threeSpace by HS_Dave
threeSpace - LDJam41 (Dave Burford)
This was intended to be a 48hr compo entry but due to RL circumstances (which included a 7hr trip to a hospital) I was unable to complete it so here we go for the 72hr jam instead. I spent most of the extra day at work BUT I did get to add a few new things before the dead line. Still, I learned a lot about developing in unity and that was my main goal here! No votes for audio as sfx are from an audio pack I own and music CC track from opengameart. Attrib and source: https://opengameart.org/content/cave-theme?destination=node/3922
Genres mixed: match3 + real time space simulation.
Game:
Explore unknown solar systems by traveling to distant objects and scanning them down. Moving costs fuel though; run out of fuel and your capacitor will start to drain fast.. run out of power and your life support will begin to fail! As long as you have power your life support will charge back up.
Gain additional fuel and power by matching the relevant tiles on the match3 grid.
Green restores fuel Yellow for power Blue for shields Red for hull
Matching tiles and performing combos nets you points which help charge your hyper drive. Scanning new interstellar objects (which happens automatically when you are in range) nets you BIG bonus points to charge that hyper drive faster.
When everything is scanned or you are just bored of the system, if your hyper drive is charged hit that H-JUMP button to launch yourself to a brand new system!
Each system is procedurally generated with its own star (of various classes and sizes), random planets and a host of other objects including asteroid belts, derelicts and space stations.
Everything can be controlled with the mouse. F1 and F2 can quick change screens without pressing the buttons.
Tips:
Fuel is used much more rapidly when moving and turning. When you arrive at a destination your fuel will stop draining so fast making it easier to replenish with the match3 grid.
Missing content:
-You cant die yet. It'll say bad luck commander in your ships computer and then trundle along as if nothing happened.
-I did not have time to create models for asteroids, derelicts or space stations. They are "there" to scan but no visuals I am afraid.
-I did not have time to implement hostile ships and battles. When added in the future your ship will automatically fight hostiles (unless told to flee) and the shield+hull tokens on the match3 grid will become essential to surviving. I also imagine special battle tiles to spawn during a battle, such as torpedo tiles, which breaking would launch special weapons etc.
-I want to add event tiles to the match3 grid, such as asteroid collision tiles. Event tiles would be timed and if broken within the timer you would get the good version of the event (avoid asteroid for example) and if you fail then the bad (hit, take damage).
-Events would spawn more frequently depending on the area your ship is in. For example more asteroid events near an asteroid belt - more hostile encounters near a hostile space station etc.
-I want to add cargo space to the ship so you can salvage derlicts and even trade with friendly stations.
-There is no bonus for fully exploring a system yet.
-Hyper jump is instant and needs a nice animation.
-There are bugs.
This could be good, one day.
Changes:
Quick patch for bug with name of first planet in a system if it was uninhabited (was wrongly given the stars name with no roman numeral)
| Windows | http://www.heavenlysoftware.co.uk/LD41/ldjam41.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/threespace |
Ratings
| Overall | 813th | 3.224⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 881th | 2.957⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 643th | 3.287⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 626th | 3.564⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 806th | 3.096⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 944th | 2.125⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 472th | 3.413⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 46🗳️ | 65🗨️ |
And obviously the Theme of the LD is really respected here ! Nice job.
@djfariel it's definitely a bug - the game tries to prevent too many insta combos by checking tiles around a new tile - this means depending what is surrounding an area some times it reaches a situation where there is only one "good" tile spawn one after the other, at least in the order it's checking. Will definitely get that fixed :) Thanks for the clear report!
I like the space graphics, as well as the background sound -- very neat.
I encountered an issue with the capacitor: I couldn't seem to match tiles fast enough to charge it up, even when not flying.
I also don't know if this is intentional or a bug -- but usually tile matching games don't let you keep switched tiles if no matches were formed.
First of all, while the sounds were nice, I felt the animations were too fast. If the blocks dropped rather then appeared, it would give more of a weight to your moves (Not the easiest to program, did a matching block puzzle game for my last jam as well. I had the tiles on the grid not have a visual element and had the visuals lerp towards where they are supposed to be every frame.)
Also, for match threes like this I always feel that it is most satisfying to set up big combos and then trigger them. Often times I would set off a big chain on accident which kind of stopped me from wanting to set them up if they would just happen without my input. Also, those combos can feel great with the slower animations.
@TheMonsterFromTheDeep the restoration points you get definitely need re-scaling for sure, they are very combo reliant in this build. For all stat types (fuel/cap/etc) you restore icons_broken * combo points back - so do one break and it hardly charges but get a large combo and even the cap (which currently has a max value of 800 versus every other stat at 100!) can nearly fully fill in one go. I will be smoothing out these values :)
I was wanting to play with the "no match" tile moving mechanic a bit but fully ran out of time. I'm uncertain if I wanted to prevent moving tiles completely because that means you can get an impossible grid and I'm not sure I want everyone's game to come to an end due to bad spawn luck. I have considered it costing cap/fuel/points to make a move that doesn't match or perhaps a 25% chance of a tile moved without a match turning into a broken module tile that inhibits some aspect of your ship until you've fixed it. It is likely I will have selectable difficulty levels that handle this in different ways with perhaps the hardest indeed not allowing the move at all!
@kleinzach the match3 aspect needs a lot of love - I definitely spent too much time creating a method to generate 7 classes of star versus actually sorting it out ;) but over all I just didnt have time this jam anyway :( There is truely no animation at all on the match3 grid, its just an array and things swap around instantly with a small delay after each iteration just to make it a little more sane. There is also no visual indicator of combos although the game is tracking and rewarding them. I'd like a visual particle to zoom from broken tiles to the relevant stat bar as well as having full moving animations for the whole grid - this is something I can promise will be implemented! :)
Cool entry, keep coding :)
My main criticisms would be that doing well in the puzzle relies mainly on getting lucky chain-combos, and that there should be a more tangible reward for doing combos with 4+ pieces. Maybe a bit more interplay between the puzzle and the main game would be nice, like having what star you're on affect what tiles you get or something.
Edit: also good name. I clicked because of the 3-space math reference.
By making travelling a bit faster, it would actually get quite more lively.
Of course as others pointed out a bit more animations could make it nicer, but there simply isn't enough time for everything in game jam.
Keep up the good work!
Time was short on your part and you did good with what you had. I can see you have a lot of stuff already planned for the future too, so I wait to see what you come up with. Well done!
I hope you continue with the project.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape
Full score on mood and music cause it just draws you straight into a super chill flow, really atmospheric and ambient.
What you guys did with the gameplay is also really refreshing, at first i was blindly going for combinations whilst trying to figure everything out and then it totally hit me that combinations were meant to recharge all your systems, great stuff!
(Also, randomly getting huge chains by chance when new tiles drop is super satisfying, lol) <3
My local build now also has vast improvements to the match3 game with several bugs fixed and new animations for swapping tiles and animated falling of tiles when other tiles break beneath them etc. I do not want any of this to unfairly mar my jam score so I will share a newer build at the end of the voting process :)
I would have liked to see actual mysteries hidden on the planets and enemies lurking about ready to strike. Not something you had time for of course.
Then there is the match-3 portion of the project. What a letdown! A barebones, humdrum, clickety-click fest. There is no tension to it, no challenge, no need to think, just click fast. Even pattern recognition is out the window as it is possible to swap tiles even when there is no match. The visuals are worse too...
This mix is certainly close to incompatible as these modes add nothing to each other. High points for that, otherwise the match-3 side drags everything down.