The star is super creepy sounding!! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation [video series](https://youtu.be/5I8aoDLW98E), if you’d like to take a look :)

Thanks for taking the time, Jupiter!

Have you played *Sinistar*? That's where I stole the idea for the creepy voice!

Thanks again for playing! Good luck with the rest of the LD entries.

I really like the soundtrack/concept of your game, especially once the black star approaches you :D
I would probably tweak the amount smaller planets stop you once your big and you crash into them tho (and make larger ones stop you more to make them more risky to eat)^^
But really nice work for 2 days :)

This is great. The scrolling effect really reminds me of some old PC games I would play as a kid. It evoked this really strange sense of nostalgia. Gameplay is fun, and the sound design was simple but effective. Good work!

This is great! I loved the sound effects it gave the game a great personality and it controlled pretty well (though it was a bit too fast) Great job!

Definitely a one of the most enjoyable games of LD. A short experience but a great one. Agar.io meets metroid fusion, with a bit of science thrown into the mix. The SAX from metroid fusion would be proud of that Black Star. Congrats on making such a good game. :-)

Take that dark star you creepy bastard. Tis I who got you! Nice work with making the dark star really sinister. Made obliterating him that much more satisfying putting a little evil personality behind it. Awesome little game. Thanks for creating and sharing, good job!

Nice music and fun gameplay. It reminds me of the game "Tasty Planet" (or Agar.io or other similar games :wink:), but I love that there is only one main enemy (although all collisions with larger planets decrease your population). It's nice how the two audio tracks ("Ambient" and "Dark Star") fit together. I also liked that although it is "just" a 2D game, it uses 3D models with lighting (and particles).

Personally, I would prefer if the "screen transitions" were smooth (not "sudden" when getting near the edge of the screen). Also the camera could zoom out as the "Earth" gets larger, so the gameplay could be longer (the Dark Star could be much larger in that case), but it's just an idea...

Have some :earth_americas: and :star:!

Really nice soundtrack that creates a good SF spatial ambiance. Maybe it's a little bit too easy though (or maybe I got lucky). Good job.

Nice game. The gameplay is fun and the sound when you collide with a planet is so satisfying. i recommend this to everyone to play this game

Nice game, not sure if your population would continue to grow after so many impacts ;) Also not sure how population can destroy stars. View scrolling could have been smoother.

I played the WebGL version.

Sound was good overall. I liked the voices. The sound could have been panned to give some indication of, for example, where the death star is. Mechanically the game worked well, although at one point I killed a large planet well before my earth should have been ready for it. Visuals are excellent, if I'd change anything it would be to detail the planets, but I liked the death star and the other particle effects. The scrolling definitely needs work. Near the end, a good chunk of my planet was on the other half of the screen before it scrolled, so I had no idea where I was going half the time. Driving the planet around wasn't too hard, thankfully.

Pretty sure there aren't 18 quintillion planets in this though ;P

Overall it was a super enjoyable game, I played through a whole bunch of times. No fun lacking here and that's the most important thing. Good job!

I have trouble understanding the goal of the game (or is there a goal?) After sometime my planet started moving slower than the death star, and the game started feeling quite irritating. You have to constantly look for planet both to block the death star and to feed your own. And without having a real "goal" to aim for, I gave up after some time.

@lars-dk. Yes! Audio and camera scrolling are both much better in the downloaded version! Check it out.

I'M THE LORD OF THE UNIVERSE. hahaha.

Very cool game! The gameplay reminded me to agar.io but with a better mechanic in my opinion.
The best part was the music, there's something on it that relaxed me a lot.

Good stuff! congrats!

Yeeeez, I had like the perfect final spurt! I was a slow and big planet, however when I met the Dark Star *again* I still wasn't ready for it and just barely faster and literally a second before it got to me I crushed a medium sized planet and had the blue "NOW DESTROY THE BLACK STAR" message appear.

Pretty nervewrecking ending for an otherwise pretty ambient experience. :D

cheers~

@camilo Now THAT is a big planet...

Fun, nice idea, suitably creepy atmosphere for the dark star. The mixing of the sound between when you are safe with when the dark star is approaching is simple but effective. Good job

It's like a single player agar.io - which for me was a good thing! Loved the Black Star ("Found you!"). Visuals and audio were perfect. I would have preferred a more fluid camera, with some zooming maybe as you grow. I think it would be interesting to play with some gravity effects - much larger objects pulling in smaller ones. I tried both the web and download (Windows), and they both seemed to perform just fine. Great entry!

@M-1 @king-kujito @camilo @anarbitrarymustache ...ok I guess I have to play this agar.io game everyone keeps mentioning!

Beat the game! Damn when the dark star appeared it was really scary. Hahaha! :D Very intimidating mood you have there.

Nice entry, well done!

Nice game! Reminded me a lot of Osmos in terms of gameplay.

The Dark Star was immediately creepy and threatening, which was a really nice touch. The controls were a bit fidgety in the beginning, but got better as my planet grew in size (I guess that's as intended). I would have preferred if the camera would have pursued the planet smoothly, rather than jumping around. It was very distracting at first, but I got used to it fast enough.

Overall, nice compo entry!

This was really great! Sounds were super scary, the "found yaaa" scared me the first time haha. Nitpicks: The camera pisses me off. Also, I would think that the planets could move in... more than 4 directions. Finally, it feels too easy, because you can always move faster than the Dark Star, and that there's so much space to move around (thus you won't risk dying from running away)

Overall though, it was a really good, and the audio makes it really immersive. Great job!

Yes yes yes, I love the title so much. We went similar ways with out interpretation of the theme, and I love the direction you took. :)

The audio transitions when the dark star gets close is awesome, and I'd love to know how you went about implementing that.

Great work, pretty easy- but very entertaining while it lasts!

Played on WebGL - Couldn't figure out how to get the game started...

Feedback on my game would be appreciated as well:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/sling-ship-search-for-a-small-world

@Quoclon - sometimes you have to click in the game window. Give it a try, and let me know. You're the first to report any issues like that.

At first I was confused, but quickly moved away from the Dark start. The creepy voice over is great along with the music. Overall I did find it fun and played through a few times. Would have liked to have seen more levels or difficulty after the first victory. Good Job!

I quite liked this - the dark star announcing itself was my favorite part! If I had to give one suggestion (because critique is helpful, right?) I'd ask for smoother transitions between screens, or for a fixed camera right on the planet. It got a little jarring as I got larger.

I did - I can proudly say - wreck that dark star. I was really hoping for a funny voice line from him when he died but hey, can't have it all =)

I wish the game lasted longer though and there is definitely room for improvement. I like the use of the theme and the audio is spon on. Beware! :D

Fun game. Could have been a bit longer e.g. by zooming based on your size.
Also the camera transitions could have been a bit smoother.

Funny little game. I like the sound and the music. The bad planet was a little bit scarry but I like the idea with the voice.

I always enjoy seeing Osmos-like games, and this is no exception. The dark star is delightfully creepy, and the controls felt as floaty as you'd expect a planet to be.

The camera transitions felt a bit weird, but beyond that, no real complaints.

I really wanted to enjoy this, but the jerky scrolling gave me motion sickness within a few seconds and I had to stop. I want to hear what everyone's talking about with the voice lines, so maybe I'll come back to this later tonight.

Hey, @davidthelazar, sorry to hear that! But the screens only move as fast as you do, and I'll tell you a secret: moving fast is NOT the best way to find new planets! Give it a shot!

(Oh, and if you're playing the web version, the downloaded version improved on the scrolling too).

A simple but entertaining concept. The dark star gave me the creeps when it first came for me, with its stalker voice and the musical shift.

I didn't really feel very challenged however, escaping the dark star wasn't hard and I think I only once accidentally touched a planet that was larger than me. Once I was big enough to attack the dark star, it was kind of a drag to try and find him. I'm not fond of the scrolling, especially once my planet grew to about 60% of the screen. The second time around the dark star was following me on screen when I grew big enough to obliterate it, so that ended pretty quick.

The graphics suit the concept, and I like the music and sound effects.

Awesome sound, great graphics. The sound of the star is very fitting! The game itself was a bit too easy, it was more a challenge of patentience than of skill to win the game. I loved to play it though!

Cool Agar.io kind of game with a twist, i like that there is that dark planet that i have to play hide and seek with if i want to survive. Also sound effects are really neat, give game this creep-ish vibe. In overall fun, short game for LD.

My daughter plays a lot of games like this so I appreciate how popular they are - @zeriver already mentioned Agar.io which is one of them.
The game certainly fits the theme very well and, although simple, it's well executed. I feel like it's just lacking a little more challenge (perhaps the dark star needs to be more of a threat)? However, I am sure you can sort that out Post LD if you choose to update it!

Well done. I wish the camera just followed my planet though. The panning was pretty jarring.

Simple game and fun for a few minutes. As soon as I got to a population of 1000 billion I was no longer able to escape from the "Dark Star". Maybe you could have made a small AI for the other worlds, ex. escape from bigger worlds and follow the smaller ones.

A very nice little game. The dark star is pretty creepy and really gives you the urge to run away. So it feels even better to crush it in the end :grin: The only thing that I didn't like was the panning of the camera, I would have preferred a smoother one. The music also fits nicely. It probably does not have a lot of replayability, but the first playthrough was very fun! Well done!

This could keep me entertained for hours, hands down. There's a definite feeling of satisfaction in growing larger through bumping into the other planets. After I got a little better at the game it might have been fun to have the dark star follow me a little faster and closer, but that's all I can think of. Awesome game!

I like it, but I wish one could play it for longer than 2 minutes.

I really liked the use of enemy into the agar.io formula as it made it something different. The enemy followed me for a long while so It sorta change into how can I overcome this path of little planets blocking my path before the enemy could destroy the planet. It was a fun experience.

The molester star is really a sight to behold. While it is initially difficult to start out, I feel like the game is all around too easy, and the behavior of the star is predictable as well. The planets are too easy to maneuver around, I wish that there were more obstacles of some sort to plow through. As @wheerd mentioned the camera panning was also a bit awkward.

Overall though still a solid game.

Really nice game! pretty easy but fun, the camera is a little bit pain in the ass as you get bigger and bigger, wish that camera was following the player but still overall great entry :D

It's got that Sinistar vibe with the dark star showing up that's cool
I like the music it's relaxing and not too distracting
I like the katamari vibe. reminds me a bit of agar.io but your textures are much nicer

I like the game. The only downside was the camera moving around so jittery! Other than that solid entry. :)

Fun little game, reminds me of slither io games, also that dark star following you is creepy!

This game reminded me a lot about Osmos. It's simple and a lot of fun. The creepy sounds really add a lot to the whole game experience, when I saw the black star for the first time, was a bit creepy, nice touch. In general very cool game. Something that was not completely clear is exactly when you can destroy the black star, at some point my planet was bigger than the star and it kept hurting me, maybe a clear feedback on exactly when you can destroy it could help a lot. Also, if you plan to extend the game, maybe adding more dangerous stars would be nice.

Awesome sound work, this is what make the game great!
Gameplay feels great too!
Really great entry, congratulations! =)

Good fun. A simple concept that works well.

I think the camera would have been better with a smooth follow, though. Also, I went a long way in one direction, and seemed to lose the Black Star... I made myself huge, and then I had to go looking for the black star for quite some time.

Other than that - good game. And nice creepy voice for the Black Star.

This game is fun and i really felt a need to escape that dark star but i did destroy it in the end!

This is a really cool game. I love the atmosphere you created with the sound, especially the contrast between the start and when you get close to the black star. As far as improvement goes, perhaps a leveling system would've been cool? e.g. every time you destroy the black star, when you restart the game it gets bigger.

:)

I like it! Just a classic eat small things till you get big game but done well. A few things I'd like to comment on, I really wish the camera followed your planet fluidly instead of once it reached a certain limit. I also think it would of been nice if camera distance scaled with the size of your planet, the bigger you got, the less of the screen you could really see. Also, having all the planets actively seeking out meals while avoiding being eaten would liven up the game a lot. Obviously it would eat up a lot more cpu, but it's something to consider.

The name, it's amazing. Game is hilariously fun, really nice job!

Your game is really fun. The one thing that I found odd was the population counter, it didn't seem to go up fast enough to make me even bother looking at it. It just seemed like an unnecessary mechanic.

Neat idea. The gradual scaling up of your world provides an interesting progression as eventually worlds that were once bigger than you turn into small fodder. I like how the dark star provides an end goal. Speaking of that: the audio is quite good, especially how it changes when the dark star approaches. The graphics aren't extraordinary but they work well enough. The only real issue I have is the way the camera moves in weird chunks.

(playing from WebGL version) Loved this game, it was heaps of fun! Really nice atmosphere that you set with the graphics + music, and the graphics are impressive. And the music + voice when the dark star appears (/the sigh when you get away) - really cool! :laughing: I would suggest a less jumpy camera. Also, if you could make WASD controls work as well that would be a great addition imo! And maybe the dark star could run away from you instead when you're big enough to eat it?

Fantastic job :smile:

Great entry. Love the feel of the controls, the physics of sliding around a bit, bouncing back slightly when you collide with another planet, and getting slower/more sluggish as you grow. All little things that add to the polished feel of the game.
As others have already mentioned, great sound and super scary dark star voice!
Personally I liked the retro jerky screen transitions, i like how it makes things more risky the bigger you get (since you can see less of your surroundings)

Wow! Lot's of fun. I enjoyed playing your game.
The planet movement is nice, music is great. Really sets the mood.

Reminds me a lot of Osmosis. But with a little gravity. That's cool. Jerky camera was super jarring though. A good entry!

I do love your work on the variety materials and different rotations on planets. The idea of applying the big fish vs. small fish mechanism on planets is fun, and somehow quite amusing.

There are some aspects I think can be improved:
- The collision bouncing is cool, but when I got a huge planet I just expect not to bounce back when hitting the tiny ones, which would make myself feeling more massive
- The camera control is kinda difficult to mind the surroundings. Maybe it can respond sooner?
- When my planet became super huge, the dark star is no longer easy to find...An arrow or just zoom out the camera a little bit would be helpful. But I just poked around and finished the game :wink:

I absolutely love the stars sound! It manages to be both imposing and funny at the same time. It made the end feel pretty empowering considering the star acts as if it's gonna get me, but in the end I got it!

The game itself is pretty simple though. Gameplay is pretty standard, the graphics aren't much and the game idea itself is nothing new. I think having a regular follow cam would be a lot better than the section-switching one too. The audio, both the music and the dark star, is definitely the games strength.

Despite that though, I enjoyed it. It was a pretty short game, so its drawbacks never really reached the point of being actively sabotaging the experience. So instead, its good parts sort of carried the whole thing leaving me with a pretty enjoyable experience.

I enjoyed playing this, though it ran rather sluggishly on my i3 laptop. I don't know if it was intended or due to my laptop barely coping with the game, but if the death star "found me" there was no way for me to outrun it or do anything and I could see no hint of me approaching it. So it felt a bit unfair that sometimes it just appeared as I moved to the edge of the screen and then I was dead. Otherwise I really enjoyed flying around. I enjoyed the controls and the game is nicely done. I would probably have played more times if my deaths had felt more fair.

Also, as a minor comment, if `Esc` had exited the game at the end.

As a whole, well done!

Really funny concept, but I wish there was just slightly more to the gameplay. I had to avoid the darkstar once and it was really intense and fun! Then I got huge and smashed it, too, haha. Very well done for the compo!

Really shit myself the first time the dark star appeared lol, love the sound effects! It was nice to eat up the dark star later on after getting bigger >:D Fun game, good job!

I don't really get how my surface increases when I crush into others, but overall I enjoyed it!
The dark star voice and sound effects are really cool.

Cool game! I liked that I didn't die right away when touching bigger planets, but the best thing was definitely the dark star saying "Found you" in such a creepy way! The ambient sound really sets the mood.

Liked it. I have a lot of fun with this "grow your stuff eating smaller stuff" games! :D
audio also very nice!where did you make it?

I actually had a really nice time playing this. Although it is short, it is a very fun game!

It's a great feeling when a game can instill panic. Nice job! :D

Really nice game, it was very enjoyable to control and the sound effects are funny :D
If if really had to find a negative aspect, maybe it is a bit too easy ?

Just a quick message to say THANK YOU to everyone to your comments! It's been overwhelming today!

If you've commented, I've bookmarked your game, and I'm going to to check out and comment on all of your games (with the caveat that if your game is Windows only, I won't be able to :frowning: ). I've currently got a list of about 20 or so, and I want to make sure I give them all a proper chance, so please bear with me!

It's an interesting twist on the fish game (the one where you have to eat smaller fish to grow bigger), not very difficult though. It was neat to see other planets crashing into each other and getting bigger themselves. I like the audio!
I think the jerky camera was an interesting choice, it felt awkward but it wasn't entirely bad because it always gives you a static screen to look at.
I don't like the way the planet stops whenever I hit another planet, I felt like it should keep going and perhaps just slow down a tiny bit.

MY WORLD IS BECOME CONSUMER OF ALL WORLDS!!!!!! Honestly, I had a population of ~300,000 billion. Great game!

A nice small game.

The Design is simple but works very well.
Very good job for the amount of Time.

And the "FOUND YOU" Sound is totally Awesome XD

Sorry for this bit of self-promotion, but you commented on my game earlier asking if there was any chance of a web (or Mac) build. I managed to get a web version working, so you can try it now if you like.

@veralos, great! I'll check it out in a bit!

Fun stuff! Felt good to bounce around, gobbling up medium sized planets once I got some momentum rolling. They had seemed so big a minute prior! The dark star totally creeped me out too, good job with the voice. Maybe ended a bit too quickly once I got that momentum going but really good job!

The music + playing at 12h midnight really gives me the creep. Good job on the game :)

weird but fun concept.
I mean... how population can survive with so many asteroid crash in their planet?

Hah, the dark-matter chasing you was really creepy (well it is almost 3 am here in Sweden, but still), kudos for making voice acting, and for the sound in general. Overall its a fantastic entry; It's simple, well executed and very polished. In other words verything you could wish for in an entry. I ended up playing this for a very long time, thanks for a great game :)

Cool game. Reminds me very much of Solar and Solar 2 but without the gravity effects. It was a bit weird to see planets turning at right angles, so more of a gravity effect might be something to add post jam, but I understand not including it during the jam.

Nice work! I've gotta say, the dark star announcing itself was super creepy...

I was a little confused about when I was allowed to "attack" the dark star; I tried to run into it once I was larger than it, just like the other planets. Really enjoyed defeating it at the end!

A few others have commented on this, but the camera transitions did feel abrupt to me.

Very well-rounded entry, nice consistent graphics, good audio, and a fun ending! Good job.

I loved the game so much!! Although it is so like Agar.io :D I still enjoined it a lot. I wish that when you hit a planet that is bigger I would be eaten by the planet itself...
Here is my game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/fixville

This is a really subtle thing, but I really like the bounce effect you get when you crash into a planet, rather than just absorbing it and moving on. Kudos if intentional.

Really cool game, simple but very fun! The graphics and sound effects were great, loved the creepy dark star. Overall, a really well done game!

I love the scary dark star voice, very creative audio! It felt very good to destroy the dark star. I like the particle effects when you destroy things. Nice job!

Fun little game that reminds me of good old Osmos. Controls, graphics and audio are all well done. The only minor flaw is the camera movement that takes some time to get used to but is also quite interesting. Good job overall!

My game (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/wandering-planet) and your are very similar but you did a better job on the audio in only 48h, well done !

Fun game, the physics make sense with movement and all. Glad that the progression was just right! The star's voice was pretty funny, nice addition :D