Exodus: Fleet Commander by Saithir
Download the game on Itch if the links don't work or grab the source code if you're interested.
Your fleet is pretty much stranded in a remote sector of space with your fuel resources running low. You’re the commander, how will you proceed? Will you move on regardless, leaving the ships that don't have enough fuel behind? Or will you try to scout the current sector for fuel, trying to save as many of your fleet's passengers as you can?
How will your fleet survive?
Saithir: Twitter | Homepage | Itch
Some words from the author
As this is my first completed LD entry, I haven't been able to put everything what I wanted into the game. I haven't really planned out the weekend around Ludum Dare, so I've had some interruptions (both internal and external). Things that are missing and I might put in a new version after LD finishes:
- Enemies. Currently the game doesn't have any, and it might introduce more tension if it did. It does need whole lot of new systems to have a space fleet battle work properly, and that had to be cut early on.
- Music. While I can draw and I can figure out bfxr enough to produce some sounds, making music is just something I cannot try doing and expect the result not to summon Cthulhu if played.
- Ship actions. This was the hardest thing for me to cut, because I still think it should be included, but there's only so much time I have. The player was supposed to be able to transfer fuel and passengers between ships in the fleet, which would enable to abandon ships with as less damage as possible, which would make for much more interesting gameplay.
Unfortunately for the Central Europe timezone, Ludum Dare is not a very good fit - it starts and ends at 3 in the morning, and I have to go to work on Monday, so I can't stay up that long. This already shaves half a day, and I still need to sleep, code, eat, and try to have a life if possible. Oh well, what can you do.
Ratings
| Overall | 568th | 2.8⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 633th | 2.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 241th | 3.3⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 306th | 3.55⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 464th | 2.85⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 499th | 1.9⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 489th | 1.625⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 410th | 2.778⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 12🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
Also I got no feedback of my 30min Missions to scout for fuel.
I´m a fan of battlestar galactica, I guess your approach on the theme is inspired there. Good idea!
It´s a pitty that you had to work on monday (I took a day of holiday :-D), music would have added much to the game.
The graphics where very suitable and good.
It took me a couple of play sessions to realize how to gather fuel and then the game ends after the first jump to a different sector, with lots of lives lost in the process. It needs more balance on the first screen since most of the time I couldn't find enough fuel for one of the ships.
I believe this has lot of of potential and you should keep working on it.
Good work!
The idea is novel, but could have used some animation and sounds. The UI is fine and didn't take me too long to figure the game out(though, I recommend that you put a Help section).
Would play it again! Hoping to see more games from you(or this game when it's finished :) )
Good luck and congratulations!This is my first LDJAM too, so cheers!
In practice, however, there's so little fuel that you won't be able to power any of your ships (except maybe your little scouts), so the act of gathering fuel doesn't even make much sense, it just felt like a time waster after gathering all fuel I could get and not powering one single ship.
Sound and graphics are minimal, but functional for what we have.
Overall, this needs a lot of work to make it fun and compelling. It needs some time for balancing, so the game doesn't just throw you an impossible scenario (literally no fuel to power any of your ships to an FTL jump), and after that some more compelling mechanics, such as random events, battles, and such.
Keep up the good work, though! Congrats on your first entry, and may the following improve!
Rudimentary. Do work on it if you have the time. Could be interesting with the features you've lined up.