rocket ship by Zirrrus
Launch a little rocket from a planet's surface to collect stuff. Then crash back into it.
Controls
Use the mouse cursor's position to determine both angle and force of your rocket's launch, then launch by left-clicking. While flying holding down the left mouse button applies a slight boost to the rocket.
Gameplay
Collect crates for points and yellow tanks to refuel. The game ends once you run out of fuel. When your rocket goes too far from the planet you lose some points and are placed back on the surface.
Development
I had first started working on a different game but eventually realized that there was no way I could get it to an even half-presentable state in the limited time left(even more limited by sickness and having to travel during the second day of the jam). So I came up with this simple concept: a rocket launching from a tiny planet constantly being pulled back to it by gravity. Picking up items wasn't even part of it at first. Since Unity does not have any options for spherical gravity(as far as I could tell), I had to write my own script for it. Shortly afterwards I actually completely ditched Unity's physics for the movement of the rocket - writing simple physics was surprisingly easy.
The game as it is now is very difficult. You usually either are flung away from the planet into the cold emptiness of space or crash half a second after take-off. I ran out of time and at the point where the game was in a playable enough state to post it, I wasn't awake enough to do any proper tweaking anymore.
Hope you have a little fun with it regardless! :)
I've continued working on the game and will put a better version up on the itch.io page once the voting is done(so nobody accidentally votes based on the wrong version).
Voting Category Opt-outs
- Audio - in space nobody can hear you explode
Links:
- Windows(includes source): https://zirrrus.itch.io/rocket-ship
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/rocket-ship |
Ratings
| Overall | 433th | 2.921⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 400th | 2.789⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 319th | 3⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 262th | 3.421⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 233th | 3.395⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 398th | 2⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 42🗳️ | 15🗨️ |
Art style is nice, especially the menu with the rocket. And planet should spin, I think.
Thank you!
Here is my playthrough - https://youtu.be/h-mTtzyDdmE, if you interested.
All I could suggest is slowing down the overall speed and add more in flight adjustments.
Well done!
I know there's no sound in space, but we launch from within the atmosphere, so something would've been nice. ;)
A little bit rough to get used to the gravity, but It's a cool mechanic. I think that the score should only go up, because you crash a lot and maybe tone down the fuel recovery.
And yes, please do some more worki on it!
I didn't find game difficult at all, never had my fuel drop below 80% but maybe that's because of my 1k hours spent in KSP.
Of course i couldn't go over the symbolic 0 score, but i probably spent more time trying to figure how to make a perfect circle on this than playing and finish the 5 last games, and i enjoyed it !
I didn't understand well the "boost" mechanic though !
But anyway you could polish it by making a tutorial explaning the basics, and i personnally think this would be a hit !
Great job !
Sounds would have added a lot, a shame there aren't any.
The ship was incredibly hard to control. As you wrote in the description "You usually either are flung away from the planet into the cold emptiness of space or crash half a second after take-off.", this sums it up very well.