LD52 - Space Cargo Harvest by LDJam user 316918
Space Cargo Harvest game done for LD52. Harvest the Special Space Dust to pay off your debt.
Controls
- Up Arrow - Forward Thrust
- Down Arrow - Reverse Thrust
- Left & Right Arrow - Rotate ship
| Link | https://megafatsquirrel.itch.io/space-harvest-cargo |
| Link | https://github.com/megafatsquirrel/space-cargo-harvest |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/ld52-space-cargo-harvest |
Ratings
| Given | 8🗳️ | 4🗨️ |
After bringing in my first haul, I could no longer collect anything.
The sound effects though. It made me laugh so much when I first heard the collect sound.
Keep on making games!
Good job!
I see that this is your first Ludum Dare entry... CONGRATS!! That's awesome. And you made it for the compo, too!
I want to give some feedback on one pain point I had. I don't want to sound overly negative, since this is a small thing. But I think it's important so I'll go deep on why... but I hope this is helpful constructive feedback!
I struggled with what I physically had to do with my hands in this game. I have to use the arrow keys to drive my ship. So I line up my ship. Then I push uparrow for 2-3 seconds to harvest dust and fly to the exit. Then a window pops up but I cannot close it unless I take my hand off the keyboard, and go find my mouse, and then aim the mouse to the button to close the window, and then aim it again to a different place to close the other window. And then I have to take my hand off the mouse and find the arrow keys again. Then I press the downarrow button for 2-3 seconds to fly backwards into the cloud again. Then I repeat.
I do this on an infinite loop and then unfortunately the main work of the game becomes switching my hand back and forth between arrow keys and mouse.
Probably this sounds like a really dumb complaint to have, but honestly I would have paid 25,000 for an upgrade that let me press space bar to close the dialog box, or use WASD to fly my ship. The game would have felt so much smoother and I would have run my loop so much faster, if I could just put my hands on the controls and leave them there.
I remember my first few Ludum Dares, I had to learn all these little annoyances and gradually built up a list of "oh I shouldn't do that" stuff, but only if people pointed them out. So I hope this was helpful. I don't mean it to be some big negative.
In generaly, I think a keyboard game like this should have keyboard UI elements and not need the mouse. But if you must use the mouse, then I think you want your FPS setup with WASD+mouse, and then also allow arrowkeys for the lefties who left-handed mouse. But arrows+mouse is a nono in my opinion for this reason.
ANYWAY sorry to dwell on that minor point.
I thought this game had nice art and good flight controls, and a cool core gameloop that would have built up into a sweet progression if you'd had enough time to add 3, 4, 5 kinds of upgrades.
Nice work and congrats on a successful LD compo entry!
EDIT: I cannot rate your game. Maybe you have opted out of all the categories? If so, here is how you fix that:
Go to your game page. Click the pencil in the lower-right of your game page. Scroll down past the decryption, cover image, and links. Find the "Rating Category Opt-outs" and make sure they are NOT CHECKED.
I think I also encountered a bug where if you fly below the green exit object after completing a run (into the gray area) and then fly back up to it, it triggers the completion popup again and all of the space dust seems to disappear.
Honestly this isn't too bad for a first jam game, but I would recommend working on the enemy graphics, UI, adding some music and sounds, and adding a bit more to the gameplay.