@castpixel It doesn't look like the link to your game on itch.io is active yet, maybe you need to Publish it? Looking forward to playing!

@impbox oh wow, thanks for catching that! I published it as Restricted on itch.io so it played fine for me, and I couldn't see the problem. I hope I fixed it now <3

Cool risk/reward mechanic. I liked getting the enemies to shoot the asteroids for me, reserving my trash/crystals!

@eldogg yes, that was the one thing that made all that AI worth it. The pathfinding is simple as can be, but it gets the job done! Thank you so much for playing and for the kind words

nice little game would love to see this expand.

Fun game, I kept expecting the trash to shoot out of the direction I was holding down, so it took awhile to get used to having to wait for the ship to face a direction.

Amazing entry! Music was nice, your pixel art is top-notch like always. Gameplay was solid and fun. I especially like that even if you run out of lives, you can still salvage the situation by paying 5 trash. Good job!

그래픽도 좋고 음악도 좋고 게임도 재미있어요 우주선 조작이 조금 어렵지만요 ^^;;;

Great graphics, the sound was fine and it was pretty ok, but piloting the ship felt... not great, especially trying to aim. It just feels loose but not in a good way. Anyways, all in all pretty good, I just think the controls should have been tighter then they were.

I reeeally loved the graphics! I feel like I'm playing a SNES game and even the gameplay supports that kinda (which may be bad for some people, but I like). Loved it :)

Nice little game. The art is BEAUTIFUL!, top-notch!

Oh this feels so polished and perfect! Even the music is so smooth! And I really like the mix between trading and fighting!

Fantastic game! The art is adorable, music is fun to listen to, and the gameplay is engaging. Looks and feels like something that would've been on the SNES or GBA! If there was anything I could say in terms of constructive criticism, I guess it's that the dogfights feel lacking. I wish there was a way to lock-on to enemies or strafe your ship side to side to dodge attacks while still being able to shoot in their direction. Overall a great idea and art style.

Really cute and fun game. Love the art!

Wow! What a monumental achievement with this game! So much to it. So much polish. Great work.

Cute and fun. Love all the little details in the world and UI. Great game!

That game is really great, the music, art, controls, all working really great. Good Job =D

This game is beautiful. I think the feel and feedback of the controls isn't quite there yet (would like to see a little stronger sense of inertia when turning), but gosh darn if I didn't just have a great time shooting up enemies and junk.

Wow, what a wonderful game. I'm super impressed you were able to do all of this by yourself in only three days. The art, controls, music, everything is just really well done. I noted a couple strange things, like collision with the Space port didn't seem to trigger when I wanted it to sometimes, and it seemed like I couldn't buy more than one 1UP at a time. I really loved some of the smaller details, like the portrait of the pilot that you just shot down, and the fact that you can get other enemy ships to shoot things so you can reap the rewards. Spectacular job!

Stunning work, cheers!

Very impressed! For a solo project this is remarkably polished, the only other games I've seen turn out this well are done by a team. Great job! I really enjoyed the game, it's gorgeous, sounds good, and uses the theme quite well.

One gripe: I found the controls a bit clunky, the enemies would get right on me as soon as they saw me and it was difficult to aim and shoot at them anywhere near as accurately as they were able to shoot, combined with the slow fire rate and I died a lot.

I had fun, I like the progress that the game offers and also the pixel art. The only thing that little bit annoyed me was the turning of the ship, sometimes I wanted to shoot somewhere but I coud not turn the ship where I wanted but that is just a detail. Awesome game.

Great graphics, and nice mood.

I had a lot of trouble aiming, but I think it's a matter of training...

Nice game, looking very charming, love the 80's anime style! Had problem shooting for some reasons, ship controls were good. I was pleasantly surprised, by the AI and buy system :)

Great execution, I loved the graphics and music! Finished level 3 twice because I didn't know it was the end and wanted to shoot some more asteroids to save up - so I exited >.<

For dogfights I think it would be better if the ships had a (visible/predictable) cooldown, so you can engage at the right time. Now the optimal strategy seemed to be hanging back, taking your time to aim and take them out one by one, which is not as much fun imho.

Very cute game! I loved the art style and the concept. It'd be great to see it expanded more with some variety.

Your graphics are sooo beautiful! I'm really impressed by illusion of 3D (rotation etc), everything is so smooth and perfect! I love it! You surely spend a lots of time for graphics! And your gameplay is also really enjoyable (and idea of collecting trash, luv it - so eco! xD)

Cute pixel art graphics and great use of sound! It also worked well with the theme having the possibility to sacrifice some of your currency / ammo / lives in order to progress in another way. Nicely done submission overall :)

It looks so pretty, music is great, sounds great, and it's so fun to play! And you have character portraits!! OMG there are even unlockables!! This is a jam entry that you've made on your own??!! You're truly a master at gamedev!! You're one of those people that I look up to and try to be like!!!

Wow! Amazing graphics and neat concept. The music is cute and fits the game. The physics also worked out pretty well. Great entry!

I love the graphics ! Your LD entries are always the best :heart:

Fun little game with nice art and music! I had fun playing it. Congratulations on making this game all by yourself :-)

Love the art style, colors are pretty well thought through and sprites are quite nicely rendered! The old school anime style fits this so well. The gameplay was pretty good, too --- very arcadey. Great work, you should be proud of your creation :)

I like this kind of arcade gameplay, although I'm not sure I was really sacrificing anything but the space rocks and enemies that were in my way. The game is polished and fun but lacks for coherency in matching the scenario to the mechanics: too much of it is built on self-evident game tropes like "of course you shoot the enemies to take their loot", "of course you trade things at the shop to power up", so no particular meanings are conveyed.

An interesting game with a kind of mechanics. I put a rating) Please rating and me, thanks in advance)

The best graphics I've seen this jam, great job! Also good idea letting the player assign their controls at the start.

Awesome graphics !
Really fun game to play.
Well done for a solo jam game ! Congrat'!

Surely one of the top entries this time around :D
Wonderful 8-directional sprites and simple gameplay (keybinds are always a plus).
Also really like the "Continue" mechanic, makes it so much less frustrating, as long you still have some trash left. Gotta say though, they seem to have a lot of fish in space XD

Love it! I'm a sucker for good pixelart :)

The sprites are adorable and so well done! together with the parallax stars and nice sounds, make it a pleasure to play through.

The mechanics are good too, it all feels "right". the idea to give up enemy collision worked really well, the dog fights feel really fun, wether I win of loose, I feel like I have more freedom of movement.

At first look this doesn't seem like it fits the "sacrifice" theme, but after playing a bit, you do feel the sacrifice with the bullets you choose and what you choose to do with them, so I think this is actually very appropriate.

overall, I think this is one of my favs as of now, very good job, I think you deserve a high score this game jam.

Nitpicking but didn't understand the need to set your controls (Option would be great though) . Especially every restart. Other than that. Crisp graphics and colors. Nice track. Polished. I struggled a bunch though but liked how you can save yourself. Very deep game for a jam but with room for more. Follow this up. I'm going to go now and get good :)

one of the best Graphics I’ve played so far!

Your LD39 surprising too !

Interesting game :) awesome graphics. I like the continue after you died mechanic, although it feels like it negates the 1UP in the shop. The enemies are pretty strong, but I like that. It resulted in some nice dogfights and them smashing into things! I did not like the integration of theme too much, it feels a bit bland. But overal I think it is a great game!

Wow, awesome pixel art! The core gameplay was fun and engaging. Not being able to shoot in the direction until you're fully turned made for good dogfights. Movement(and also the setting) reminded me a lot of Star Control 2, and I loved it. Once I had the basics figured I just rushed for the crystals and managed to finish it. Great jam entry.

Beautiful game, I've enjoyed playing it. I've been following you for some time ago on twitter because I love your art and when I saw your ludum dare entry I didn't hesitate to try it. Keep up the good work :smile:

So I hope we'll get the full game on steam and nintendo switch by this time next year! :wink: This was simply amazing, but I'm not surprised. Your entries are always a blast to play :smile:

Everything is working perfectly.
As a pixel art lover, I can say that you did a great job.

Before reading the instructions I was pretty confused, but after reading them I went a lot better. At first I found it difficult to tell which things I was supposed to pick up, vs things to avoid. I'd often try to pick up the Trash containers, and I'd tend to avoid the crystals which looked threatening. The ammo icon indicator was also confusing, as the "crystal" could look like scrunched up trash. It might be good to have the word "trash" or "crystal" written with it as well.

Flying around felt good but aiming at enemy ships is really hard, and when hitting an enemy my face seems to appear and look like i've been hit? I'm not sure if I've been hit or not, I'm assuming I don't have health other than my lives.
I also couldn't figure out what the pink arrows were pointing at.

One thing I thought might be cool is if when you shoot an asteroid it gets pushed and you need to try and cause a chain collision to break lots of asteroids with few shots.

As always your pixel art in beautiful, the ships and faces, asteriods and starbase especially!
Oh and I loved the music and sfx!
Great work! Thanks for making!

Very good graphics!

@impbox thank you for the feedback! I'm sad I messed up the collectibles so much :/ The thing that pops up when you kill an enemy is *her* portrait not yours. I probably shouldn't make it appear bottom left, it's completely confusing. The chain reaction sounds good. I don't think the game is deep enough to support it, and it's not like I'll keep working on it. Thanks again <3

@kinuni thank you! I don't think it's deep enough to expand though

@adventureislands thank you <3 I'm finding out more and more that it's shallow gameplay :/ I thought I was making sacrifice a core mechanic, but it seems like I made a shootemup where you have a weird disadvantage

@ilseroth thank you. I think part of the problem is you don't see all the angles, just the 8 sprite directions of the ship. It actually turns smoothly, in 360 degrees, but snaps to the nearest. It's what solar winds and escape velocity do, so if those are tight controls and mine aren't, that's where I'm going wrong. Anyway it was tough enough to get 8 directions finished by the end of the jam, so I'm ok

@nelson-william aww thank you. I get why it's bad for some or most people

@arvejeitor thank you <3

@markusfisch Thank you! I'm glad you don't find it weird

@sodaraptor strafing and locking on would mean one more button, which I couldn't spare. Maybe autolock, but then what's the reason for having to maneuver. Maybe homing missiles, like the enemies have, but I couldn't fit them in the economy scheme. Thank you so much for the feedback! <3

@serwaastudio thank you very much

Really like the old school feel to this with the music and the greaaat graphics!!!!!! Well done!

@wdelvi thank you! I seem to get better at finishing my ludum dare entries. Having a small idea and a concrete plan of attack works

@nkrim thanks so much

@choso thank you :)

@garris thank you! I think the main issue is you can't see the smooth rotation of the "actual" spaceship (hidden), because I only had time for 8 directions for the visible ship. :/

@ryan-brenner thank you <3 You can only buy 1Ups until you have 2 ships on top (that's 3 lives). The collision with the spaceport is on a small delay so you can have time to see that you've gone there. But I agree, it should probably be a tile that you can enter, and then it should ask you to press something before you enter the starbase.

@fusionnist thank you <3 cheers!

@f4kethis the enemy AI is super hacky... The intention was to first move and then shoot, but I set the logic to something like "if you see the player, shoot every 2 seconds", which means they start shooting the moment they see you. The controls are also suffering from only 8 visible directions for the ship, when the actual math underneath has smooth rotation. Oh well. game jams. I'm sorry for the frustration

@gordy yes there's not accurate feedback. the ship actually turns very smoothly, but the visible sprite only has 8 directions, so it turns every 45 degrees. That's what's wrong, I suspect. Thank you for the feedback!

@dunin Thank you! I think the rotation of the ship is what's giving you trouble, it's my bad

@jantaaa thank you! Turning the ship isn't easy, that's totally on me.

@dining-philosopher thank you! awww I'm sorry I misled you on level 3! I agree, the AI is hacky. I tried to make them follow you more aggressively, but they defaulted to patrolling too easily. So you can take them down one by one. Plus, their asteroid-avoiding code actually makes them gather to the top left quadrant after a while. It was really puzzling me until the last minute when I figured it out, and then I couldn't do anything about it! Oh well, I hope I get smarter by next LD <3

@pukami thank you. I don't know if there's enough game there to expand..

@kirke thank you so much ^-^ I spend about half my time on graphics. The latter half, so I could be sure the game played somewhat ok. Apparently gameplay missed the mark for a lot of people though

@devharts thank you! I'm glad the theme shines through for you! <3

@one-seed-fruit thank you so much ^-^ I'm not a master, that's for sure... However I have picked a few tricks in working during game jams. Like pick a super small idea, finish it by day one, and then have day 2 and 3 for playtesting and decoration ^-^

@julian-creutz thank you <3

@yopox oh wow you've seen my silly stuff before? <3 how humbling, thanks :)

@pantoufle thank you ^-^ glad you had fun instead of being frustrated by my mistakes

@toge thank you toge! I am sort of proud, though all i can see is the flaws now :)

@triplefox thank you for your feedback. I read some of your theories on coherency, and I agree on more than a few points. However I structured this on Keith Burgun's clockwork design pattern, so scenario to me is very secondary. If the game had a mayan sacrifice theme it would be coherent by your standards, but it wouldn't by mine. The only thing I wanted to do with the theme is create game rules out of. If I failed that too, and sacrificing your currency by shooting things isn't sacrifice, then I admit defeat :/

@awix thank you for your rating. I rated yours as well, you're very welcome

@maytch thank you! it's time I thought of azerty users

@zugai89 thank you! yeah they eat a lot of fish, what can I tell you.

@cyberstarlight thank you so much. I'm so glad you see the theme <33333

@morriss aww thanks for playing both of those <3

@twinghosts the 1up in the shop gives you the chance to prepare for the next level. The continue lets you sacrifice some money to keep playing (like in the arcades). I thought it felt unfair to just die without a continue, and you can't Insert Coin, so... :) Thank you for the kind words!

@pranjalbisht thank you! I need to play star control 2!!

@hechi thank you so so much <3

@kunonooni awww thanks for the words of support <333

@acaral thank you <3 I try!

@kovareka thank you!

@azayiah thank you for the kind words <3

Retro style is great~Playing this game has a feeling of playing arcade in the 90s~welldone~

Love the art style. It is a little hard to control the ship to shot on top left/right and bottom left/right, and by doing that, it doesn't detect the meteoroid's hitbox properly.

This is really good, it also looks and feels like a SNES/Megadrive game (concept and presentation). But it has some quirks. For instance, the turn rate is really annoying because the enemy's projectile is pretty fast, so the player has to take considerable distance before turning and shooting. It also makes aiming quite difficult.

Otherwise you did a fantastic job. Well done.

@appix thank you <3

@hugonun and @cassio-eduardo thank you. The turn rate probably suffers from 8 directions, however the actual movement is 360 degrees. I only had time for 8 directions for the visible sprite though, so there it is. I can escape and shoot enemies fine, but it's my game and I don't see the problems. So thank you!

Really nice visual, keep up the good work!

@marvalgames it's not nitpicking it's a valid question. I always make my LD games use Z and X, to save some time, but people using AZERTY keyboards (France and other countries) are always disappointed because Z and X are too far apart on their keyboards.
So this time I thought I would let people redefine their keys.
Redefining them every time you play is a pain, but I had no time for an options menu

Nice sandbox!

@franciszek-pyrc thank you! you *can* finish it if you want, it has an ending

I don't like playing games, but for those that like I think that this is ok.

I don't like playing games, but for those that like I think that this is ok.

I don't like playing games, but for those that like I think that this is ok.

I don't like playing games, but for those that like I think that this is ok.

I don't like playing games, but for those that like I think that this is ok.

I don't like playing games, but for those that like I think that this is ok.

i almost all 5 this one, this is an amazing entry, love it!

Really nice work on this one! Very nice pixel art and the feel of steering was really good and dogfights were a good challenge!

Such a polished game! I'm terribly lousy at this kind of thing so I just wasn't able to finish the third sector and kept getting obliterated. 😢 I do feel motivated to come back and try again, but I want to leave my rating and comment in a timely fashion so here I am. c':

Kind of funny how it ended up with the same space theme as your keynote game. Was that intentional or did it just happen?

Graphics are unsurprisingly amazing, but I didn't know you do music too! Really nice tune as well. And the sound effects. Everything works together to give off a cohesive retro vibe. Really reminds me of older asteroid games.

I see what you were going for with the theme but since I was so bad at the game I just wasn't ever able to afford sacrificing any lives by ramming things because most of the time, even when I kept going back to the station to buy more, I was mostly operating on just one life left, haha. 😭 Still, that's on me! I think it was a good use of the theme.

I do agree with Cassio that the turn rate was a bit on the slow side, making it difficult sometimes, but that's basically my one complaint!

Everything is there. Complete package of graphics, audio, mechanics and so on. Even controller customisation! Brilliant work. <3

What a gorgeous game! I'm impressed how polished it is, I couldn't find any bugs while playing. I also liked being able to map the buttons myself, I thought that was considerate. The art is charming and the sounds add to the old-school vibe, the animations and movement are smooth, and I had fun. Great job!

Nice art and I like the trade off mechanic! I have a hard time steering the ship and aiming, especially with the enemy ships. With the rocks I could get close, but not too close- maybe if there was some sort of proximity meter feedback? With enemy ships, if they are chasing you, it's hard to turn around and shoot them without getting shot. Maybe shooting could be by the arrow keys verses the direction you're facing? Could just be the turn speed as well (maybe that could be upgraded). Anyway, very nice - I could see the game trading up to better and better materials, or having certain resources requiring different kinds of materials.

I really, really like the trade-off mechanic. It really forces you to think about the aiming of the game, and deciding what to take out. Presentation was nice as usual. I kind of chose to cheese the enemies by flying far away, then slowly approaching them until they're in view and shoot. I do think the controls were a little awkward, in particular the aiming, as it was easy to overshoot the angle. Still, the small world size and a neat radar really helped make the game feel strategic and fair.

Hey castpixel! Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!

If you'd like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/346058131?t=03h25m45s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

Lovely game! I included it in my compilation video series of games from the Ludum Dare, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/RJjn8MPNuQ4

beautiful art as usual. the sacrifice theme is taken well with all the trade-offs.

Awesome game! Great art and solid gameplay. My only problem with it is that I have to move in the direction I want to shoot, which tends to make me fly straight into the enemy as they're shooting. Its not my preferred way of combat but it does make the game more difficult, so I can't really complain.

Perfect! 5-stars. When I shot the cute pixel art trash and aliens and listened to the upbeat music, I felt like a joyful space junker. If you continue to develop this, at first I wasn't clear when I could shoot and that I needed to pickup dead fish to shoot them, and that trash was not a pickup.

Music was awesome, mechanics was a delight, dog figting was fun, graphics were great, representation of movement worked marveolusly!

Fantastic game! It was a bit hard at times to hit the enemy spacecraft but other than that it was very well polished. I liked it a lot :thumbsup: