Harvest by dave84

made by dave84 for LD21 (-)

Plot:

You are the captain of an alien vessel that was transporting humans across the galaxy to be probed. The humans revolted and managed to explosively decompress themselves into space (wearing space suits). You were travelling so fast that they're spread out across several solar systems. Round up as many as you can. Don't let them escape.

How to play:

Click behind the ship to thrust it forward. You are pulled by the planets gravity. When all the humans in that system are collected, a portal to the next solar system will open. Fly into it to progress.

Goal:

Collect as many humans as possible. High scores game. High scores aren't saved to disk. You have 5 lives. Good Luck.

Technical Details:

Written in Python (www.python.org). Requires Pyglet (http://code.google.com/p/pyglet/). Graphics were created in Pixelmator. Sounds were created in as3sfxr. The logo font is Pirulin by Typodermic. Free for commercial use.

It should run on Linux if you have python and pyglet installed, but I haven't had a chance to test it recently. Apologies if it doesn't work for you. Assets are included with the source distribution.

Windows	https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/digitalsideburns.com/HarvestWin.zip
OS X	https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/digitalsideburns.com/HarvestMac.zip
Linux (source)	https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/digitalsideburns.com/HarvestSource.zip
Source	https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/digitalsideburns.com/HarvestSource.zip
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=5563

Ratings

Coolness	3%	183
Overall	2.59	345

Audio	1.88	301
Community	2.00	336
Fun	2.35	330
Graphics	3.18	153
Humor	1.08	464
Innovation	3.12	164
Theme	1.53	493

Feedback

N0_Named_Guy

22. Aug 2011 · 20:30 UTC

The game may be great for the fans of this genre, but I had no fun while playing =X I don't like to click around to move the ship. Awkward controls ruined what could be a good game. =(

BlueShaman

22. Aug 2011 · 20:55 UTC

The controls weren't too good. . . A smoother control setup would have made the game a lot, lot better.

tordre

22. Aug 2011 · 22:56 UTC

I agree the controls are not intuitive, especially when trying to navigate while the ship is at the edge of the board, maybe a frame around the game board could be used as an additional input area to account for this, I lost most of the time by loosing focus of the window. This could also be improved by an auto-pause feature.

I had some fun, and the gravity mechanic worked great.

Hi-Score of 567

dramble

23. Aug 2011 · 00:32 UTC

Might make for an interesting iPhone or other touch platform game if it were spiced up a bit. Not sure how it relates to the theme really.

Shigor

23. Aug 2011 · 19:13 UTC

Controls are really killing it in a big way...

jonnopon3000

23. Aug 2011 · 20:18 UTC

I didn't like the controls, and the game doesn't seem to fit the theme well, but I loved the art and the gravity mechanic. A good game with some potentially very bad problems.

🎤 dave84

23. Aug 2011 · 20:50 UTC

Thanks for all the feedback!

Looks like I dropped the ball on the controls.
If any of you have suggestions for a control scheme you'd like, let me know. At the moment I've a build where the ship is attracted by the cursor instead of repulsed, but I don't know if the mouse is the problem in general or just the repulsion.

As for the theme not fitting, I tried not to be too obvious, having the humans be escaped rather than the player escaping from somewhere.

Thanks for all the feedback.

snesgaard

24. Aug 2011 · 00:01 UTC

Not to beat a dead horse, but the controls feels like playing Catherine after the Butt monster reverses your directional controls :P

Maybe some turret style controls would be an improvement.

Arron Fowler

24. Aug 2011 · 09:26 UTC

I love the controls. I found you from your tweet and I thought I would check it out. Yes they are not what I was ready for. Yes I died quite quickly to start with. After a while I found the controls made for some "seat of my pants" game play. This is exactly what I like. Too many games do not challenge you to become skilled at using them. This one does and for that I beg you not to change the controls. I think your game is suffering from the fact that with so many entries it is difficult to invest time into any one game. I am keeping your file on my mac and plan to play it once this judging is all over. Please think about extending it I would be interested in beta testing. Please check out my equally difficult to control game "Anti Puck" good luck

pdyxs

24. Aug 2011 · 11:48 UTC

So yeah, as mentioned on twitter - I'm with Arron on this one, and you're controls are a feature, not a bug. They add a completely new way of interacting with the game space, and are a great addition.

There's two 'but's to this if you're gonna continue with this project (and I'd love you to, coz it's super fun... but then again, I'm a sucker for gravity/physics):
First, you need to teach the controls, and make them more integral. They're a feature, so feature them.
Second, the edges are a problem. A few times I wanted to move my ship away from the edge and I simply couldn't get my cursor in the space. Maybe have an extra space around the sides that is clickable but not part of the game space?

tcstyle

26. Aug 2011 · 12:15 UTC

The controls took some time to get into but after that worked fine. What caused bigger problems to me were the screen edges where it's very difficult if not impossible to place a counter impulse to your ship.
The graphics are nice.

Cosmologicon

27. Aug 2011 · 23:28 UTC

Hey not bad. The controls did take some getting used to, but once I did I thought they were fine. I think it would work well on a touch screen. Contrary to another rater, I found that the game encouraged me to go as slow as possible; this could be changed by having the planets or humans move. Once I figured out to click repeatedly rather than hold down the mouse, the game became fairly easy and tedious. I would have liked more progression of difficulty. I quit after finishing like 6 levels in a row without dying.

Oh, one thing I like is that sometimes the best way from point A to point B is off the edge of the screen.

johnfn

29. Aug 2011 · 05:22 UTC

Too bad about the controls, cause this is otherwise a pretty nice game. Would like some more variation in later levels though. Also, more lives! The game is kinda unforgiving on that point :)

Six

30. Aug 2011 · 10:27 UTC

Reasonable fun and plays fine, though not too much to hold you have you clear a few screens. I think the controls are ok, though you might want to add in a delay to how often you can click, tied to the engine flame graphic.

A way you could make the controls a lot more accessible, and I think make the game quite a bit more interesting, would be to calculate where the ship will go over the next few seconds with the current trajectory and draw a curve showing that. You could even make it red if there will be a collision and green otherwise, and explain it away as being the ships navigation computer or some such.

summaky

05. Sep 2011 · 18:36 UTC

As others, I also think that it takes some time to get used to the controls. But once you get the hang of it, isn't so bad. The worse I could find is that is is a little too loosely tied to the theme and that at the corners the ship is almost impossible to controll. The graphics are well done and the sound effects good enough.

Benjamin

11. Sep 2011 · 14:20 UTC

I like the control. They are the most important part of the game. Maybe you should have put a "no danger" tutorial first zone with just one exit to help the player experiment it. I also like the graphics. Good overall