Disasteroids by Will Chambers

[raw]
made by Will Chambers for Ludum Dare 47 (COMPO)

An asteroids game where the player poses more of a danger to themselves than do the asteroids.

I interpreted the theme "Stuck in a loop" with a tweak to the traditional asteroids. Rather than the player re-appearing on the opposite side of the map when they leave the scene EVERYTHING DOES.

Asteroids, Lasers, you name it.

The art style is intended to be a nod at the original game, with some modern coloring.

Engine:

The engine used was my own, from scratch except for: GLFW, glm, Lua. The engine is Called Willow, the public version is available on my GitHub! (linked as a submodule in the source code link)

Since I made the engine over the last year I figure I don't qualify for compo, but I thought I'd mention that!

The engine uses Vulkan for rendering, using a pretty naive scheme right now, happy to chat about it if anyone is interested!

Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 5.14.48 PM.png

Despite working on this engine for a year, I've never really made anything with it. It was an awesome experience to create something from nothing.

The controls are:

W - accelerate Mouse - point ship S - reverse thrust Spacebar - shoot

The game is actually sort of interesting, The controls are a bit buggy, as are collisions, and the fragments of stuff are graphical bugs.

BUT: if I could fix that, and had more time, I would add: Sheilds - take a few self hits before you die. Energy - spent on abilities and shields, dropped from asteroids. Gravity wells - dropped by the player collect asteroids, re-route bullets. Asteroid fragmentation - disappearing is boring. Game Menus, UI.

I don't have any of the above, so I left collision with the player disabled. So, the game is super easy. In fact, the only reason to shoot is if you hate looking at asteroids, and the best way to make sure you never see one again is: Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 5.43.53 PM.png

(I certainly won't be winning any awards for difficulty)

That's all I've got, well that and RSI.

Thanks for everything! this was a bunch of fun.

looking forward to feedback:

Future goal : Disasteroids -> Mediocritoids

Playing:

UPDATE: on the advice of the lovely people below, I created an itch.io page with windows and Mac builds running!

Play it here: https://willchambers.itch.io/ld-47-disasteroids

thanks!

Ratings

Given 8🗳️ 11🗨️

Feedback

05. Oct 2020 · 23:55 UTC
This is such a cool idea and I love the aesthetics, very clean. Keep it up, I can't wait to see mediocritoids!

It's super impressive that you made this from scratch, engine and all. What kind of capabilities does Willow have?
Danial Jumagaliyev
06. Oct 2020 · 03:20 UTC
Bold move using your own engine.
06. Oct 2020 · 03:28 UTC
Is it possible for you to build your game for us, and then host a windows executable on a platform such as itch.io?
Thorn
06. Oct 2020 · 06:06 UTC
Interesting take on an old classic. I do wish you would have built a version for others so more would experience your work.
🎤 Will Chambers
06. Oct 2020 · 15:23 UTC
Thanks for all the feedback!!! I'm so flattered, this stupid engine has been my love and joy for a while now, it's awesome to see people react to it. Working on a windows build, I'm having some small problems, but I hope to have it up soon!
will update when it's available.
🎤 Will Chambers
06. Oct 2020 · 16:41 UTC
Here is the itch.io page, This works on my windows machine, but your results may vary, you at least definitely need Vulkan installed. Please let me know if you can play it!

https://willchambers.itch.io/ld-47-disasteroids
🎤 Will Chambers
06. Oct 2020 · 20:43 UTC
UPDATE: I updated the engine to fix the bugs that prevented people from playing it! The itch.io page now works, PLAYABLE ON MAC AND WINDOWS
Aran Ink
06. Oct 2020 · 23:31 UTC
Might want to update your game description to add the itch.io link, since the description makes it sound like everyone will have to build it themselves. I almost missed it before checking the comments.
necauqua
07. Oct 2020 · 00:06 UTC
Can't believe I actually built it, while the link to itch was in the comments :D

Very simple and minimalist take on a classic, saw this approach a lot, does not make it worse)

I like minimalist styles, so I enjoyed your style, good work! :)
KunoNoOni
07. Oct 2020 · 01:11 UTC
That was a cool and unusual game you created. Asteroids is one of my favorite games to play. It's pretty impressive that you built this using your own game engine. I too would recommend you update the description to let people know about the itch.io link. I also would have missed it had I not checked the comments. Congrats on submitting your game!
Jeremy Ryan
07. Oct 2020 · 01:22 UTC
Neat little experience! Always fun to see more unconventional game development styles, but I'm glad you got a Windows build up and running. :smile:

Reminded me of [TrickyShot](http://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/trickyshot) which placed a few events back!
Oxropy
08. Oct 2020 · 20:48 UTC
I took the itch io version and as soon as the ship moves it flies around way too fast and i don't know where it is anymore. I have the feeling that everything is moving a little too fast.
![Screenshot 2020-10-08 223819.png](///raw/614/73/z/39bac.png)
🎤 Will Chambers
09. Oct 2020 · 02:27 UTC
If it's any comfortable it has nothing to do with speed! The graphics destroy themselves at any frame rate. And I didn't implement any kind of delta-time, so the player update rate is frame-rate dependent, hence the super speed. Thanks for the comment!!
Verbante
11. Oct 2020 · 10:44 UTC
it doesn't open for me with no error report :'(
last thing printed on the terminal is something to do with giving an observer ID though.
it is about the 3rd till printed in total
FabDynamic
25. Oct 2020 · 18:24 UTC
I couldn't figure out how to control this to save my life. It looks really cool and I like a lot about it and hopefully I'll be able to figure it out someday. I hope it wasn't because I'm using the mac version. Are there any videos of it running properly? Thanks for making it regardless!

### Mac version worked ###
The mac version worked great after I got Vulkan installed as you recommended.