Deep Space Escape by leapyearboy
Intro
You are the crew of a spaceship venturing deeper and deeper into the galaxy.
Your ship cannot slow down or stop, but you need to manage your crew's resources. Send shuttles to passing planets to gather vital resources as your ship relentlessly jumps between each star system progressing deeper and deeper through the galaxy.
(Eventually) You can probe and scan upcoming systems on the star map to determine your best route ahead, certain systems will only supply you certain with basic resources but are survivable, others are more dangerous but give bigger rewards.
How to 'play'
- As you progress your people consume food
- When your food runs out people begin to die - they don't eat each other I promise :fingers_crossed:
When your people die, game is over
You can replenish food by sending shuttles to planets in each solar system
- If your shuttles don't make it back to the ship before it jumps, the shuttle and people onboard are lost forever
- ~~You can make more shuttles from materials~~
- ~~You can extract more materials from planets~~
Known Bugs
- Icon for planet resources changes (only pick up is food). Ran out of time on multiple resource interactions.
- At low pop counts food can become infinite
Game Video in case everything breaks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBigt24oCf0
Experience/Notes
TLDR; Do this more often, will be less chaotic. Build the basics first or run out of time.
Personal goals for the Jam:
- Have something submitted (try to avoid
unfinished) :whitecheckmark: - Pick up the Godot engine for the first time :whitecheckmark:
- (I used Unity once or twice before)
- Using game jam as an excuse to look at game dev :whitecheckmark:
- Don't build a 2D platformer (again) or vertical flappy bird :upsidedown: :whitecheck_mark:
- ~~Don't bite off more than can be delivered~~ :x:
Wish list/Post Jam additions:
- A winning scenario, currently progress is your only 'win'
- The Star map, allowing player to influence next system
- Event system for randomizing encounters/resource gathering
- Better mechanism for solar system generation
- Performing multiple actions per planet - Scanning, Mining, Exploring etc... (My radial menu was stunning I swear)
- Other object beyond planets
- Animations, Own graphics etc..
- Loading and Jumping screens
- Audio
Lessons Learned:
- Start with core stuff and build up, don't build the extra things first and run out of time to pull together
- ~~Don't be hungover on day 1 of jam~~
- Solo is tiring and confusing
- Godot is not bad at all
- I quite like this idea as a concept, a mix of FTL & Stargate Universe... may keep this idea alive post jam
Ratings
| Overall | 1632th | 3⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1638th | 2.762⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 635th | 3.452⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1457th | 3.167⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 17🗳️ | 20🗨️ |
Don't forget that if you want a score, you need to rate games so other people will see and rate yours!
Although, I think you don't need much to create a good experience. Let me tell you how I see the following of development :
- Debug a bit --> Planets shouldn't appear behind canvas, or allow player to click through the canvas
- Dig you mechanics --> Player shouldn't always be focused on the food, but when he has enough food, he should be allowed to gather other ressources (as you already imagined) to upgrade his space vessel or his shuttles
- New art design for the space vessel and shuttle
- Playtest session
- Then rince and repeat --> Debug --> Add mechanics --> Art --> Playtest --> etc etc...
Good luck fellow!
I don't know much about programming in general, so I can't comment much, but overall, it's a good game.
Music is fairly easy to add and has a huge impact on making the game more fun. Try [Kevin MacLeod](https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html), he's my usual go-to because he has so much music for lots of different feels and genres.
The game is theoretically about time and resource management... but there are only three (implemented) resources: people, food, and shuttles. But the amount of food you need depends on how many people you have, and you only need enough people to man your 4 shuttles (which you can't get more of), so people and shuttles feel irrelevant and food is never a serious issue either. The game comes down to just 'clicking the planets in order of their proximity' rather than having any meaningful resource management, which is unfortunate.
It was confusing that you could select planets - and their icons would turn red - even if you didn't have a shuttle ready to visit them, and this would even render them un-selectable even after some of your shuttles came back. And as others mentioned, sometimes planets would spawn behind the UI or off-screen. These issues are a bit hard to ignore when clicking on planets is all the game consists of...
Despite all my harping on the game, the idea definitely has potential. If you do keep working on it, I'd for sure like to play the version that actually delivers on the vision you had for the game.
The graphics of the game were good, however, it would be nice to have added audio, and I found it a bit hard to play it. In any way, it is a nice try. Wishing you a good luck!!
To specifically 'call out' the extended feedback from @empty-set, @bionikmonster and a couple others - no worries on being harsh or brutally honest, its honestly appreciated! You'll see in my notes many of these items were on my wish/to-do list and y'all are spot on! The biggest issue was time (not able to use the full 72) and resource (I was solo on a new engine). Spent way too long implementing stuff that never shipped!
Voting should be done on what was shipped, but that said watch this space - I think there may be some interesting hobby/side work to do on this concept/idea/game-loop in the next few months :tada:
Thanks again, keep the feedback rolling :smile:
I liked that you stated your goals and the lessons you learned!
It would be nice to have some music!
Also I would suggest to export the game to HTML5, in Godot it is super simple and works really well! Having an HTML5 version makes it really easy for anyone on any system (Chrome OS, Linux, Android...) to try your game!
Also I noticed that if I maximize the window it will show some gray areas, you can avoid that in Godot by using Project>Project Settings>Display>Window>Stretch and for mode select "2d" and for aspect select"keep".
Overall good base for a game! And thumbs up for trying new tools!