like stars, that's why they're labeled :P. Glad it made you laugh. Better appearance is something that's definitely in my plans but I think it's going to mean getting some artists involved and probably moving to something more robust than SDL. I'm nearing that point now (and interested in suggestions) but I wanted to fix the gameplay issues first.
eli - Yay! You noticed my theme connections as well as my music! You rock. :D
Everyone else who commented here and who helped on IRC - Thanks for playing! :D
My biggest complain for this game is that I had to download a ~22MiB library just to play some “beeps”… I guess that you just got what you've used to, but please, next time think of these that don't have unlimited bandwidth ;-)