Mother Ship by Whismirk
(Disclaimer : I didn't have enough time to add a tutorial, so try to read at least the controls and the features, or you might not even understand what you're supposed to do. :D )
Hello there !
This is my first game jam ever (and the first "real" game that I made), so don't expect something great or even slightly good. I made this in around 30 hours (sleep included) using Godot Engine. I'd love to hear what you think about it, so don't hesitate to comment below about what could be improved !
With that said... have fun ! o/
Intro
The galaxy is collapsing. A giant, nightmarish black hole is slowly growing, consuming everything in its path. And on this path is our own solar system.
You are an highly advanced A.I operating the Ark, the first faster-than-light colony ship, fitted with hundred of millions of cryogenic pods to carry humans through the depths of space. Yet, it is not enough to carry the entirety of Earth's population, and building the Ark has mostly depleted the planet of its resources. You must colonize other star systems and exploit them in order to upgrade the Ark and further improve its capacity, while fleeing from the ever growing black hole.
Of course, you're not supposed to save everyone... some sacrifices are necessary. Because you're running out of time. And out of space.
Features
Probe and colonize nearby systems to gather the minerals you will need to upgrade the Ark. The mining speed depends on the population and the mines level, which can also be improved by spending minerals.
Population will grow over time, depending on the system's habitability. If it is under 40%, population will instead decline. You can terraform the system's planets by spending minerals to increase its habitability.
After some time, the black hole will arrive. When it approaches a system, it will slowly decrease its habitability until it reaches 0, so evacuate it quickly !
The systems stats are randomized, so you will require a different strategy at each restart. However, Sol will always have 100% habitability and 0 minerals, so pop left there will grow fast but be utterly useless.
You only have one ship, so it might be difficult to handle the increasing population. You may have to leave some of them behind to save the rest...
Keep fleeing upward. You may or may not find a way to escape.
Controls
- Use the MOUSE to interact.
- WASD or ARROW KEYS to move the map.
- Don't forget to press SPACE or E anytime to pause the game. It will give you more time to plan ahead and navigate through the messy UI.
- You can press F to toggle fullscreen, but I heavily advise you AGAINST it. I didn't have enough time to properly scale the UI, it will mess it even more. The text won't be correctly centered either.
Changelog
Disclaimer : I only added small bugfixes and additional platform releases, since both are authorized after the compo ends according to the rules. I didn't add any new feature, and the game is basically the same as it was when I submitted it.
13/08 : Added a Linux and Mac OSX release (didn't test, tell me if it doesn't work). Made some bugfixing : sound not properly playing, menu not showing when clicking on another system, black hole danger radius not growing with the hole itself. Fixed pop growth rate. Changed pause key from SPACE to E because of some weird engine bug with the SPACE key.
13/08 : Added back SPACE as a pause key, but you still can use E if you prefer. Fixed a bug where the menus wouldn't close properly.
14/08 : Quickly fixed a minor but game breaking bug where under certain conditions, you could withdraw more population from a system than you actually had there, effectively "spawning" free new humans.
Known bugs/problems
- The interface. I didn't have enough time to make it more readable before compo's end, but I'm still working on it.
- You may not be able to interact with some systems. For lack of better solution, moving the camera around usually seems to fix it.
If you see any bug, don't hesitate to report it in the comments !
Tools used :
Engine : Godot
Graphics : Aseprite
Sound : sfxr
| Other (web) | https://whismirk.itch.io/mother-ship |
| (Same page now) | https://whismirk.itch.io/mother-ship |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/mother-ship |
Ratings
| Overall | 96th | 3.833⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 219th | 3.511⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 151th | 3.602⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 192th | 3.889⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 316th | 3.356⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 68th | 3.659⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 67🗳️ | 32🗨️ |
@jole Yay, Seedship ! It definitively inspired me ! I'm really glad that you're liking my game. Thanks for the feedback, it's very motivating. I might keep developping it after the Jam !
@hakro I just added a Linux port ! Couldn't test it though, but tell me if it works :D
I like the effect of the black hole, it's cheap but working well. I didn't manage to save many, but took a while for me to understand that expanding the arc is the most crucial thing.
Nice little game really. It intersting and you need to think about a good startegy.
It just needs a bit of refining so you don't get lost in space, and a bit of ambient space sound.
But overall, it's really cool, specially if it your first.
Well done!!
I'm really glad that some of you are enjoying the game. I'm currently working on fixing the current annoying problems (notably the interface, the balancing and the other bugs left) before adding any new feature (in a non ludum dare version, of course) but I really appreciate your suggestions !
@pixels-everywhere I just uploaded a fixed version. The menus should close normally now ! o/
Scrolling could be a bit faster
It was fun to play, especially after my first attempt was to straightaway flee from the black hole with no humans inside.
Overall, I enjoyed it. I liked the minimalism and the graphics...eerie atmosphere only made it better. :)
Only suggestion I can think of right now to improve the game is to make camera controllable by mouse, because I feel like this game could be one of those calming and relaxing games where you lay back and simply do everything with the mouse. I didn't like navigating the camera with keyboard keys, I was thinking it would be better to implement an alternative way by mouse...for example dragging mouse close to the edge to make camera move or by holding down the mouse wheel button and then moving the mouse around.
If my critique beyond this point seems harsh, I apologize because I really, really enjoyed this game so I am going to be a bit rough. Most of these are suggestions for if you wanted to turn this into a full release following Ludum Dare. For something made in 24 hours the quality is staggering
- The majority of my issues of this game were with the ui
- When I first loaded it up, I almost dropped it because I couldn't figure out how to get started (despite reading your instructions in the description). Because the game is quite catchy and simple once you get into it, I must attribute this initial confusion to the tought-to-parse ui.
- One thing I didn't quite understand at first was what "System" referred to. Obviously this is referring to the star system selected, but it took me a bit of time to realize that. I think if instead it said "Transfer to Alpha Centauri" (for instance) it would be a lot easier to make that initial connection.
- When star systems were clustered nearby it became difficult to read their statistics.
- Sometimes getting a menu off the screen is somewhat difficult. It would be nice to close them with 'esc' for instance. In its current state, I found myself clicking Colonize on systems the arc was away from just so the menu would close
- On the same topic, I believe the game would be much easier to parse initially if impossible menu options were hidden (e.g. "Colonize" on a system the arc is away from/ "Send probe" to an already probed system/ "Transfer to Arc" on an uninhabited system)
- Consider allowing the player to control the camera somehow with the mouse (e.g. click and drag open space). Not having to keep hands on the keyboard would be nice for comfort.
- Many of the sliders weren't great. It would have been nice to be able to select common options (e.g. "Transfer all to System", "Fill arc") without having to use the slider
- Some non-ui issues
- At the very beginning of the game, it doesn't make sense to probe nearby systems. A player can simply move to a system hoping that it is good and if it isn't they could restart. Perhaps having probes be a consumable quantity and starting the player off with 3 free could help with this issue. (Although this is an issue that many randomly generated games experience)
- Often (especially during moving the arc) the game feels too slow paced. It is nice to be able control with small time steps during important moments but often that level of fine grained control is excessive. Consider allowing the player to increase the speed of time passing
Sorry for hitting you with this massive list of nit-pics, I definitely don't want you to take this so hard because your game was great. Thanks for making one of my favorite games of this LD. Looking forward to what you do in the future!
Very nice entry. Keep it up.
I started to suspect that there is more to the game than I initially thought when some anomaly started creeping slowly from the bottom of the screen.
Great game!
I love the minimalistic art. I love how simple the rules are. Bonus nerd points for naming the stars after our galactic neighbors. Hope you'll continue developing this!
I hadn't realised at first the a black hole would grow to destroy the earth. That's a nice touch. It makes me think of another game "Icarus" by karlin Ross made for a previous Ludum Dare.
Of course, I'd love to try a more refined edition !
@vfabien21 Yup, Icarus definitively inspired me ! I think it was the first Ludum Dare game I ever played, long before I even started programming. Thanks for the feedback :D
@bemmu Did you notice the wormhole at the top of the map ? You can escape by sending the Ark there. :)
(WASD or arrow keys to move the map)
Still if this is your first real game, and you did it compo, nice ;)
BTW for Linux people, you may have to chmod +x the binary before running it.
Would have gained a lot with some music
Very well done and has alot of potential.