Emissary by Handle
Whew, that was fun.
Emissary is a game where you destroy planets to prevent marauding terraformers from claiming them as their own. You are responsible for the diminishing space, but there's a risk/reward factor: as the surface becomes more barren, survival becomes more difficult.
The game will save your score across planets until you fail, so try to make it as long as you can! Each planet will be a bit more difficult than the last, and your score is determined by how quickly you destroy them. The main menu has some helpful hints at the bottom.
I'm really looking forward to playing everyone else's games and to getting some feedback on Emissary. Thank you for checking it out.




EDIT: I fixed a minor but important bug that changed movement speed depending on framerate. Should be solid now. EDIT2: I guess I failed to fix that properly. Should uh... should be solid now.
Tools used: Unity, Sketchbook pro, SFXR, Garageband, FLStudio, Modo
| HTML5 (web) | https://handle.itch.io/emissary |
| Windows | https://handle.itch.io/emissary |
| macOS | https://handle.itch.io/emissary |
| Linux | https://handle.itch.io/emissary |
| Source code | https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GokLnfeF5LstY5hFeRWG0dzubmp-zWeH |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/emissary |
Ratings
| Overall | 51th | 3.953⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 118th | 3.716⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 93th | 3.773⭐ | 77🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 32th | 4.297⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 38th | 4.149⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 65th | 3.705⭐ | 75🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 415th | 2.112⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 78th | 3.631⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 32🗳️ | 38🗨️ |
Love the game let me know if it becomes a smartphone app because it would make a great one!
good art
good game play
Only thing I could add would be to have some sort of "bomb" ready notification.
Pretty much the only downside I found (not even a downside, but more of a misunderstanding on my part) is that it seems to me like you don't really need a dash move in this game at all. But it's still there preventing the controls scheme from being even more minimal and elegant.
@detectivelosos Your score at the end of the level is based on how quickly you win, so that's why the dash is there.
@gmanadvanced Thanks for playing! Sorry about the control conflict between Emissary and Chrome... that's unfortunate.
On a serious note, Aesthetics are clean and appealing, controls are responsive, sound is fitting.
I understand 2D circular physics. 3D spherical physics is a bit more challenging to implement for myself. Therefore, glad this is a compo too. Once, I have more time, i'll delve into your source code for nuggets of knowledge regarless of the quality of your documentation.
It's a pity that HTML5 build does not work on intel hd graphics... But it is not a game problem.
@mza I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, because the physics are entirely cheated lol. Also it is not documented at all. But if it's helpful that's awesome!
You really did an amazing job on all fronts!
There are some minor things though that stuck out to me;
- If I end a planet with a bomb, the hexagons don't dissapear, it pauses before they do.
- It would be nice to have a counter up while playing saying how many planets I've cleared (apart from the score that is) so I can easily nudge my friends and give them a small number to beat rather than score.
- Game does only get harder by giving you less time to navigate. I would have liked more content on top of that. Maybe one planet has lava shooting out of it at spots? Maybe one planet has cows that block you...
Highly enjoyed playing it!
I would recommend people to download the game straight on. Playing in browser it's way too easy to accidentally activate "Sticky Keys" feature on windows or add browser bookmarks, save as, etc.. when you get going.
Graphics are functional. Not much to say about that. Sounds are kind of simple too. I left humor unrated as the game doesn't go for that.