LudumData

Project Ark by TechnoGoth

[raw]
made by TechnoGoth for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

The world is dying. The only chance remaining is to begin again on Mars. Command of the is bold enterprise has been given to you. You job is to ensure that a viable colony ship is launched before the virus infects everyone.

Planning based Simulation Game

  • Gather Additional Resource
  • Perform Research and Development
  • Construct a ship able to make the journey
  • ~~Find the Best of the Best Crew~~
  • ~~Prepare the path ahead~~
  • ~~The longer you wait to launch the higher the risk and the more each action costs.~~

main_screen.png

Instructions

Simple point and click interface.

annoted_ui..png

In order to have a viable ship you must meet all of the following conditions: * Have crew capacity equal to or greater than the crew on board * Have more fuel then the total Fuel Required for Launch and Fuel Required for the Journey * Have more oxygen, supplies, and power production then consumed or have sufficient supplies. * Thrust and Mass determine time required to make the journey and how much fuel is required.
* More thrust means less fuel needed and a shorter trip.
* Less mass mean less fuel needed.

Endings

  • Lose the Game if Infection Rate hits 100% - Red
  • Win by Launching a viable ship. Must have crew capacity for all crew, enough oxygen, supplies, and power for the journey and enough fuel to take off and reach Mars. - Blue
  • Secret Ending? - Green

Updates

Pushed Fix 0.1.3 - Resolves issue with build time going to 0 or negative causing infinite building. Cleaned up some ui issues.

Youtube https://github.com/LiteraryJester/ProjectArk.git
Youtube https://technogoth.itch.io/project-ark
Youtube https://technogoth.itch.io/project-ark
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/project-ark

Ratings

Overall 1944th 3.167⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Fun 2091th 2.852⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1762th 3⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1174th 3.685⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1876th 3.089⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 1589th 1.553⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1989th 1.875⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1969th 2.9⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 32🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

Systematic
21. Apr 2020 · 10:05 UTC
Could have used a tutorial, was a bit hard to figure out how everything worked. However it was a cool idea and fit the theme well. Had fun for a bit.
Odeyalko
21. Apr 2020 · 16:01 UTC
Nice game, good luck!
dvd
21. Apr 2020 · 16:13 UTC
Very nice
SamurGuy
21. Apr 2020 · 22:46 UTC
looks cool, its not obvious how to play, but its fun when you figure it out
Robin49
21. Apr 2020 · 22:59 UTC
A nice game, a little bit hard to understand for me but i like the concept, i didn't launch the ship but i gonna try harder. Nice use of the theme.
thristhart
21. Apr 2020 · 23:06 UTC
I think I got into a bugged state where time remaining on my construction was negative and it was constantly building those parts every month, which made it pretty hard to succeed! That aside, after I got over the hurdle of understanding what my goal was, I was having fun. I like the aesthetic of the UI.
🎤 TechnoGoth
21. Apr 2020 · 23:39 UTC
@thristhart Thank's for the playing through that bug. Not see it before. I kinda wish it wasn't too late to push out a fix, and add a tutorial.
Ioan Pop
22. Apr 2020 · 03:55 UTC
@technogoth it is not too late to push out a fix! As per the rules you can push out bugs (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules under the section "Additional Notes for both the Jam and Compo
").

As for the game I think that this is a good approach on the theme, but a tutorial level would have been really helpful. :)
Rusty Jim
22. Apr 2020 · 13:17 UTC
I liked this but ran into the same bug as the guy above! So many solar panels on my ship! some of the UI was hard to understand but I really liked the concept and general execution. Well done!
🎤 TechnoGoth
22. Apr 2020 · 19:34 UTC
@rusty-jim @ioan-pop @thristhart Thanks for reporting the bug. IT should hopefully be fixed now. If you decided to come back and try your luck again.
paulhocker
22. Apr 2020 · 23:30 UTC
was a little hard to figure out at first. want to give it another go as it seems a little deeper than most ld games. thanks for making this.
OrdiNeu
23. Apr 2020 · 01:36 UTC
I liked it quite a bit! I lost my first time when I realized I had too much weight and not enough other stuff, but my second try I was going to win but discovered the vaccine instead. Pretty neat balancing act!
defectivemelon
23. Apr 2020 · 01:51 UTC
Lot's of content and choices to be made here, a super complicated optimization problem. It's cool and makes for a smart game that's fun to try (and fail) to solve. Something you did which I think was a good idea was ease in the options over time -- Maybe expanding on this, I feel it would've been less overwhelming if you limited the available options to choose from a bit more. Tougher to balance though and makes your job much harder obviously! :)
Hare Software
23. Apr 2020 · 22:42 UTC
The game feels a bit empty, yet what is there works really well. The second playthrough I did was kinda anticlimactic, since I just cured the virus and I never even needed the ship, but I did like playing it. The graphics you do have look very good, but it would be cool to have some visuals of what the ship looks like or what the situation is down on the planet. Many options to expand, but I must say that that would be quite hard to do in a gamejam. Hope to see more of your work in the future!
Pilarius
23. Apr 2020 · 23:15 UTC
A lot of Buttons and a lot of numbers changing. I sadly did not realy figure out how the game works. There was also the issue of overlapping UI elements on the left side at some point, I constructed a lot of building those overlapped other vital information.
The game seems to have a lot of factors to play with. A proper in game Tutorial would be beneficial for this entry. Nevertheless an interesting entry. Keep it Up
GameOverMexico
29. Apr 2020 · 02:28 UTC
Could have used a tutorial, was a bit hard to figure out how everything worked. A lot of Buttons and a lot of numbers changing. The Image in the post its a resume of the game I thing, nice work.
frosty
30. Apr 2020 · 07:05 UTC
It took a while before I realized that the "Ship Construction" options were in a separate tab. Luckily I was still able to build it in time to win.

I think a few sound effects could have made quite a difference in making it feel more immersive. Otherwise, I liked your take on the theme.

Nice entry! :)
LCStark
30. Apr 2020 · 11:22 UTC
I loved it! I like the theme of trying to prepare for / escape from the coming disaster. The game is a little bit too easy - I was able to get the green ending on my first try, with the infection rate still around 2%.

One thing it definitely needs is to show how much resources you are earning each month. Without it it's difficult to judge how long you have to wait for resources for the specific ship part you need.

On another playthrough I've first researched the antimatter engine and installed it on the ship. A few months later when I got bored of just installing more habitats and solar panels, I added the conventional engine, thinking it would either do nothing or slightly improve my thrust value. Instead, my thrust dropped from 5.5 to 1, as if my ship is only using the conventional drive. I tested it further by researching other drives: installing the magnetic drive increased thrust to 1.7, installing the nuclear drive afterwards dropped it again to 1.2.

Other than those issues, the game is good. I guess it just needs more things to be a great one - more research, more types of parts, some type of events which could either benefit or harm your efforts, etc. It could definitely use some simple ambient music and button noises to make it feel complete. Speaking of audio, since the game has none, you should probably opt out of the "Audio" voting category.

All in all, great job! I enjoyed playing it. ;)
Fractal
06. May 2020 · 18:00 UTC
Pretty cool game!
My main complaint is that there are too many things that are unexplained, and it takes some time to understand which things are useful and which other are useless. Also I don’t know where I can see how many resources/money one earn each round, that would have been helpful.
I would suggest to try to make it clearer in the game design what each resource is for, and how one can spend it or earn it.