this game is great---love the science upgrades, the physics, the menus. i wasnt sure what to do at the end. i hit space bar and it looks like the lander started landing, but then nothing happened. so cool. nice work!

@davidfox Yeah, one little tweak I'll add is a fade-in of some congratulations text once the lander touches down. Some nice music would also work, once LD's over. Thanks for the feedback!

Great game: kind of hard in the end to keep the rocket from spinning

Amazing game! I went back and found your old post to play this game and I was not disappointed. Simple game loop, fun premise and a beautiful aesthetic. The newspaper got me a bit sad though :(.

@kromeboy Cheers! I do think the little lander at the end messes with the physics a bit, but the good news is you have fuel to land on stage 1 or 2 pretty easily.

@james-leib Thanks! You can actually follow people to get notified of their uploads for next time :D

**The Good:**
Fun mechanics and gameplay loop. Love the newspaper at the end of each attempt. Artwork is simple, clean and pleasant to look at. Menu navigation feels nice.

**Needs Work:**
Add sound - for this game sound effects are crucial, especially when the rocket explodes. The rocket starts off too weak and ramps up in power too suddenly. The purpose of science points was unclear.

Very fun game and a great time-waster. You can add polish, more powerups and make it into a full mobile game. Good work!

Fun mechanics, I love that you have to get upgrades to be able to land on the moon, great work.

Absolutely loved this, a bit of sound and it would be perfect!

Very simple and fun little game! I especially appreciated all the hidden features -- like the newspaper clippings. The science upgrades felt balanced, but I found that you could hold an arrow key on launch and flip the rocket over immmediately, but still earn $250 million. Also, it can be confusing when the rocket transitions into the landing mode as to what the player is supposed to do (or whether the game has stopped receiving input)

I was ready to get out of singlefloat precision space - but turns out I suck at flying forward. x)

Very fun indeed! I liked the graphics and the elegant simplicity of the UI. As stated already, a little bit of sound would be nice. Very well done.

Very cool!

The idea is simple and good, and it fits the theme well. The graphics and UI is really good. Some sound effects and some music would have been great. But overall a good game. Well done.

Thanks so much everyone!

@amastryukov Good fair critiques, will definitely improve post-jam.

@carlpilot Yeah, it's tuned to give cash easily, on the basis that most LD raters wouldn't see the end if it took too long to beat - so it gives a minimum of $100 funding per flight until I have time to balance the campaign. Also, I'll definitely add more visual/audio feedback when the moon landing sequence takes over.

@elzach Ha! The moon is only 500 units away, so you'll be in float precision space for a long time yet.

Bizarrely unrealistic, but fun. How easily the rocket flips, is far worse than forgetting to turn on SAS in Kerbal Space Program. I got to the moon, but I believe that balancing the rocket is too difficult and would often feel like RNG death. I really like the clean graphics, except for the particle effects which can use some work.

Actually really loved your game - like the atmosphere

hope you'll rate my game as well - and feel free to give your honest opinion.. it's my first game
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/wanyudo-island

very cool game. 2nd stage is really twitchy. Needs some sounds! The art is nice

Quite a bit of fun to play!

I really liked the concept and progression. The controls I thought were a little too finicky. Even with all the stability upgrades, my lightest stage would flip almost immediately. When I finally won it was basically just luck (and persistence). But it's a nice game for sure, with a lot of room to expand. Keep it up!

Getting to the moon is hard! But worth it!

Fun game but I don't understand the link with the theme...

Thanks a lot everyone for the feedback and kind words!

@capital-asterisk @dusho @rumor I think I know why the later stages are more difficult than intended, so that’s definitely something I’ll try to fix postjam!

@hystaf The idea came from how the real space program involved actual deaths and sacrifices in the name of progress. I’d intended the newspaper to tie in with whether a given rocket exploded to say whether or not the astronaut survived, but simply ran out of time to make the link.

Pros:
- For LD games has very long game time :)
- Simple vector graphics but for this game style fit very well
- I love space flights, so you hit me :)

Cons:
- In space, stability on last stage is very poor, and after 20 attemps with maxed rocket I gived up
- Sounds missing

Overall:
Very simplified kerbal space program :) So your mini apollo program with saturn rocket is succeed :)

This is a fun little game! Reminds me of a 2D Kerbal Space Program. There's plenty of content here for an LD game, especially a compo game. I love the funny headlines on the newspapers, some of them cracked me up. Dunno if it's intentional, but sometimes it feels like the rocket deliberately tilts in the opposite direction to the button you're pressing, just to screw you over.

I think the tech tree needs a little work; there's no indication that you've already bought something until you click on it, and at one point I accidentally clicked "Start" twice without buying the upgrade I'd been intending to buy. Or maybe I just shouldn't play Ludum Dare games at 10pm xD Lack of music and sound is also kind of a bummer but I've been criticised for the audio of my games for the last three Ludum Dare running, so I can totally sympathise with you for not even bothering.

I liked it overall. Well done!

Playing this a recalling Flappy Blocks I'm wondering what kind of a sadist are you? :laughing:
In any case, the game great, shame about the lack of audio, but the scope is impressive for the compo as is. The visuals are clean and the UI is great and the tabloid-ish snippets are wonderful.

Unfortunately the final stage is too hard fro me, so I haven't been able to land the ship.
Is the 'Science' resource needed at all? Seems a bit superfluous except for the spacerace theme. (It seemed that without it the progression would be pretty much the same).

Yay, I'm a space cowboy! ^_^

:thumbsup: I really like the science look to the game, and the way you introduce new content through upgrades was nice.

:point_right: The random wobbling was pretty off putting, It's the core of the game but I did not enjoy when it felt like the game just flipped my ship with no hope to correct it (good for the theme though ^_^). I ended up getting lucky and reaching the moon with only the first and 3/4ths of the second stage (after not reaching it with all the stages).

:star: Overall excellent job, I really enjoyed playing this!

Hey ConnectOffline! Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!

If you'd like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/346056936?t=01h16m43s

Good luck on your ratings! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

Cool game, I like the upgrade system a lot. Actually my game has one that is quite similar, I thought that was funny.

I always loved flash games, when you had to reach something and couldn't until you upgraded your thing. This brings back memories and it's awesome!

I think having some sounds in the game would make it that bit better, but I see you said you'll include them after the jam, looking forward to it. Also I think having an altitude display on the screen and a highest altitude reached info would be cool, my only measurement was the orange sky, than the space.

P.S. I had a nice wtf/laugh moment when I first crashed into the moon, great idea!