Star Reaper by Shoalmuse

[raw]
made by Shoalmuse for Ludum Dare 58 (COMPO)

CleanShot 2025-10-05 at 23.30.56@2x.png Collect mines before the dreaded Star Reaper arrives! Perhaps an homage to a classic arcade game?

Created for the Ludum Dare 58 Compo in 48 hours.

Tools used: - Unity - AseSprite - PixQuare (iPad) - cfxr

Ratings

Overall 155th 3.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 154th 3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 190th 2.625⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 205th 2.5⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 105th 3.475⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 149th 2.625⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 169th 1.969⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Mood 149th 3⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 11🗨️

Feedback

Nash
Oct 06th · 09:43 UTC
Wow, these visuals are amazing! I absolutely love how the explosions are so satisfying.

However, the lack of movement in the background makes it a bit tricky to tell if the ship is moving or not. Also, it was a bit challenging to find asteroids at times - I would have loved to see more of them!

Overall, this is a really solid and visually stunning Compo entry!
Jo Bettaque
Oct 07th · 13:12 UTC
The graphics are very nice, the pixelated destruction is really impressive. It was quite hard for me and at first i didn't understand how to get the bombs but still, gj :)
GoogleFrog
Oct 07th · 13:14 UTC
I love the laser.
LDJam user 221561
Oct 07th · 13:15 UTC
Nice take on Asteroids with a bit more strategy. Great for a compo, only stuttering while flying the ship towards other items can be confusing ^ lack of background perhaps as @Nash mentioned. For full arcade feel some controller support would just perfect. :)
designernap
Oct 07th · 13:18 UTC
Destruction of the rocks feels WONDERFUL and as I was playing it I was about to say "This reminds me of sini..." then the voice goes "I LIVE" And I chuckled to myself :D
Nice entry :D
wo_ri_gou_le
Oct 07th · 13:24 UTC
The old fasioned control + actual space based acceleration is a bit weird. Camara is not following properly, if my memory is still correct, I think it may be fixed if the cam's position update code put some where in a physics update loop, instead of normal update functions.

The pixel physics is really cool, but requires constant laser focusing, specially when the beam is hard to aim percisly, goes less interesting... Plus, play control feels rapid (in a good way), too.

But the first time when laser shot out really got me, that was really cool
Koolruz
Oct 07th · 13:31 UTC
I loved how it felt to break the asteroids apart - The pixel destruction and subsequent particle explosions were super satisfying! I also loved the Sinistar homage :)

I *think* I beat the game, but after destroying the Star Reaper, nothing happened - There was nothing left on the map, so I assumed this was the end, but it would have been nice to have a victory screen pop up just to make sure I didn't quit the game too early!

![beat-star-reaper.PNG](///raw/dec/c2/z/6e9b0.png)

The one thing that I struggled with was the controls of the laser - It felt great when I was able to hit an asteroid with it, but a lot of the time I was just spinning back and forth trying to narrow in on it. I'm not sure if this was an intentional part of the difficulty, or if I was just missing something - Was there something I was doing wrong here?

![fast-spin-2.gif](///raw/dec/c2/z/6e9b9.gif)

Overall though, very cool entry! :) Well done!
Flying Dog Fish
Oct 07th · 13:47 UTC
Nice asteroids homage. It's rather short tough and there's no indication of the game ending. Thing just stop spawning after killing the big bad asteroid. The map gets rather useless once you run out of the starting space, it would be great if the map followed the ship around and showed asteroid on the edge when they are out of range. Lasers and explosions look very nice and the sounds fit well.
lima victor
Oct 13th · 19:19 UTC
Destroing objects and bombing skullships are so cool. Simple and easy to understands and navigate but with a cool feature. Liked it!
Sohei
Oct 14th · 17:33 UTC
Pixel dissipation is very satisfying. I've made a game on similar mechanics in the past, so I knew how to play it.
I killed the Ripper, but then another one appeared. Rules on this part were unclear.
Liam
Oct 15th · 14:42 UTC
Fun game but tough!
Zliebowitz
Oct 19th · 21:15 UTC
The visual effects are too notch. I love the start screen.

A couple quick things.

I wasn't entirely sure if the game was refusing to run at first I couldn't advance past the start screen. Also, perils of running on a mac where web games usually but don't always work.

I had a skull ship spawn practically on top of me.

There is definitely something weird with the camera and ship speed interaction.The effect feels somewhat jarring. I suspect you can get a similar effect to what you want by doing something like keeping the camera position lagging several frames behind (so accelerationad n deceleration will be visible) or adding some sort of a background as others have suggested.

I do agree that the lasers could be a bit hard to aim, but I think that is a reasonable style choice. You can always move closer for easier aiming so it wasn't really an issue.
sangheli
Oct 20th · 03:01 UTC
Процесс ощущается довольно тактильным
auxiliarymoose
Oct 21st · 05:39 UTC
The glow on the laser is really cool, and the overall graphics approach stands out and looks cohesive! Feels like a modern pixel game with depth & "juice" so to speak. The game loop concept is solid as well.

Some thoughts on additional directions to explore—I think this game could be better suited to a mouse-based input scheme: it's a bit challenging to aim at longer distances, and I felt like I was having trouble pointing the ship precisely at further asteroids. Maybe left click to fire laser, right click to accelerate? Also, it would be nice if the star reaper would take damage from mines, since then you could use the environment to cause damage (not just direct attacks). Finally, I found I would often drill through an asteroid, but it wouldn't register as destroyed until more pixels of it were destroyed, so maybe a slower drilling speed BUT automatic destruction when cut in half would make it more satisfying.

Overall, great work! It's lots of fun to play and I can see this concept becoming a larger game.
LDJam user 214618
Oct 21st · 12:27 UTC
I really loved it from a technical side, destroying the pixels was way too much fun. I could imagine a little space mining game with that tech.
I reached a score of 4600, destroyed the reaper a couple of times, but what was really annoying was the sensitivity of the laser aiming... phew, that drove me a bit nuts to be honest.

Overall a really cool entry. A super simple music track would have been lovely!
YibiRabbit007
Oct 21st · 12:41 UTC
The animations are well done, but the gameplay is too difficult! It's hard to aim at the target and attack! Also, the character only has one chance to be attacked, so the margin for error is very low...
Jesús González
Oct 22nd · 03:39 UTC
Cool graphics. The turning was a bit to sensitive at least with my keyboard.
atsh
Oct 22nd · 16:51 UTC
Amazing laser effect, and loved the pixel perfect collisions - reminded me of worms :)

Like other said, the turning sensetivity is a bit much. If I had to pick one fix request for this ludum dare, you'll probably win, as I can see myself having a blast with this game