Space is running out of space by DarkGuardsman
Hook
Space is running out of space.
Once long ago, you could look up into the night sky to see a galaxy of stars. A vast ocean of the milky way, the many planets, or even moon on a cloudless night. Now... the only thing that can be seen is a waste of junk. A sea of metal, a composite of ships and dying satellites. So dense that if it wasn't for the orbital mirrors and ship lanes the planet would have died.
In its own way, the junk fields could be a monument to the power of mankind and its journey into the stars. For those that do not have the luxury of traveling the stars its a curse. A mirror into the past and present of the destruction of the world.
For those that live in the orbital junk fields, we call it home. A place that exists filled with riches and outside the griefs of life on the planet. However, it's not without its problem.... we are running out of space. Junk is filling the void faster than it can be collected. Without a constant grind of drones, it will run out.
Info
"Space is running out of space" is a 2D top-down arcade game. The player pilots a drone to clear and collect junk in the orbital fields. The goal is to collect as much junk as possible. While at the same time prevent it from building up to crush nearby stations.
Game
- Play as a salvage recovery drone
- Start with 5 drones (lives)
- Can capture space junk and tow it behind the drone
- Can release space junk
- Can drop off space as scrap drop of map for points
- Navigation arrows near edge of screen to show the location of junk
- Collision will cause damage
- Junk can take damage from blaster or collision
- Junk will scale with damage
- Junk will change its size, mass, and load value based on state
- Junk will randomize with color, size, rotation, and movement
- Junk will spawn randomly around the map until it hits a max value
- Limit options provider in game to control spawn rate, UI element scale, and graphics
Controls
- Controls can only be changed using game launcher
- WASD or Arrow keys for movement
- Movement is based on screen direction and not ship direction
- Left click to fire blaster to break up objects
- Right click to capture objects
- Middle mouse button or r key to release objects
- Scroll wheel to zoom
- esc key to open menu or exit sub menus
Downloads
Downloads on github are for Windows, OSX, and Linux. However, only windows 64bit version has been tested. Other versions are provided just incase they function for those without windows 64bit OS. Testers have noted mac and linux versions do work. Its unknown if 32 bit windows version works.
It is also unknown if any other frameworks are needed to be installed. In theory unity standalone shouldn't require anything. However, it is noted that it will work with DirectX and may need .net by some testers. This has not been confirmed but if the game doesn't run give these a try.
Bugs and issues
If you have any problems feel free to report them to the github.
Warranty
This is not a commercially released game so no warranty is provided.
Ratings
| Overall | 1058th | 2.926⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1160th | 2.541⭐ | 75🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 803th | 2.979⭐ | 74🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1008th | 2.896⭐ | 74🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 923th | 2.938⭐ | 75🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 106🗳️ | 130🗨️ |
https://youtu.be/S2yDGF3mgNc?t=45
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzS35Ngd7iU
The graphics look nice and the interface is very clean, which shows greatly how the space is running out of space.
The gameplay, however, is really hard. Because of the ship's fast movement it is not easy to capture the objects.
It often took some time to find the junk, and as soon as I got to it, I flew right past it.
The controls are also a little bit counter intuitive.
I only read the info page and didn't understand at first, that my view direction does not influence my fly direction.
But generally it's a great functioning game! Nice idea and great execution.
I played on Linux and it worked like a charm.
@joseph-manley Object count is as much to give you stuff to collect as to also be a danger. Good suggestion on the effects, its something i've add to my list for future improvements after the JAM is over.
@iori-branford I'll see what I can do about camera angles. Still learning how to use the cinamachine follow camera in unity. I have a theory to add an game object in front of the ship for the camera to track.
As for everyone else, ya controls and speed of junk are rough. Wish I had more time to work on both. In future versions I plan to add option to switch between camera and drone orientation for movement. Just in case people do like separating the movement from the aim direction. I'll see about adding difficulty options for junk speed and physics as well.
But booted it on windows and was awesome!!!
@george-lancaster I thought about doing controls like that but wanted to give more freedom of movement. That way users can align there ship with the fast moving objects. Sadly I didn't get a chance to switch over to ship relative movement before releasing.
The graphics are great, and the space physics feel nice. Some music would have given a better mood, but I see you opt-out of that. The gameplay is a bit confusing, once you get it you are able to enjoy for a bit, but it can get tedious after a while.
Overall, I think the concept was nice but the execution needed a better design. You should be proud nonetheless, because your game works really well. Great job!
As well I would love to get music but skipped it to save time. This is the first game I've released and only 2nd I've made real progress on :)
Also for those that couldn't get windows 32 working I made a new build. Figure out that unity will overlap data for both 32 and 64 in the same folder. I've also packaged each OS version as its own download to help :)
Very arcade-y game, it becomes lots of fun once the debris starts adding up. My personal go-to strategy was camping near the scrap drop and waiting for debris to fly by, though I can see there being multiple possibilities. Only thing I couldn't figure out was health, even though I bumped into scrap I was towing rather liberally while playing the game, I never lost any of that. All in all a cool interpretation of the theme, great job!
-The controls are super hard to hang on
-Didn't make me want to try hard and have a better score
-Really slow. This isn't supposed to be a problem, but it comboed pretty well with the above
Last thing: The description is really long, which is not a problem if it is interesting to read, but is when it holds very few usefull informations.
Sorry for the bad comments, I'll leave them not-anonymous so you can come and trash my game in return ;)
Other than the gameplay being too slow, the execution of the game is perfectly correct and playable, with a menu to boot ! Good job ! I just wish there was some audio as well !
The description is a bit longer than what I normally do with stuff. Had a little fun and felt there was no point changing it. Its likely to be changed and included in the game directly in the future. Rather than being setup in some info page for the game like it is here. No worries also about being forced to read it. I love adding skip buttons to any dialog I include in projects :)
Also, No worries on me trashing your game... unless its bad :P
@fluffy-kaeloky Thank you, UI was something I made sure to get running. As I find it annoying when games lack even simple pause functions and ability to exit the game via a menu. I plan to expand on the UI a lot in the future. As I really enjoy usability when it comes to game design. Audio is also planned :)
@carlos-giraldo Thank you, the hook mechanic was something I add randomly. Not something I've ever tried before but felt so much nicer than storing the scrap in an off screen cargo box. Background movement is also planned, along with more effects.
@pnghasemi I agree, the pacing is not what I wanted. I was looking for casual collection game but made it too slow. Missions are something I do plan to toy around with as a solution to several problems. This will include a story campaign to explain the mechanics and controls. As well small missions tinside the current mode (which will be called endless mode). These missions likely will involve chasing down dead stations, satellites, and other large junk to get large scrap drops. I might even tie in the upgrade system with this concept now that I think about it. Would prevent people camping center and waiting for scrap to fly nearby.
It would certainly improve if you could see, what direction you are moving in. Maybe by moving the background or adding some trail or such.
But pretty good work for a single person team. Well done.
When I was going at super speed, it felt like the ship was shaking. Dont know if this was intentional for the effect or whether it is something else - like the camera struggling to keep up with the ship.
I felt like that the best method was to float in space and wait for space-junk/rock to come nearby but it was more fun going at high speeds.
Please do check my game maybe you’ll like it and leave some feedback.
@cppchriscpp NP, thank you for trying it out. As well I already have a new version that will be released soon with better controls and UI elements.
Also, I will have a post jam version up here soon solving some of the problems. Most importantly the next version has in game keybinds, video settings, and ability to switch movement style. You can change from ship based and screen based movement. As well disable mouse movement to use QE for rotation. This allows anyone to customize the game to there player style. Future versions will expand on this to allow controlling movement speed and acceleration. Along with stronger controller and gamepad support.
Other improvements also include changes to collisions, improvements in performance, and a decrease play field to increase pacing. Quality of life improvements have also been made to some UIs. Including a way to use TAB key to navigate UIs without the use of a mouse. This will be expanded on to also use arrow keys and some hot keys for non-mouse users.