SPACELOOP by gwinnell
You are stuck in time... and the universe is after you!
There are 6 loops to complete successively.
- Movement: WASD
- Shoot: LMB or Space Bar
- Retry: R
- Fullscreen: F
- Mute: M
* Web build now available!* https://gamejolt.com/games/spaceloop/542911
(Note: No sound in Safari. Please try another browser.)


Tools:
- Custom C++ game engine (ark2d + emscripten)
- Photoshop
- Reaper
Tips:
- Collect the hexagon loop-breaker pickups to progress!
- Just keep shooting!
- Keep a special watch out for Enemy bullets!
Follow my Game Development journey:
Post-Compo Changelist:
- Bugfix: final boss hp incorrectly being set back to 1 from 20.
- Improvement: Enemy bullet colour change to white.
- Improvement: Enemy bullet collision radius halved.
- Improvement: Make game end/win state less janky.
Ratings
| Overall | 121th | 3.775⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 201th | 3.525⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 487th | 2.875⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 492th | 3.105⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 104th | 3.95⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 77th | 3.75⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 301th | 2.533⭐ | 17🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 189th | 3.45⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 20🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
Doesn't run in palemoon. No errors but I'm guessing it uses webassembly.
I do find the crosshair a bit misleading. And it is a bit irritating that it is possible to control with the keyboard but not restart the level... Not much to complain about otherwise... Maybe a Linux version? ;)
Great solid entry.
1. I will see about rendering the crosshair over the enemy if it is on the current 'aim line'. 100% this should happen. @dunderroffe @jharler
2. I will consider making the enemies with > 1hp flash white and get knocked back a bit when hit. 100%. (I'm still proud of my first proper hit effect animation though!) @klianc09
3. I let myself fall down a time hole polishing UI transitions and such. I should have taken a step back and thought about the gameplay a bit deeper. (This always happens to me...)
4. The only thing I'm not too convinced on is the mouse-aim idea. I agree it was tricky to aim, but not sure this is the solution. I think this might make it even trickier to aim, because you won't be able to judge the angles. I think point #1 should rectify it. Honestly though, I left this out because my 3d maths isn't up to scratch, and how things are built in my engine would have made this quite difficult! I will definitely give it a go though, in conjunction with #1, and see how it feels. Next time! @mlkvr
4. @someone Yeah, Emscripten, I think that's WebAssembly. :slight_smile:
Thanks again! :smiley: :heart:
Aiming took a while to get used to.
I think levels could be longer if you spaced out the pickups a bit.
Also, the loops aren't noticeable unless you miss a pickup.
But the gameplay was fun and satisfying!
I dont really have any suggestions what you can do better. I just had sometimes problems in the edges with the cross-hair to get my aim correct. I belive the parallax of the cursor was not 100 % correct in the edges. Maybe I am wrong, but I just wanted to leave my feeling.
This is a spectacular entry, well done! 💪👍
Somehow it felt strange that you could only shoot in front of you - then I realized it mostly felt that way because you could click to shoot. I guess my gamer instincts tell me that if I'm clicking to shoot, I must also be aiming the cursor to shoot - but I switched over to using the Space bar to shoot and suddenly it didn't feel weird any more.
I couldn't quite get the hang of the perspective - I was often pretty sure I lined up a shot then moved out of the way, only to both miss and then crash into an asteroid. I'm not really sure what was wrong. Maybe it would help if the incoming objects and your bullets left more clear trails behind them to show the perspective? More than one reticle (like, three or so down the trail) would probably help a lot too. I think relying on the reticle to aim actually messed me up since it was further away than any of the objects were.
The music and sound effects were solid.
Good work overall.