MOTHER by Parxer

[raw]
made by Parxer for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

Mother is restless. Soothe her.

Explore the galaxy to find Mother and complete your objective. Use all tools at your disposal.

IMPORTANT: Not all controls are explained in the game. You need to know this:

Untitled-4 (3).png

  • Right mouse button + drag to aim satellites
  • Middle mouse button + drag to control camera
  • Use [1] [2] [3] keys to switch between current planet's satellites once unlocked
  • Use [Tab] to switch between planets once unlocked, and also to switch to your active planet from its satellite
  • Other controls are shown in the GUI. Hover over skill buttons to learn about what they do.

Post-deadline fixes: - Bugfix 1: Fix timer, camera and rotation issues - Bugfix 2: Fix broken hack/beam target selection, buggy skills panel

Ratings

Overall 589th 3.345⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 760th 2.672⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 376th 3.466⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 123th 4.233⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 181th 4.217⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Audio 258th 3.685⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 341th 3.767⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 41🗳️ 37🗨️

Feedback

Pavel Goncharov
Apr 21st · 17:03 UTC
The graphics have great stylization.
yodak
Apr 22nd · 14:20 UTC
Wow, such a massive complex game! Looks very nice and the atmosphere is cool and space expolerery!
Mr. Flower
Apr 22nd · 14:36 UTC
Man this is really good stuff. Love the art direction of everything, the shaders for some of those planets is beautiful, like with the black hole thing (forgot the name). took a second to fully understand what to do, but once realizing, it became so much fun looking for other celestial bodies and trying to establish a connection. Also the time management aspect of it was perfect, I love anything like that (favorite loz game is majora's mask, lol). A little sad that the timer wasn't more strict, but I understand that's for play ability purposes. Anyways great job :D
VerttiXPertti
Apr 22nd · 14:58 UTC
Damn the game is kind of really cool, but I think it bugged when I lost access to Bethel. I then tried to spam satellites all over without any success. I also noticed that the "F" signals gravitated towards the black holes, it didn't seem to help me much. Some things I didn't understand but I found the game intriguing nonetheless. Very stylish also!
Citlaet
Apr 23rd · 21:13 UTC
Didn't get how to play, but looks awesome!
LDJam user 424632
Apr 23rd · 21:38 UTC
A well-made and enjoyable game with appealing visuals and sound design. At first, I couldn’t figure out how to control anything, but I found the instructions on the game’s page and was eventually able to complete it. I’d also suggest adding music to the main menu, since initially it feels like the game might not have any music or sound at all.
Mezaka
Apr 23rd · 22:05 UTC
Hmmm I think I dont really understand what to do. I pinged a couple of times and found another sattelite, but lost it again? The game looks super pretty though :3
stuckne1
Apr 23rd · 22:24 UTC
I thought it was interesting. I liked the graphics and sound. I got a couple satellites online, but then I had a hard time unlocking Bathel. I assume it was the big red planet?
RelicTooth
Apr 24th · 06:09 UTC
Good aesthetic and concept but it was a bit of a struggle for me to understand at first, a tutorial would of been nice, but I know we don't have time for that in a jam lol. Great work!
Nadan
Apr 24th · 17:18 UTC
Hey guys, thank you all for the feedback! We realize the game controls (and even game´s goal) are poorly explained in the game. We definitely didn´t manage scope well this time (or maybe ever, it kinda starts to feel like our trademark). We did what we could to help them describe in the entry page, I have attached a graphic that hopefully provides some understanding. Additionally we tried to catch all the bugs and fix them in the patches. Unfortunately we were unable to recreate some of the bugs reported, so we don´t have fix for those yet :sweat: (e.g. the "loosing planets and satellites" bugs @verttixpertti and @mezaka mentioned).

But big thanks for playing, hopefully at least some of you got to see the ending cutscene.
Nadan
Apr 24th · 17:29 UTC
@stuckne1 Bathel is the big blue planet with grey rings. The unlocking mechanism isn´t very clear, but in essence - on the SatBoard on the left, each discovered object has red stripes, which represent security levels. By "hacking" them with your "F" ability, you are "taking down" the security level by one until the planet has no security and its satellites can be accessed. In Bathel case, the security level is 2, therefore two long-range satellites need to beam it.
Fadex
Apr 24th · 23:27 UTC
That was really fun! Great aesthetic, and vibe. Enjoyed the gameplay. I would like the aim to be more responsive.
Cardboard Box
Apr 25th · 10:29 UTC
Love the visual style! Took me a while to figure out what I'm doing, could use some more in-game directions for the gameplay, though. I'll definitely come back to this later.

Maybe a post-jam edition with more pointers?
VenomousMouse
Apr 26th · 18:20 UTC
Very nice audio and visuals. A bit hard to grasp what must be done. But in general, cool idea.
RenD
Apr 26th · 20:00 UTC
The aesthetics is mesmerizing and I really wish there was a proper onboarding/tutorial to fully understand the mechanics. Even without understanding what I was doing, I spend a lot of time on your game because just because of the mood and the color palette, congrats on that!
Grizwhirl
Apr 28th · 16:23 UTC
Very impressive aesthetic
deadjolly
May 04th · 03:23 UTC
The game looks amazing from a color palette and style perspective. The audio definitely sets the spacey atmosphere and 80's NASA vibe. Really great job on that. However, the gameplay itself is a little obtuse, at least to me. I was about to give up because I felt like I missing something, after hitting "A", the camera panned out, but then I couldn't do anything. Then I realized you had more controls listed on the site. So then I realized I could toggle between the satellite orbits, and planets. Which is awesome. But I still didn't fully understand why certain abilities worked the way they did. I kinda just hit buttons until stuff happened. Never found the third (or more?) planets. I liked the concept, especially in regards to using the theme! Really cool aesthetically, but a little hard to understand without a game manual.
JamesXM
May 07th · 02:13 UTC
I LOVE THE AUDIO! amazing job there. I pushed the wrong buttons to start and now i cant figure out what todo :( . Guess i have to restart
LDJam user 428640
May 08th · 12:53 UTC
The concept is really cool. The color palette and atmosphere blend together in a clever way, the theme is applied very naturally, and I really enjoyed the sound design as well. Overall, well done!