Battery Low by Milestone Games
My battery is low...
...and it is getting dark...
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Description:
With only a few points of science left to scan for the mission and with the battery running critically low:
Can you help Rovar plot the path that completes it's mission?
You better steer Rovar with care or the already low batteries will run out before the mission is completed!
Delay the inevitable as long as possible to uncover all the secrets buried in the Martian dust.
https://youtu.be/Aa2uJ55M6E0
Controls and objectives:
:battery: Click where you want Rovar to move and it'll drive there.
:battery: Collect science artefacts for the mission and batteries to refill your energy by having Rovar roll over them!
:battery: Rovar's Energy drains while driving!
:battery: When the energy bar inevitably reaches 0%, Rovar will not be able to move further and will lose contact with you.
:battery: The Mapscan™ system has conveniently marked out all the points of interest on the planet so keep an eye on it!
Good Luck!!
Game Development:
This game was developed by a team of six enthusiasts (and two doggies).
All of the aspects of the game where developed within 72 hours of Ludum Dare 50, from idea to final build, and everything but balance, polish and bug-fixing was finished during the first 48 hours.
All assets in the game where made by the team.
We had an amazingly fun time doing this! <3
For more info on the development of this game, find us on Itch:
https://ocwal.itch.io/battery-low
And see our documented progress here:
https://twitter.com/dubious_potions
https://www.instagram.com/dubious_potions
Looking for more games to play? Check out this VR entry made by our friends: Catharsis - release of the shimmer :purple_heart:
| Link | https://ocwal.itch.io/battery-low |
| Link | https://github.com/failuer/LD50 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/battery-low |
Ratings
| Overall | 106th | 4.061⭐ | 372🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 326th | 3.708⭐ | 375🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 324th | 3.666⭐ | 375🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 207th | 4.08⭐ | 375🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 62th | 4.536⭐ | 381🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 65th | 4.175⭐ | 370🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 540th | 3.164⭐ | 331🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 129th | 4.122⭐ | 372🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 92🗳️ | 186🗨️ |
Hi @xenosns! Thanks for checking out our game! :raised_hands: We'll publish the game closer to the JAM deadline later today.
@xenosns @jungle @chilljams @poopgames So so sorry! We had it in password protected mode while we were figuring out some last minute issues. We're still tweaking things but would love it if you have it a try. Link up there :point_up: Thank you! :sparkles:
Got the point of the game - you need to use a map to navigate your rover by the shortest path, right?
Ah, and your game fits the theme quite well.
Overall, good job!
I am also a Construct dev, so it is always fun for me to play other games made with the platform!
Nicely done!
I LOVED the audio, especially the little robot voice saying "energy" and "science"! Graphics are great, and the user interface was clear and easy to understand. You mentioned that you had fun doing this, and that shines through. Marvelous tribute to Oppy overall; great job team (and dogs)!
Rover voice is adorable!
Traces of previous run helped move further until I noticed a minimap =)
Great job! I got a lot of fun!
(I guess I can forgive you for sniping the same title as my game just before I uploaded)
The only low rating I felt I had to give was on the theme. It seems there is a way to win after all... you can collect all the science object if you try hard enough... to me it made it seem that I had won. But my interpretation of the theme is that losing is inevitable. In this case it is the death of the robot that is inevitable... but you can win before it dies if you help it successfully complete the mission.
Ignoring my take on the theme slip-up this is a great game and deserves more visibility.
Oh, and yes, Rovar and the little dude from our game totally got along! :)
Good job to you. I just find it a little bit too hard to fully enjoy the ride. Maybe a tuned down energy consumption could make it more accessible?
Nice mood and wonderfull art style.
I really liked how the turning of the rover was implemented. Would have maybe liked there to be few more obstacles so you'd have to navigate around them more. Otherwise really cool concept!
The audio seems to be getting stuck across games and can get a bit jarring.
All that said, I did give it a good several plays and I found it enjoyable!
My principal remark would be that energy is spent when clicking and not depending on the distance/speed. Once I understood that, I started cliking outside of the gameplay area to reach further while spending less energy.
Audio is great too, brings everything together. Well done!
It's a bit laggy in the browser sometimes though.
Only a minimal mistake, the scheme-map / HUD is clickable and the buggie go to this point, maybe is better that only the "terrain" must be clickable?
Congrats for this amazing game!
Very good job on this one :thumbsup_tone1:
Only feedback i can think of is that the reveal of the last science bit is cute, but would be worth to telegraph it before it happens, i.e. have the panel vibrate a bit before it falls off
The graphics, audio and mechanics are all perfect. Everything just works together in such a nice way.
Your team did a good job there's seemingly no bugs or wonky aspects.
This could easily be a full blown puzzle game and people would love it! Amazing work.
Finally I reached the ending scene. Good game!
I always went to the closest objective and cleared the game easely, I would have loved to have a mechanic/level design that makes it just a little bit trickier/makes me care more about the path to take. This said it's fine for it to be super chill, I had a great time playing it.
Took me some tries to complete cause I kept on frantically clicking over short distances, and then I understood that I was doing everything wrong, haha.
The level of polish is impressive, wether in terms of art, sound and balancing. The little "ouch" from collisions even made me apologize to Rovar.
This game is *"chef's kiss"* tier, congratulations!
Music, art, controls everything just meshed beautifully together!
Great work!
First I was angry I can't control with my keyboard, but then I realised that this was done for a reason and the reason is super cool! Definetely one of mt favs entries
I found it a bit counterintuitive that the energy drained not by how much distance was driven, but rather how often I clicked. Once I figured that out, beating it was quite easy :)
Other than that, I liked the art style, I liked the interpretation of the theme and I liked the rover of course :)
I really liked the dithering effect in the background art. The game was also great with a great twist on the theme. Showing the previous tracks in the game world was also a really great game design. That way you could see how you could improve your path and you would knew where to go the second time around.
With that said, I must admit, the late game performance was pretty poor on Firefox. I'll make sure to revisit the game with a different browser later. :)
Here's my playthrough, if you wanna see it.
https://youtu.be/_YrVzsbzXYE
I loved the graphics. As the previous commenter said, showing the old tracks is a great addition. The UI is clean and simple, and helps practically with planning your route.
The music contributed to a really nice mood that just perfectly set the tone of the game.
Very well done. I imagine this is going to get at least one medal
Apart from being a great game by itself, I really like that you can see your prevous attempts on respawn.
I will definitely get back to it later!
Great work!
Great jobs!
Special mention for the tire tracks in the ground! It looks great ! :p
It was a pleasant surprise.
Overall great submission.
Good job!
I would love to see an 'endless' mode to see how many artifacts you can collect before running out of power. Trying to optimize the path between the artifacts was more enjoyable than I expected. Solid entry!
Here is my playthrough (sorry my sound is like from Mars):
https://youtu.be/to9SN8S0a4o
I only think that when the battery is low it's kinda frustrating to become slower and slower, but i think it also adds to the puzzle nature of the game
Lovely lonely exploration/puzzle. I liked, but was occasionally frustrated by, the rover's varying choices of turn radius.
It played well knowing I could retry until I solved the puzzle, but I actually feel like the game would lend itself really well to a procgen map, even if it's just look at the radar map and try to plan out a course and then see how well you do.
Some really nice bits of subtle polish that really help sell the experience.
If I had to change something it would be the rover's movement speed that changes from time to time. Sometimes it suddenly accelerates for no apparent reason. But other than this little detail everything feels super polished :)
The ending is too cute btw, I can't even...
Chainsaw Cheerz!
took me a few tries to beat it but I finally did!
Also appreciated that the level is handcrafted rather than procedurally generated. Lets you explore multiple different strategies to find the optimal route, rather than just guessing and hoping for the best each time.
Only issue I had was clicking on the map counted as a waypoint for the rover, which caused it to driver across the whole level and use up all it's energy.
Great work.
Really fun and pretty looking game though! Great job!
Liked for the second try that i had to go onthe tracks, before I realized there wa sa map pretty much exactly solving the challenge for you, i think it'd have been way more fun without a map and just trying.
I think the theme was captured really well. Cool entry!
I see that you've got quite a big team but it is still **very** impressive how polished and detailed this game is. It's short, true, but I enjoyed every bit of it. Now I want more. Please tell me where to sing up, haha
But seriously, the concept, art, animation, music, sfx and a little bit of story it's all so well done and coherent. The difficulty was also just right for me -- took me a couple tries but I managed to get all the pieces! Can't recommend it enough, definetely one of my favs from JAM entries!
I recorded my playthrough. Here's a link in case you'd like to see it https://youtu.be/aJkdjOKW03M
Strengths:
- Easy to get to grips with the game and start getting hooked by the gameplay loop
- Great balance that teaches you the constraints you are facing
- Cool visuals/audio
Possible improvements:
- The Pixel Font is hard to read. During previous Ludum Dares, I also used pixel fonts, but I recently tried to use high-res UI on top of Pixel Art (à-la-Celeste) - difficult to get right, but easier to read.
Great job !
-Tim
ps i played in firefox
It was short and simple and it did everything it needed to effectively and efficiently.
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450167991?t=05h47m49s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
There are nice little things neat in your game: i really liked that we can see the path of our previous attempts, it helps finding a good way to finish the game.
Some collision are quite weird, but I did'nt encounter anything that could block this cute little rover. I love everything in the graphics, it's perfect.
I would love a bigger version with this game, with a big map and some cool puzzles.
Booyah, sub 30 baby!
Really sweet entry! I loooove the voice clips that play during the game, like the startup "Hello!", the elated "science!" when you pick up an artifact, or the tiny "ouch!" when you hit a wall.
I really like the interface design. Gameplay is very simple, but suuuuper engaging! It's like, the unit movement part of a RTS with poor pathfinding, but distilled into a game! And it's *fun*! No frustration on my part here, every mistake made by the rover feels like a feature. The pixel art is amazing, the music is really good, everything is top notch. That short intro rover animation loop is sooooo good!!! And I love how you get to learn to optimize your energy usage and clicks and find the right balance between greed and speed.
The tracks from your last run are a nice touch, although they seem to remain the tracks from your first run instead of being like your "best time ghost" or something, but that would be my main complaint about the whole thing. This is so well scoped, it feels like you were really in control of your project. Congratulations to the whole team on making such a tight experience! And thank you for your work!
Wanted to share my share my PR time: 47.02 seconds :D
What stood out the most about this game's design and execution was the perfect pacing. Each run teaches you something new and makes you create a new plan until, finally, you win. Great entry!
Getting that Curiousity Rover being left on Mars vibe XD
Beautiful Pixel Art entry. The rover Rovar looks like it has its own personality, a bit of Wall-E vibe, definitely wouldn’t allow myself to let him run out of batter on Mars. The whole game looks visually pleasing, maybe the scanner and text could have been more clear, but overall one of the strongest points of your game. It was fun to discover those scientific artifacts on Mars like a scooter, Maneki-Neko, or a Maoi statue.
It was cool to read from the Devs on the stream’s chat that I “discovered” a new path. Later on, I tried a couple of different pathing, some of them worked, some of them didn’t. The game remembers your previous tracks, so it definitely puts it in more puzzle genre rather than an arcade one. That’s why I think the counting time at the end was a bit unnecessary, but you know, it doesn’t matter that much to me.
I think the game has a great potential to be expanded into a full-fledged project. If that’s what you want to do, then fingers crossed :fingers_crossed: :alien: :robot:
I know you have tons of feedback and praise already, but I'll add on.
1) So much polish and juiciness from just a short jam.
2) Ending scene was fantastic, made it a really rewarding experience, but bleak (Part of the theme)
I didn't notice the science bar until after the game in a screenshot ^^. When the "cap" of the science bar dropped to reveal the last item, I saw it flying but didn't knew where it came from and wondered what it was ^^. For me, the mini map was all I needed to track the science items and see that there was a new one.
Great Job!
As everybody above me said the art and sound are well done.
Unfortunatelly I didn't find any tactics in routing task.
The way I've chosen the first was nearly the right one.
And most of failed tries occured mostly due to my driving local mistakes.
I guess if there were any more specific rules for routing this could be a much more fun to play.
The main thing I was struggling with at first was I kept clicking really fast until I realized it was using up my fuel really quick
I left some other feedbacks on my stream too (ignore the part where Im trying to fix my audio so my viewers can actually hear Rovar's cute lil beeps)!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1458309860?t=2h31m47s
I featured the game in part seven of my let's play series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgPpMxxPfRs