Eclipse Galaxy : A Smuggler Story by chadrbanks
General
Welcome to the Eclipse Galaxy, where there is a dark side and almost every one has crossed into it. In this Space Smuggler entry of the Eclipse Galaxy series; you play a smuggler in a traders world who is willing to take on the the missions no else wants. Will you deliver that underground plasma for the local cartel? If the price is right! Make sure you don't lose the shipment though, roll the dice and get the goods if your ship has the space for it! But beware, in the Eclipse Galaxy you never know what is waiting at the next planet.
The original game had a few bugs and broken buttons, the updated version repaired most of the broken content. There is still a lot of planned content that we just never had time to implement. We look forward to great feedback though.
Current Features
- 4 ships to choose from.
- 5 locations (2 must be unlocked).
- 5 trade-able goods.
- Basic explore action.
- Cantina quest for each location.
- Detailed universe lore.
- Mining at 3 locations.
- Random encounters with battle mechanics.
- Single game save slot (may not work in HTML version).
Future Updates
This installment of Eclipse Galaxy is more like a demo of what the whole game could be. If we got the chance to work on or improve this in the future, this may or may not include the following. - Enhanced Audio - Enhanced UI - Enhanced Ship assets (complete, but not implemented) - Factions - Faction battles - Faction quests? - More in-depth mining rewards - Randomly generated quests and quest lines - Ship animations when changing planets - Win condition(s)
Images
How To Play
Either download and run your systems version, or start the HTML version. Once started select "New Game" from the main menu.
Next, on the ship selection screen. Select any of the four available ships. Keep in mind that different ships have different stats such as speed, weapon strength, and even cargo capacity. They also have different costs, so you may have less starting credits depending on what you choose.
Then choose a planet to land on first. Once you land on a planet it is up to you to decide how you want to make credits. Every planet has slightly different options available. All of them have markets though, there are just different demands for different items.
Ratings
| Overall | 1117th | 2.829⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1219th | 2.382⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1124th | 2.53⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1211th | 2.371⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 991th | 2.803⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 758th | 2.258⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 811th | 2.096⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 887th | 2.742⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 30🗨️ |
When I press accept on the cantina nothing happen.
Also there is no text to explain what you can buy, so I kinda try everything without knowing what is what, I ended up running out of fuel not knowing how to refill it.
Graphics are amazing, but lack consistency: the ships are pixel art, and the background on the planet are beautiful high res digital painting.
There was no audio but I see you didn't opt out of the category, so is it a bug or did you forget to opt out ?
Also when hovering on a ship or planet, the sprite and the box collider goes up so if the mouse is at the edge the whole thing jitter (that's a minor bug though, but easy to fix).
Anayway, keep up the good work :)
Both the cantinas and the audio were broken in the original. The market UI was not great either.
The delta has the cantinas and audio working properly. We also cleaned up the market UI and implemented a couple other things. The hovering issue is also a known bug. I think I was able to make the hover issue a little less prevalent in the Delta version, but I just never had time to fix it completely; there was always something more important to fix or work on. Even now, if I were to continue development there is so much I would love to be able to do.
I hope you enjoyed it, thanks again for playing!
You got a lot of content done and the idea has defnetly even more potential.
Cool that you continue the work on this project!
You can still run out of fuel pretty quickly, but I did not feel too lost in the game.
The button sound is a bit too aggressive as far as I'm concerned.
@marcenat Thank you for re-playing the delta! Feedback received. The sounds were made very hastily, I can turn down the volume on them a bit, or try to soften them. Should I consider raising the starting fuel amount to 5 or 7? Keep in mind that users can buy more fuel in the market.
The quest parts is nice. :smile:
One technical stuff is really off though. On Ship selection screen the ship hit box moves together with the ship. So if you hover your mouse just at the edge of the hitbox it is going to get into a cycle:
- Mouse over hitbox.
- Enlarge the selected ship. Play sound.
- Hitbox moved and mouse no longer over hitbox.
- Shrink the ship, play sound.
- Mouse again over hitbox.
This results in a lot of jugling and unnecessary sounds. So if you could detach the hitbox and only resize the ship model, it could help a bit.
@marcenat I have toned the volume down a bit, so hopefully that helps a little. I have also raised the starting fuel to 5!
@hilvon Yes balancing was hard with such short time, I just wanted to focus on adding all the features instead. Thank you for the recommendation on the hover bug though, it worked! I initially ignored this bug to focus on other things. I assumed it would be hard to fix. But that was rather simple, thanks again!
@greenandsubmarine Thanks for the feedback as well. I added labels to the markets so that it is more clear what you are buying. As for the quests, were you playing the original or the delta? Quests may not be working in the original but they should be fine in the delta. They are not accepted though, it is more like you just turn them in if you want. Every cantina has a set item they are looking for and a reward when you turn it in. I think I am going to add more details about how to play on this page.
Thanks to everyone who played, and gave us feedback! I am working on playing and rating all of your games. I am almost caught up!
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
Great job, I had a great time playing the game!