Lost Races' Abandoned Artifact Recovery by eli

made by eli for LD19 (COMPO)

[[WARNING: EXPERIMENTAL GAMEPLAY CONCEPT. Play at own risk.]]

Guide our hapless astronaut to technological riches left behind eons past. Each salvaged artifact can push human research ahead by decades, or even centuries.

But what happened to the race that created these treasures? Could they have been eradicated by an even more mysterious THIRD civilization, watching from across the galaxy?

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Created with Flixel, in FlashDevelop.

Other tools used:

* Photoshop
* GraphicsGale
* 3d Studio
* sfxr
* Tiled
* Audacity
(I hope I didn't forget anything.)

Proof of concept done in MATLAB (also included with source).

Thanks to Daniel, Vitaly, and Wolfgang, who provided valuable feedback.

ps. I don't know if I'm any closer to being a game developer.
pps. thank you Ludum Dare! It was fun.

Web (Flash)	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35062/discovery.swf
Source	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35062/LD19%20-%20Discovery%20-%20Eli%20Brody%20%28Source%29.zip
Coroner's Report ("What Went Wrong")	http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2010/12/24/lost-races-artifact-recovery-coroners-report/
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-19/?action=preview&uid=1395

Ratings

Coolness	4%	121
Overall	3.13	80

Audio	3.35	35
Community	3.31	66
Fun	2.57	140
Graphics	2.43	174
Humor	2.77	60
Innovation	3.17	75
Theme	3.35	77

Feedback

r4m0n

20. Dec 2010 · 03:36 UTC

Nice game overall!

Furyhunter

20. Dec 2010 · 04:46 UTC

Interesting idea but doesn't have a lot of expansion after it is introduced to the player, therefore becomes a bit grindey and bland. The weird voices creeped me out though.

zdanielz

20. Dec 2010 · 09:19 UTC

Great work man! I LOVE the audio, so weird, in a wonderful way! Well made, although I wish gameplay was a bit more concise... GO GO!

ladron

21. Dec 2010 · 01:08 UTC

I'm always amazed at my willingness to let computer games give me menial tasks. The payoff was a bit of a let down...

Smudge

21. Dec 2010 · 11:32 UTC

The audio was Great! really made me want to finish the game to hear more weird voices (should I be worried?) and thought that the idea was quite different as well. But as good as the audio was, I was really disappointed at the end, I was looking forward to a translation or story or something, other than just a finish screen. Good overall though.

🎤 eli

21. Dec 2010 · 13:23 UTC

Thanks, everyone for feedback.

I'm very interested in hearing if anyone managed to LOSE the game. That was kind of the point. If everyone who finished managed to win the game, then it's even worse than I thought =)

Squax

23. Dec 2010 · 18:49 UTC

I lost ;_: The alien noises were creepy.

thristhart

26. Dec 2010 · 14:57 UTC

I think the biggest mistake you made in the game design was assuming that players would make new piles for each artifact. I just moved my one pile from each artifact to the next, and this never gained much alien attention. Top notch audio.

Endurion

31. Dec 2010 · 08:12 UTC

A few interesting ideas in there, but they didn't want to come together.
The alien overlord thingie is nice but it didn't make any impact I could deduce.

joekinley

01. Jan 2011 · 22:03 UTC

At least you posted a post mortem, some blog entries. But i did not get what you said about the timelapse. So is there one or not? I don't see a link so none for me to give a point to.

You said the game is no fun. But actually I had at least this much fun to play through it to the end. Yeah I did not get the mini map, also not the alien stuff, but i found it rather ambient. I liked it actually.

So yeah, I did have fun, the graphics were nice, the game was simple enough to finish for my ADD self, so yeah. Good work there.

🎤 eli

02. Jan 2011 · 07:41 UTC

@squax, @thristhart, @endurion: I guess relying on that one mechanic was much too flimsy. Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to improve!

@joekinley: I didn't make a timelapse, and I don't believe I ever mentioned one. Thanks for the feedback!

ChainedLupine

10. Jan 2011 · 04:45 UTC

Cool idea. It took me a little bit to get the game mechanics, but once I did I thought it was quite interesting.