This Is Fine by TheCommonThug

[raw]
made by TheCommonThug for LD 42 (JAM)

Things don’t look great for the Terfs. They need to evacuate their planet.

Help them mine precious minerals from asteroids in order to build them a mothership. The faster the better. Don’t be too risky though, or they might accidentally leave radio signal range and run out of oxygen while away from their orbiter.

Clicking will select ships and asteroids. You can not send commands to a ship if it is not selected (highlighted green).

'Space' will send the launch command to a selected ship and ‘R’ will send the return home command.

Go to the planet, Hometerf, for building options to help manage resources with ‘2’ and head to Shrek’s Lab for upgrades with ‘3’. You can always zoom back out to see space with ‘1’.

Once you’ve expanded your space view with some upgrades try zooming it in and out with ‘Q’ and ‘W’. Have fun researching tech with Shrek and building up the planet until you’re able to complete the mothership and send the Terfs off to a new home!

Thank you for playing our game! This is our first time making a game and we really enjoyed it.

Your feedback is much appreciated.

  • Sound Design: Tatiana Aristizabal
  • Art Direction and the not terrible graphics: Jacob Davis
  • Physics and generally explaining how the IDE works: David Parker
  • What would generously be called code: Sam Evans
  • Play testing in the like 45 minutes we had before the deadline and finding a million UI problems: Maggie Evans

Ratings

Overall 1232th 2.571⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1136th 2.576⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 952th 2.824⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1174th 2.485⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1138th 2.294⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Audio 735th 2.368⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Humor 498th 2.779⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1042th 2.424⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 37🗨️

Feedback

Mister_Kweh
13. Aug 2018 · 23:09 UTC
Hey Guys! Tried to play your game, but unfortunately the space and possible r keys weren't working in your game. I could open a couple menus with 2 and 3 and return to the asteroids orbiting with 1 and I could also click on asteroids to select them maybe? But I couldn't do anything else. :sob: Neat concept though!
🎤 TheCommonThug
13. Aug 2018 · 23:47 UTC
@mister-kweh Just got that same feedback from a friend. You have to click ship to select it first! Definitely didn't make that obvious enough. Thanks for trying to play!!!
Arch
14. Aug 2018 · 01:06 UTC
Hey guys, great job. I'm totally a sucker for games with upgrade systems, and your's works out well. The icons on "Shrek's Lab" were self explanatory. I did have to use some trial and error to figure out how to carry more resources. I had difficulty clicking on the ships once I had multiple of them, but other than that the game worked flawlessly. I'm not sure where the theme quite fits in, but hey, space! From one space-game-creator to another, good job to you all!
🎤 TheCommonThug
14. Aug 2018 · 01:17 UTC
@arch <3 thank you for the feedback!!
zeta0134
14. Aug 2018 · 01:51 UTC
Heh, I got sucked into playing this one for almost an hour. Good show! Took me a moment to figure out the general idea but once I had the gather -> upgrade -> expand loop going, I was hooked. I'd love to see this expanded and polished up. Only real critiques are the interface for the shop and home areas, which were functional but didn't explain themselves very well. Minor nit-picking given the time constraints though, and I did figure it out eventually through some trial and error.
Mister_Kweh
14. Aug 2018 · 02:08 UTC
Thanks guys! Got and it's super fun! You got yourselves a time vampire here haha
🎤 TheCommonThug
14. Aug 2018 · 02:19 UTC
@zeta0134 @mister-kweh Thank you!!! The positive feedback after 3 long days is super appreciated.
Mister_Kweh
14. Aug 2018 · 02:37 UTC
Of course! Loved that you pulled this off with no knowledge of programming! If you don't mind, you should give our game a try! We tried to go for something more artistic this time! We will put a description in our LD page probably tomorrow. Here's the link though :smile:

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/unfamiliar

No Big deal if you don't though :smile:
Bobgar
14. Aug 2018 · 03:22 UTC
Took me a bit to figure out what I was doing but the game seems fun! I laughed pretty hard when I pressed 3 and saw a giant dog head on the scientist. Nice work!
Chronodrax
14. Aug 2018 · 12:26 UTC
Hi! Nice game! I didn't understand the controls just by playing the game and without the "R" key I ended up killing my Terf and couldn't get the ship back >_<"
Then I read the details on the LD page and had quite a lot of fun sending Terfs in outer space :D
I love their voices and mining many asteroids at once felt great :)
After some improvements you earn resources way too fast so I won without even getting on another asteroid belt than the 1st one, and it had gotten so small on the screen that I couldn't even see the ships I selected. A zoom option would be great, with a bit of balancing on the resources gain after the 2nd/3rd mining speed upgrade. I wanted to mine those other asteroid belts before winning :,(
Also with 2/3 more texts in the game explaining the commands it would be great ;)
Good job overall !
🎤 TheCommonThug
14. Aug 2018 · 14:44 UTC
@chronodrax I just played it again and you are absolutely right. Definitely needs some balancing and the controls aren't at all intuitive. There is are zoom buttons though :D Thank you for the feedback!!!
🎤 TheCommonThug
14. Aug 2018 · 14:47 UTC
@bobgar Yes! That's what we were going for :) We made the game at my sister's house and her one request was that her dog be in the game.
earnso
14. Aug 2018 · 19:44 UTC
Great job man! :heart:
Baconinvader
14. Aug 2018 · 19:54 UTC
Great game! Liked all the voice clips, they really added to the experience. Control and game mechanics are simple and intuitive, which is always nice. My only complaint is that gaining resources seemed to take too long, I had to play for quite a while just to be able to afford my first upgrade. Aside from that I really enjoyed it, great job for a first LD!
Alastairwyn
14. Aug 2018 · 20:35 UTC
Did you use Drag and drop or Gamemaker Language? Just wondering. Great game btw!
Alastairwyn
14. Aug 2018 · 20:35 UTC
Did you use Drag and drop or Gamemaker Language? Just wondering. Great game btw!
🎤 TheCommonThug
14. Aug 2018 · 22:58 UTC
@alastairwyn It's a drag and drop file because we don't know how to code and that's what drew us to using GMS. But in the end I think 95% of it was switched (one event at a time, for one reason or another) to the Gamemaker language interface because we couldn't find any support for the drag and drop anywhere online. Eventually it just became easier to figure out how to code with loads of forums and a real reference resource, than it was to try and figure out the blocks with no help anywhere.
George Lancaster
15. Aug 2018 · 01:45 UTC
Controls are too complicated. Probably graphical button would have been a better choice. Otherwise, it's a very original game.
Juno
15. Aug 2018 · 03:14 UTC
I like games with upgrades! This was a fun game. The only problems I had were
- when you start getting upgrades the game gets a little too easy
- I didn't know what the buildings actually did until after I got them
- if you could cycle through ships with the TAB button it would make the game play a lot smoother

other than that, great job! definitely better than what I did :)
🎤 TheCommonThug
15. Aug 2018 · 04:08 UTC
@juno definitely right on 1 and 2. The tab button thing though... that's genius. I'm gonna do that on my version literally right now. Thank you.
Nalah
15. Aug 2018 · 13:43 UTC
Sorry but the application asks me to make modifications on the computer, and I can't trust it to launch. Could you lower the permissions or something?
🎤 TheCommonThug
15. Aug 2018 · 17:38 UTC
@nalah We made the game in Game Maker Studio and only purchased the Windows license so unfortunately I don't think we can change any of the setting on how it's packaged. An .exe installer or .zip is all we can build.
Rahim_Pxr
27. Aug 2018 · 17:05 UTC
Nice game, Love how everything is balanced!
Good luck, Don't forget to take a look at ours if you don't mind and see what it's like when we just focused on graphics in this game jam!
Game Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42a