LudumData

Space Scrap! by Alex Lutay

[raw]
made by Alex Lutay for LD 42 (JAM)

Welcome on-board of the Cheapest Colony Ship ever made!

Cheapest Colony Ship.png

You’re an AI module in charge of every system of the ship. Use buttons in the bottom menu of the screen to interact with the ship.

Your main goal is to bring colonists alive on a new planet. Normally every colonist sleeps in a cryochamber, but you can awake them by deactivating a chamber.

Awakened colonist most likely will die from fear or exhaustion on this ship, but while colonist is still alive they can scrap ship segments to build something useful. Try not to scrap sleeping colonists.

Death from exhaustion is not the only horror of the Space. There’s also dreadful deadly Meteors! (Marked with a glowing exclamation point in a triangle) Enable Shields on a marked segment or it will be destroyed! To use Shields you need The Shield Generator and 50 Power. Make sure you’ve got both.

Manual.png

Good luck!

Balance

HTML5 (web) https://beardybard.itch.io/space-scrap-ld42
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/space-scrap

Ratings

Overall 672th 3.31⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1014th 2.774⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 460th 3.31⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Theme 436th 3.69⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 93th 4.33⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Mood 355th 3.39⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 28🗨️

Feedback

pranjalbisht
14. Aug 2018 · 07:58 UTC
This looks so amazing but...I have no idea how to play it proplerly. I really want to! But I get a single colonist and he just...dies over time even if I protect everything. I can't build anything apparenty because I have no metal...is scrapping the only way to get metal?

Can you give some detailed instructions on how to play on this page? I really want to play this and reach that planet before everyone on board dies ahahah.
Kornel
14. Aug 2018 · 11:16 UTC
Same as in the comment above. It looks to good, but I just don't know what to do :slight_frown:
Cedric Fey
14. Aug 2018 · 12:09 UTC
I comment here to remind me to play a again.
🎤 Alex Lutay
14. Aug 2018 · 17:03 UTC
@pranjalbisht @kornel I'm sorry, I've run out of time to add any in-game clarification on how to play.

You can wake other colonists. To do so select "ctrl system" and click on any cryochamber.

>is scrapping the only way to get metal

Yes, scrapping is the only way to get more metal, therefore you're running out of space (also meteors destroying segments of a ship).

I will definitely write a manual after I get me some sleep.
hi.irie
14. Aug 2018 · 22:14 UTC
I think this is one of those games that could benefit from a first time user experience, basically a tutorial mode on how to play. Of course with the time alotted that would be more of a polish item. For what it's worth the game is beautifully rendered and was definitely thought out. The team was able to implement the mechanics for this and seemingly working quite well I might add.

Graphics definitely drive the game. I would recommend cutting down the words to make it simpler if possible. Lots of text in pixel font can be straining on the eyes. But overall a very well done game!
Shess
15. Aug 2018 · 04:36 UTC
Stellar graphics and solid theme implementation! I think the font could benefit from one extra pixel in height (or an alternative font altogether)for usability/accessibility purpose.

I stumbled a bit in my first run, but after I caught the flow it was extremely enjoyable. Good job!
pranjalbisht
15. Aug 2018 · 06:35 UTC
Thank you for adding the basic instructions! I was finally able to complete it. At first I didn't notice the engines switching off when the power gain was negative and after I spent it on a couple shields, ahaha. And sometimes I couldn't make shields at all even if I had enough power, but then I finally noticed the shield generator was off too.
All in all, it was a hectic management game but in the end I reached the planet on my last legs with just 1 engine remaining, ahahah. Awesome use of the theme.
And ofc, the graphics are the best selling point for me! Your pixel art and palette is absolutely beautiful! One of the best-looking games I've played this jam!
🎤 Alex Lutay
15. Aug 2018 · 14:31 UTC
@hi-irie I absolutely agree with your point on UX, gamer should know what a thing will do without reading too much. But the time limit of the Jam didn't let us implement more understandable way of interacting with the game. I hope players can forgive us that.

@shess Thank you for your feedback, Shess. It's very satisfying to know you've created an enjoyable game experience for someone.

@pranjalbisht I'm very happy that you've managed to win! And by the way - you could reach the planet with your engines disabled/destroyed solely with inertia. But this is the longest, most extreme way of colonising. Feeding your engines with your sleeping crew members through bioreactors matrix-style is way more fun.
Bredera
15. Aug 2018 · 15:19 UTC
Awesome gameplay, and good implementation of the theme! it lacks a bit of music
Nam Nguyen
15. Aug 2018 · 15:37 UTC
The game scores really high for graphics for me, very polished looking, but I was very confused when playing the game. Im sure it is a good game as you have finished the game play and had time to polish it, but that was not wholy conveyed to the player. Maybe its too complex? I think you could separate elements to different stages for players to learn, like first is to survive, and then you add the meteors. Idk, it looks like a promising game, great job putting everything together! I will score the game based on its potential
iBalls
15. Aug 2018 · 15:41 UTC
great game maybe add tutorial level
sawtan
15. Aug 2018 · 16:44 UTC
Really nice entry, the graphics were amazing, and the mechanics felt interesting, if maybe a bit to complex for a LD game (I think most people tests a game for a few seconds before deciding if they understand it, and if not they proceed to the next game, ratings need to be made and time is always a jerk! ;) ) Feels like this game could be expanded upon and get a real release for sure! Cheerz!
Noah Beckman
15. Aug 2018 · 18:10 UTC
This game was very cool, like other people the graphics for this game were great highest grade for me. I just felt very lost even after reading the instructions multiple times. I feel like this game has so much potential but its just very hard to understand. Maybe try an interactive tutorial next time so people can learn how to play. Overall though this game was very cool!
Ice Maker
15. Aug 2018 · 18:12 UTC
Again, I love the graphics but very confusing :P
Amaury
15. Aug 2018 · 18:13 UTC
As some people said, the amount of available actions makes it hard to get into the game in a few minutes. But it's very beautiful and seem well polished ! And reaaly enjoyable after a few games :)
suve
15. Aug 2018 · 19:08 UTC
Good game. The visual style is great - a shame there isn't any audio to match. The gameplay is rather confusing at first; some kind of tutorial level would definitely help ease the learning curve.
Flower
15. Aug 2018 · 19:58 UTC
This is so cool! Amazing game! Hope to see more of this)

I really like the graphics, i always wanted to do something like that)
NoNiMad
15. Aug 2018 · 21:30 UTC
Wonderful graphics and gameplay concept. I'm having a hard time knowing what a click is going to do (lack of hint on the buttons I guess) and the asteroids starts hitting the ship too quickly, I can't even setup properly.
With a little bit of polish it could be really great!

By the way it reminds me a lot of Faster Than Light, I guess that was an inspiration?
Zelif
15. Aug 2018 · 23:28 UTC
Loved this game, the art and the use of theme was great. As other said the UX part was a bit hard to get use to at first but ended up getting use to it. Nice work !
willowblade
16. Aug 2018 · 17:01 UTC
Cool take on the meteors destroying parts of the ship. And like people have said, ah-ma-zing graphics. For the next jam, you might want to focus on thinking from a player first approach, though that is of course the hardest. Small tooltips go a long way.

We tried to make a first person experience of taking care of your meteor-stricken ship, you might enjoy it!
BinarySpark
16. Aug 2018 · 17:09 UTC
Yep, I see it's already been mentioned a bunch of times in the comments. This looked very promising but I was super confused what I was doing, which resources I needed for doing what, etc. A tutorial or a bunch of tooltips would go a long way. Still though, very impressive work, you guys deserve a nice spot on the ranking list! :)
Kokonaught
16. Aug 2018 · 20:27 UTC
It looks really good(and by good I mean gorgeous) but :
- too many systems
- too few visual feedback (and no audio, so no audio feedback)
- the text is waaaaay too small

It's definitely an ambitious game, but it needs to accomodate for the player (and I know it's hard for a jam game to introduce mechanics, especially if there are a lot of them). Here the player is immediately overwhelmed, before he even knows what any of the button does.
Kinsei
18. Aug 2018 · 08:00 UTC
The pixel graphics are gorgeous! I like the mechanic of having to balance between surviving and creating ressources. I agree with everything that was said previously, I think you aren't far from making the experience more enjoyable.

While the font matches the art direction, the text was a bit hard to read, and too much info to fully grasp everything when time is running against you. An ingame tutorial phase would have been nice, or maybe implement features/builds gradually as the player progresses through the level. But I understand you did what you could within the allotted jam time :> Overall it looks promising!
the_ShaderMaster
18. Aug 2018 · 14:29 UTC
Great game! Some kind of tutorial or more visual feedback would have been nice!
PeachTreeOath
19. Aug 2018 · 17:55 UTC
Have you played Space Run Galaxy? This really reminds me of that but taking a management/building concept route instead. I think the others have already covered the obvious in terms of complexity and such, so I'm going to highlight some game design things instead. I think the concept is pretty awesome, to juggle a number of spaceship systems while making sure all your resources are being used properly. I liked that you forced the player to make some tougher calls on which system to build, and if you expanded on more modules that'd be even better. Perhaps making a game that had small supply chain economies could be interesting in this scenario. Great concept overall, polish and expansion will make the game match the idea!
Michael Wingfield
21. Aug 2018 · 18:40 UTC
Dang... I wanted to like this game so much based on the visuals. But there were a few things against it. Number 1: I had no idea how to play. Number 2: there was no sound when I played it. Not sure if that was a bug or not, but lack of sound is really striking in games. #2 sort of contributes to #1 by removing valuable feedback when I click something to know if it worked or didn't. If there was sound and my game was just bugged, let me know and I'll give it another try. Great looking game though!
pixelstuff
26. Aug 2018 · 15:24 UTC
Great game, some tutorial will help but the potential is real
wisstopher
02. Sep 2018 · 12:57 UTC
I'm overwhelmed by the complexity of it, not really knowing what to do. Like always it's beautiful, but just like everyone else I would have liked a bit of on-boarding first.
Andrei9
03. Sep 2018 · 18:14 UTC
Nice game! :thumbsup: