Game is hilarious, my computer was chugging at the amount of sprites when the planet explodes. Great work!

Really fun game, concept is great, gameplay is weird, but ok. Well done

Thanks for the kind words!
I also published a post mortem now, in case you're interested.

Fun game, the orbital mechanics are great and i love the little speech bubbles!

Ha! :D I had a blast.. literally :D

Mmmmmmm

There's lots to like, the reference to Hitchhiker's Guide, the humour inherent in the planets' quibbles, the chaos of everything everywhere... But it's not really hitting the spot.

I've been into orbital mechanics since my last LD, with my game literally called "Orbits". While I really appreciate the idea that you got here, I just can't get to grips with it. I think there are a bunch of small details that might improve the overall experience:

- The initial learning curve is deadly, the game doesn't tell you much at all, and everything looks the same. I couldn't tell which planet *I* was supposed to be - differentiating the player would be a good thing. The same thing with the player planet's trajectory line.
- The asteroid flinging mechanic is sound in theory but the fact that it spawns where you release instead of where you click is really confusing. Click, drag, aim, release. It should work like that.
- The trajectory lines seem to update in weird ways? Dunno, they seem to flicker rather than change smoothly. Also again the fact that the player's line's not differentiated makes it difficult to understand.
- Where's the theme? I don't get the relevance to the theme...

Creative stuff. The game screen is crowded yet the yelling of a planet is a nice touch. Congrats :)

@gagouman, @guilhermoni, @runner-alien, @sloyd: Thanks for your kind comments!

@tuism: Thanks for the detailed analysis; I'll try to cover, and I will definitely try your game. Also please note that I didn't have enough time for fine tuning as I wanted, because I mostly had to work about the game mechanics and around physics bugs. For the jam, I could have done more, but didn't have the time to continue today, so I wrapped up early.

* Yes, initial learning curve is deadly. I thought about adding waves and messages for tutorial-like early missions, that was skipped due to time constraints. It would have been similar to the waves in my/our [LD40 entry](/events/ludum-dare/40/keep-it-simple-stupid-bang-bang)
* I found the idea to "let go" when you release the mouse button to be the most understandable; apparently millage may vary here. That would have been something for playtesting.
* Calculating the trajectory lines is computational heavy; I had to create adaptive time sampling in order to work this out, and it's just using Euler integration, which isn't stable. So if your planet moves a tiny little bit, differences at a later point in time can explode. This isn't kerbal space program, they cheat and have orbital mechanics where only the closest mass has an effect on your body, in my programm everything influences everything :grimacing: I also thought about different colors, then thought this would add to the overall (wanted) chaos, and lost track of that idea in the end. You're right, that would help quite a bit.
* *Sigh*. It was supposed to be a massively singleplayer game, with other planets representing other players at previous runs, and they were supposed to fill up space quickly. Unfortunately, mechanics are too chaotic for this to happen...

Thanks again for the insight!

Very nice little game. Would be nice to have had the controls somewhere on the start screen but otherwise a good job. Art was consistent and jokes were a nice addition.

Really fun to play! The controls are a little hard to get at first, and the game is quite difficult overall, but it's very enjoyable. The planet tags/text bubbles are a neat idea.

I did not understand at first but the game becomes simple after a few minutes.
Well done, it was fun to play!

Fun game to Play. At the start all the action on screen is a bit overwhelming.

It's a good concept, perhaps maybe scaling hte player from easy interactions to more complex ones. I don't really get the "running out of space" vibe from it. But it is in space at least.

I have no idea what's going on.... But it look pretty....

@akemala, @chocolat-endive: Thanks! The speeches were actually a last minute addition; I thought "there's something missing for a hitchhiker game"... :grin:

@ktur: absolutely! I wanted to add this, but time... Maybe I'll add it later on, I consider this to be within the rules, as I don't change the game itself.

@cranestyle: You're absolutely right! As mentioned earlier, I wanted to add waves, but got lost with game mechanics... Because we're playing billiard with almost no way to remove stuff from the "table", space should clutter up fast; unfortunately, it doesn't work like this, it still feels not to closed up despite being utterly uncontrollable after some time :rolling_eyes:

@oneiros, @neuralcoder, @alobker: Thanks, I wanted to have some "semi-controlled chaos". Seems it actually worked out :joy:

@mshopf Really nice concept. Controls are a little overwehlming at first but got hold of them after a while.

A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good.
Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)

an interesting idea, billiards and space. I think you need to work on understanding the interface, and to correct the sound it's too loud and frightening. good job

I liked the concept, and I understand quite quickly the control, next the orbits are blinking from time to time making them not really helpful. The graphics work well for me too. I think more defensive options would have been good too. That's cool to have shared a timelapse of your game construction :)

I love the concept of this! It's pretty fun to play, although I definitely feel a lack of control. Nice job!

Thank you for sharing your game with me. I played it on my stream tonight at https://www.twitch.tv/saoigames

I have rated your game, but all of my feedback was captured in the stream.

You can hear my comments in the archive at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/298329090

It's fun in a chaotic kind of way. The players planet should be more distinguishable from the others. Once you get to grips with what's going on it's a very enjoyable game. I had fun.

Good stuff :8ball:

I love this insanity that is happening on my screen. It's so addictive!

The talking planets are really funny!
I would have appreciated a tutorial (maybe I missed it?), as I wasn't sure of what to do.
Nice entry :)

Messy, frantic, funny! A neat concept with functional graphics; the sound effects are grating, though.

Another downside is a few small issues with the controls:

- The planet acceleration and deceleration inputs are very slow. Getting hit even once is a death sentence *(for quite a few people!)* as result.
- The asteroid release input needs a visual, for instance an arrow. I'd also spawn the asteroid at the base of the arrow, not at the tip.

Good work in all.

*Seriously, there is no towel emoji?!*