This is a very nice game! The character sprite is quite charming in particular. The central premise is also very good.

If I were to give one piece of constructive criticism, it would be to add more variety to the levels, perhaps in the form of more obstacles, combat or more objectives. Of course, given the Ludum Dare time constraints what you have already created is pretty great in itself. Also, I don't know what you used for the soundtrack but I enjoyed it!

This is a good entry, and if you do decide to expand on it, it would make at least *me* happy.

Fun game! I really liked the mission objective :D You rarely play as the 'bad guy', even if it's a cute robot on threads.
Building heat shields to get to further levels was fun.
The controls were crisp and responsive. Planet Barron was a nice challenge. Good fun.

Great entry! I like the idea, and that you squeezed in two different mechanics in there. Everything works great and as expected, nice and consistent audiovisual theme.

And I'll join the previous voices: I'd be happy to see it expanded :)

@alexhoratio Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the level variety is definitely the main thing I wanted to improve if I had more time. The soundtrack was made with BeepBox (http://www.beepbox.co).

@shodanon The planets (and their names) are partially randomly generated, so I have no idea what Planet Barron entails. But I'm glad you liked it anyway.

@Takusan Thanks! I'll see if I can find more time/ideas to expand it in the future.

The aesthetics amaze me, it all just jells together. Reminds me of Star Control, without the alien encounters sadly. The controls are tight and the idea/design simple and effective. So what's wrong then...

Well, here's one way to put it. This is like a 2D No Man's Sky: a grind to the center of a vast system with way too little content, randomly spread way too thin. The lack of challenge is unfortunate. There is absolutely no reason to play this again, in fact I nearly gave up after 4 planets as they had no challenge at all!

Another title which randomly sprung to mind just now is Redder, an old Metroid inspired flash game. Highly recommended, if you can stomach flash that is.

In conclusion big points for presentation, small points for interactivity and challenge. Don't fret, have a :robot:

@huvaakodia I can certainly see where you're coming from. As said previously, I would've liked to add more obstacles or items to the planets if I had more time. Currently they can be a bit bland. As for difficulty: I'm not sure how far you got, but the planets do get more difficult as you get closer to the star. I actually tried to make this game fairly easy as my games are typically a bit too hard. Perhaps I went too far in the opposite direction.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback and I'm glad you liked the presentation.

Lovely graphics, nice idea! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation [video series](https://youtu.be/KYlBGlHp4vY), if you’d like to take a look :)

The visual style is really cool, and the drone is very cute. I like the music too, simple but catchy.

The gameplay is fun, the difficulty level is good for an LD game, though the first levels are a bit too simple, and you could have reduced the amount of planets so it can be completed a bit faster.

Really good entry overall.

@jupiter-hadley Thanks for featuring it. I'll definitely check out the video.

@avon I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yes, I'm certainly seeing now that I should have reduced the number of planets (and the size of the solar system).

Great work, I love the look and feel. A significant achievement in 48 hours. Most of my criticism mirrors the above. I played through to achieving the first heat shield to see if the next level was significantly different but it was more of the same and I'd already got bored. It can be hard to judge ramping difficulty in your own games, I can relate to the problem of having made your games to hard in the past. This does definitely need to ramp faster though. I'm curious as to how you would plan to extend it. I like the idea of it being a bit of a puzzle game on the planets with no enemies still but problems to solve. If you want to keep it pure jumping around I'd add a lot more richness to the environments so the exploring was more interesting. I think coming out of an LD with a game that's begging to be extended is a really good result. You could take this base in many directions. With the over world and psuedo-randomly generated planets you've really achieved a lot in two days. Well done.

Really nice audio and visual wise, each planet had a different color scheme and most had a different audio track, making the whole thing really nice to explore and experience.

The gameplay was fine, nothing too fancy, but it was fun moving through each of the planets, especially later on with the hazards.

I feel like it would have been a bit better however if there were a few less planets, as some of the areas were just copies of other planet's areas, which detracted from the exploration aspect.

Overall, was fun to play through, would recommend.

The pixel art is pretty good and the space look great.
The gameplay is simple but can bring fun. I'd love to see more activities on the planets. But that just means there is a lot more fun you can archive with this game and a little bit of time :grin: Oh and the audio is fantastic, really catchy!

Good job!

@veralos The very standard of a 5/5 entry in my opinion. Solid engaging gameplay, felt good no bugs. Great use of taking the idea of small world and acheiving still a prolonging sense of exploration. I played through the entire game, was defiantly worth the time. The gameplay achieves an unexpected level of depth as your progress towards the sun. Sound track made for a great vibe. What were your dev tools?

@flipsy Thanks for the feedback. I haven't put too much thought into how to extend it yet, so any suggestions are welcome.

@chao There's actually only 3 different tracks that get randomly assigned to each of the 12 planets, but I must be doing something right if you didn't notice the repetition too much.

@samurai-spark Thanks.

@ratbag I'm glad you liked it. I used Game Maker: Studio (game and graphics), Bfxr (sound effects) and BeepBox (music). I'll add that information to the description.

I enjoyed difficulty from level, two, it felt challenging but not frustrating.
Great game, in every way

Since the voting is up, I've added rating to my earlier feedback. Cheers!

After the first few planets, I worried that it would just turn out to be a boring 'walk about and collect resources' game, but once I had gotten to the second selection of planets, I fell in love with the surprisingly tight controls and well-designed levels. Especially how the nature of looping around planets allowed you to approach levels from different angles.

The amount of music in the game is very impressive, I had just wished there were a bit more veriety with obstacles.

A wonderful, surprisingly fun little entry!

Cool game! Loving the style and how good the controls feel. Simple but effective.
Background music could use a bit more variation (on the planets).
I like the looping around the levels, that's a nice touch.
Planets could have used maybe another added difficulty, most of them weren't really that challenging.

The switch between piloting a ship and running around on a planet is nicely done, works well together. Overall, good job.

@veralos, no problem I showed the game to my non dev friends and they all had a blast. Cool thanks bud havent used GM since high school days I should take another look at it some time. Cheers

@kabalatrance I assume by "level two" you mean the second ring of planets? Yes, that's certainly when the challenge picks up bit.

@mr-field Glad you enjoyed the choice that the looping gives you. I made you return to the ship when you die specifically so that you have a chance to try going the other way.

@mathijsvissers Thanks. Sorry about the lack of musical variety and difficulty.

A very polished retro game! I really love a lot of the design choices you made with the game: color palettes for different planets, difficulty ramp as we go towards the sun, player dying and respawning at the ship, ship's flash/beep when getting into heated area, UI ducking when player jumps at top of the screen. I think all these small things really shine through and you end up feeling the tight polish. If I could nitpick, I would have liked to see more level variation (obstacles, aliens..etc) or more things to do in the galaxy map section. Overall, really fun game!

The ship is so cool, haha. And the legs of robot as a continuous track is such a nice choice.
It is amazing your control of project scope. It is like you know exactly how much you can make during the deadline (which few programmers can do). And I bet you also use these tools frequently, right (GMS, BeepBox etc)? :laughing:

###### Oh, and btw. Thank you for trying my game too, maybe you played an outdated version of it. I just noticed Itch.io was displaying the wrong one on top of the most recent one.

Really great execution of the theme!

I've been pleased to play your game, I liked going from one planet to another, discovering them and trying to get everything!

I also liked how you put a name for each of the planet, it feels like there could be some lore and to develop a story with that!

There was just one thing that frustrated me a bit, that was sometimes when I died to an obstacle, and that I had go back to the point I died to try it again, but I guess that's also part of the gameplay, it made me come back at it :p

Oh and just sometimes trying to get close to a planet with the ship was a bit rough.

Overall that was really nice, congrats! :D

Oh, man. I really want to play this--I dig the crazy CGA colors. Any chance of a web or Mac build?

@wildmusketeer It's good to hear that you enjoyed all those details.

@meronsoda Don't tell anyone, but the drone has treads mainly because they're a lot easier to animate than actual legs. I don't know if I'm that great with scope - this was maybe a bit too ambitious with two different control styles and the random generation (which I'd never done before), but I managed to get the basics done. I've used Bfxr and Game Maker (at least the previous versions) for a while, but I only started using BeepBox fairly recently.

When it comes to playing LD games, I want to base my ratings on the original submission so that's the version I will generally play. I'm sorry if I commented about an issue that you had fixed in an updated version.

@mewsoul Glad you liked the planet names - one of my favourite parts of the game is the silly planet names it generates. I'm surprised you're the first person to have difficulty with landing. The ship controls could be polished a bit.

@simonhutchinson The engine I used (Game Maker Studio) requires specific modules to export to platforms other than Windows. Unfortunately, these are no longer available for the version I used. To create a Mac/Web version I would need to purchase the newer version and port the game to it. It's possible - and since you've expressed interest I'll try looking into it - but I can't make any guarantees.

@simonhutchinson Good news! I managed to get a web version working. It's now available on the same page as the Windows version.

Cool! I like it. Great idea and progression, and I love the ship controls (that you need to be moving to steer too).

It feels like it needs on more "thing." I'm not sure what that thing is, but, at the currently length it starts to get a bit dull after the first couple of planets. If there were an enemy or some other challenge involved this would be perfect.

Oh, and love the graphics too!

@simonhutchinson Thanks for trying it out. The lack of stuff on the planets is a common criticism. There are obstacles on the second and third ring of planets, but I should have introduced them earlier.

Awesome game, I feel like you made alot of subtle choices that added up to a great experience. The foreground being over the main character, the collision boxes not being the exact size of the obstanocles (thanks for that), the sound track and art evoking fantastic 8 bit nostalgia. Very solid. You did a great job with the difficulty curve. I think the only thing I'd have done differently would have been fewer planets so you didn't have to spread new levels so thin. Still that's the most I can say. Very well done!

Charming, but really samey for how long it is. Many of the screens had some very satisfying challenge, but the good will I had for the initial charm was quickly eroded away by frustration when a challenge I was satisfied to have beaten popped up on another planet, completely unchanged. I feel like you could have halved the number of planets and condensed away the re-used screens and it would have flowed much better.

Still, the music was very nice and the matter-of-factness of the ending left me on a good note.

Pretty simple game, but I enjoyed playing.
SFX was pretty good, songs were great, but some sounds were a little too loud, I think.
I liked how map difficulty had progression the closer you were to the sun, even if they were randomly generated.
Overall a pretty solid game.

Enjoyed playing this and impressive scope in terms of having two modes and a number of different levels. I liked the successive heat shields as a difficulty gating mechanic as well (at least for the first layer, the levels didn't seem to get much harder after that). Lots of nice little touches like the title getting out of the way when at the top of the screen, terrain showing both in front and behind of the player, etc...

My only real complaint is the lack of diversity in room layouts, after the second set of planets I kept seeing repeats of room layouts, but it is a jam after all so that's a pretty minor complaint (maybe cut the # of layers down by 1 until there are more rooms?).

Played to completion, good entry!
Found controlling the ship a bit awkward, being unable to turn in place, but got the hang of it.
Level screens often seemed to repeat layouts, but difficulty level was right in the sweet spot. Introducing some of the hazards (spike balls, moving things) earlier probably wouldn't hurt, though.

Great job! My cat also enjoyed swiping at the little guy as he ran and jumped across the screen.


Feels good!

Loved this game! The platforming was cool, the graphics on the planets worked REALLY well together, and the levels were interesting enough to keep me playing to the end.

I could DEFINITELY see this game be a great game for speed running, figuring out the optimal routes, should I go left, should I go right? When is it appropriate to suicide to return to the ship, etc.

Overall great job! You could tell a lot of work went into this game and I had a great time playing it

This game has a spectacular audiovisual presentation. The music is fantastic and really draws a contrast between space travel and planet exploration. I just love the little pitter patter of the drone's treads as I walk. The art style of both the space and planet sections is minimalist and gorgeous. I really love the color pallet! In terms of gameplay, the controls are nice, tough I wish I could turn the spaceship while at a stand still as it was occasionally finicky to turn towards a planet. The gameplay is simple yet fun, although the pacing is way too slow. You have four planets per area, but there's really only enough content to warrant two. As it is now, the gameplay gets repetitive fast. Also, I'm not 100% convinced by the use of theme. The theme "A Small World" isn't just carte blanche to make a space game. Maybe I'm being nitpicky; the planets themselves are small I guess, but there's no singular small world here. Eh, okay, I guess it works now that I think about it. I'm mostly keeping this criticism in because I like the line where I say "carte blanche;" using fancy words makes me feel good about myself. Other than these issues, the game is fun and relaxing with an incredible presentation.

I have a total soft spot for games like this, exploration-platforming just scratches a bit of that Metroidvania itch, even if this game has none of the usual hallmarks of that genre. Certainly it would have been nice to have more variety (differences in kind), but in the short format I did complete it without it feeling repetitive.

I always love seeing people do procedural generation during Ludum Dare (even if I didn't do any myself time around).

Other than that, I can only echo what everyone else said about the aesthetics, the game looks and sounds very nice. Kudos to you.

A starbound in 48 hours and 6 MB!
Controls are smooth and makes me wanna continue to play
The controls are great!
### Suggestions:
- I wanna an arrow to lead the direction to the nearest planet in the spaceship mode
- The difficult curve is not reasonable. A better idea is you just need to collect not all the crystals in an orbit, but maybe half of them. That makes the freedom and decreases the repetition.
- I wanna to see the environment change after your action and after the game progress. That can reduce the repetition too.
- Remember, less spawnpoint, more frustration.
- You've successfully create a accumulation/releasion of tension in each planet by putting different difficult levels in different distance. However, I donnot see a tension increase as you are getting closer and closer to the sun

Awesome game! I love the music and the levels, had an interesting concept that was executed very well! The art was rather simplistic but well done, and the game had a good amount of content in it. If I were to give this game some criticism I would say that the game got repetitive very quickly, through most levels I was just constantly doing the same thing and it got quite boring after some time. Other then that, this is a really good entry! I loved the space theme, good job!

Woah, that's a lot of comments to reply to. Well, here we go...

@jdoughty I don't know if I really put that much thought into all the "subtle choices", but I'm glad you appreciated them anyway.

@chris-delta Sorry about having to redo challenges. I underestimated how many unique rooms I would need to avoid noticeable repeats.

@ryujr Thanks for playing. What sound effects were too loud?

@joatski The third area is supposed to be harder than the second, but it's done in a bit of a roundabout way: I originally planned to create "easy", "medium" and "hard" screens that would be used for each successive area. In the end I only had time to make "easy" and "hard" screens. The first area uses only "easy", the third area uses only "hard" and the second uses a mix of both. This means that sometimes the second and third areas aren't that different since they both use the "hard" screens.

@primitive-concept The ship controls can certainly be a bit tricky. I might try allowing you to turn in place if/when I make a post-LD version.

@sean-m Good job destroying the solar system! It's always cool to see screenshots from players. I don't think the random generation would work for a speedrun game, but it's good to hear you found the routing options interesting.

@superpokeunicorn I'm glad you liked the presentation. I suppose I could have tried to fit the theme better, but I already had a vague idea for a game like this and the theme was close enough that it seemed like a good opportunity to try bringing that idea to life.

@philomory Yeah, I thought "procedural generation" (that phrase sounds a bit grandiose for my primitive attempt) would be an interesting challenge. I think I managed to pull it off okay, but there are definitely a lot of things I could have done better.

@fangzhangmnm I appreciate the detailed feedback. I don't know if you noticed it, but the minimap in the top right gives you a good idea of where nearby planets are. Still, an arrow couldn't hurt. Requiring only a certain portion of the ore/crystals is a very good idea that I wish I'd considered earlier. I did try to have a difficulty increase as you move closer to the star, but it could be done better.

@megalink If I was able to do things differently, I probably would've reduced the "good amount of content" in exchange for making it less repetitive/boring. Quality over quantity and all that.

What a great game. I like the minimalist visual presentation. At first I mis read the radar thin in the right corner. I thought the yellow dot where the ship and the with dot where the planets to reach. I could reach any planet and my ship got automatic distroid. After watching the video I saw my mistake :rolling_eyes:.

Interesting game, I liked the retro graphics and 8-bit music and sound effects. The game was a bit repetitive atleast in the beginning levels but the concept was innovative. Kind of reminds me of a game a friend showed me on Steam the other day, I can't recall what it was called though. Anyhow, good job!

@puppetmaster I hope the minimap was easy enough to understand once you figured it out. I didn't really think about adding an explanation for it.

@linus I'm pleased you liked the concept.

I can't even begin to explain how much I loved this. The graphics were perfect, the music was great, and the game was really fun. All of the level design was very fitting, and I was charmed by everything. The level design allowed for you to tackle each situation from 2 sides, which was brilliant, and the music made everything feel smaller when you were using the drone. My only complaint (literally my only one) is that you couldn't turn the ship while you weren't moving. This was one of my favorite entries - if not my favorite entry yet. Amazing job and thanks!

@chaseplays It's nice to know you enjoyed it so much. The ship's turning being based on its speed seemed logical when making the game, but it can make landing unnecessarily tricky. I might change that in a future version.

very nice game, , the paralax affect was really neat, and i loved how smooth the controls are, plus, i loved how you handled rotation, it really is smooth.
it took me few tries, before i understand that, i need to go to these planets, since i died twice or so, but afterwards, things got pretty straight forward.
and i loved the mini map, it was pretty neat, great job man.

@grasswhopper I'm sorry that it took you a few tries to figure things out. I didn't plan for a way to explain the basic premise. Glad you liked the mini-map. I though it was a pretty crucial to have one to make it easy to figure out where to go.

Love the premise! It was really exciting to fly around and visit all the planets. The parallax background effect was awesome, and I loved the pixel art. The music and sound effects were spot on as well. The platforming levels were fun, and I can see how the game could be expanded with more elements. I think it would have been cool if types of planets had different obstacles, like lava for volcanic planets or water for ocean planets. The controls at the beginning in the ship really confused me, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't turn left or right -- took me a bit to realize you have to be moving to turn left or right. I think it would be have been simpler just to let you spin the ship in place.

Really fun game, I really love exploration games and it definitely got me excited. Good work!

This was a really nice game, especially good considering the time given. It was a really cool idea that even fit the theme! With the planets and stuff, it was really interesting! For whatever reason it reminded me of a simpler, condensed 2D no man's sky of sorts. It reminded me of a game I made a long time ago, when i made sidescrollers, and yours was implemented very well.

Best things to me were:

-Gameplay - Simple, but effective. However, the depth of being able to move between planets in a ship added to it greatly.

-Graphics - I just love pixel art, and it was done really well here. See P1 to see my only problem.

-Idea - As said above, it was a really cool idea, going through each island like puzzle planet

Sound(ish) - Well put together sound that added to the game

P1:
My only few problems were the maps. I understand the limited amount of time given, and I suppose that is why, but the planets seemed kind of repetitive at times, especially since the only tiles besides "traps" or entities were the ground and background, which were all just recolors. Its really small, but just something for me that stood out.

I did however appreciate the small touch of using darker colored tiles in the background, very effective.

All in all, a nice round game with a innovative idea, nice simple sound and graphics.

Oh I liked this game so much I just hoped there was like a boss stage in the central star or something!! The character, audio and stage design were all so good and simple. And it really felt like a complete game.

@wheffle Giving planets their own themes is a good idea that I'll look into for future versions. Reworking the ship controls is also something I'll look into.

@kataware Thanks for the detailed feedback. The variety of the planets is certainly the main thing to be improved (for both visuals and gameplay). It's good to know you liked the darker background. For a few of the areas I added some pointless platforms just so the background tiles would make things more visually interesting (the game automatically adds background tiles below platforms).

@clickmation A boss in the centre isn't something I ever thought about and I'm not sure how much sense it would make, but it's definitely worth considering.

I thought this game was fantastic, even more so for a compo entry. It was really fun to play, the platforming was very solid (I played the web version with a keyboard). Flying around space is always fun and the progression to the inner planets kept you motivated to keep finding crystals. The graphics, though not beautiful, were consistent and clear. It all combined with the music and sfx very well. The amount of levels, even if there was some repetition, in such a small time frame is an accomplishment too. I would have to say that this is my favourite game so far.

I could definitely see you adding to this, maybe adding some more content like upgrades for some tougher planets, or some action in the space travel portion of the game. Feel free to name a planet Kodiqi if you continue developing :)

@kodiqi Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

The planet names are actually generated by randomly combining a first half and second half, but I could certainly add the halves of "Kodiqi" to the system.

The visual style got me interested right away - it all fits together really well. Music was nice, too, though it felt like some of the loops were a bit short.

The difficulty ramp-up felt really well done, at least for someone like me who's not great at platformers - just when I thought I was getting the hang of things, I got a shield upgrade and things got a bit more intense, but never punishingly so.

All in all, a great compo entry - good job!

I Played this in Stream Today at Request of the Developer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekGMbpHGKUE

I spent quite a bit of time with this game, I think I'd love to see some variety of user interaction to modulate the engagement curve. Well put together and thought out!

The jumping physics are very satisfying and work well with the level design, which I actually find quite hard to figure out, so good job on that! :D The graphics work surprisingly well despite their simplicity, but the sound effects take some getting used to... (The music is my jam though!) I love the two different world types (spaceship and walking) replacing tedious menus and level selections. The features and gameplay elements are polished and well implemented, and the difficulty curve is quite gentle. I may have found a possible small exploit though: I often found it easiest to get to the ores and then kill myself so I don't have to parkour my way back to the exit.
I played all the levels, and found the ending quite satisfying! :smile: I had a lot of fun.

This is a very complete, thought-through and well designed entry, and you should be proud of it! :thumbsup:

By the way: Thank you for reporting my broken game link. I’ve uploaded it to a different host now, and it might be more stable: [**Entry page**](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/dr-plumb)

@rjhelms Sorry about the music loops. I don't know much about making music and the time restriction didn't help. I'm glad you liked the rest, though.

@occultone Thanks for checking out the game. Sorry I wasn't there for the stream.

@phi Killing yourself isn't much of an exploit; I always knew it about it. I guess you could consider it a special tactic for players that can figure it out. Anyway, thanks for playing. It's nice to know you managed to make it to the end.

Really well made game! The graphics were pretty good and the music sounded nice. The platforming felt very tight and easy to control.
One issue I have with this game is that having to restart from the beginning of each planet every time you die was annoying.

@jellonator00 Thanks. I think it's important for dying to return you to the ship (so you have a chance to explore the planet in a different direction) but perhaps I could have allowed you to take multiple hits.

Super cool and polished game! This kinda reminded me of c64 games, visuals made out from basic colors, simple mechanics and super hardcore difficulty. Expect in those games you wouldn’t have unlimited lives. Awesome job!

That was a pretty cool game! Although I'm not a fun of such graphics, it was quite charming! You can feel the threads moving :)
Interesting to explore these planets. I like how their colors are different and how they vary in size.

However, it was a bit too simple, and some patterns were repeating 3 times sometimes (the "blades" moving back and forth in the exact same spots)

@tuomo The style of the game wasn't supposed to resemble any particular system, but that's neat if it did.

@kwisarts Unfortunately, I didn't realise how many screens I would need to make to avoid noticeable repeats (and there's nothing in the code that stops it from happening).

A great amount of work on the aesthetic which is unusual. I had fun playing it. A quiet mood. This is a good entry - I like explore planets. Really? Must I restart from the beginning of each planet every time I die? It was a little bit too annoying. Overall, well done. Thumbs up. Highly rated ++

I love games that feature multiple "game modes" - nice implementation! As others have pointed out - the difficulty ramping should have been "smoother". Also I feel that I sometimes fall off a platform even if I have jumped, so a small tweak would make the controls feel a bit "tighter". Overall, nice execution!

Cool game, Played till the end, levels did get a bit repetitive, I'd say probably could have made the whole a bit shorter to better hold the players interest. Loved the pixel art and aesethetic, thought the combination of travelling to worlds with the ship was fun. I really liked the way the levels wrap around so that if you die you can always go the other way to avoid repeating so much. Probably could have ramped up the difficulty a little bit for the later levels too. Thought the music was pretty cool and fit in nicely to help the atmosphere. Overall great job, enjoyed it.

@geckoo1337 Thanks, I'm glad you liked the aesthetic. Making you return to the ship when you die was done so that you would have a chance to explore the planet from the other direction. I probably could have given you extra hits or something so it's not as annoying.

@dj-pale The terrain is slightly smaller than it looks, so perhaps that's why you fell off when you thought you should've jumped. There's no delay to the jump - I can't really do much to fix it short of letting you jump in mid-air.

@automatonvx Glad you enjoyed it. I thought the wrapping was neat too. Sorry, about the length - the comments have made it clear that I really should have toned that down.