Nexus by denvil
You have been selected as manager in Nexus. The world needs your heroes that you must summon and send down to the planet.
New heroes are available from the portal store.
Controls
WASD, Arrows and gamepad to move around
SPACE for actions
ESC for menu
M to mute music
Gameplay
After picking up the instructions, you can get first hero from the portal store. Send your first hero down to the planet by carrying them to the pipes. Each available pipe will open when near it. All heroes are returned via the summoning portal after missions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAH0czjtwqI
Tools
- Godot 4.2
- Audacity
- Blender 4.1
- LMMS
Notes
- I had plans for upgrade store but this was scrapped due time.
Ratings
| Overall | 338th | 2.7⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 352th | 2.167⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 257th | 3⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 278th | 3.05⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 176th | 3.467⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 197th | 3.034⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 240th | 2.466⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 306th | 2.65⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 35🗳️ | 41🗨️ |
> Pipes on the right side open when you are carrying hero capsules. When the pipe is open you can send the hero down to the planet.
Yep, (fortunately) I get that part. Pretty nice idea overall, also (forgot to mention this) the music is pretty nice! Hope you the best for this game & good luck!
I wasn't sure why I was losing money sometimes. I never made enough to buy another hero. Also, I think some visual/audio indicators of hero/quest state would go a long way.
I like the art and nice chill background music which created a nice vibe. I think if I were to make immediate suggestions, it would be to create some player boundaries so you can't go flying off the edge of the map. At first I thought maybe my player was supposed to go into the pipes, or go through the mission doorway while holding the capsules (oops! I fell down to the planet like 3-4 times before I learned my lesson lol).
It was cool seeing the planet below, and I liked the animation of the hammer sending the hero capsule down. The cat has a cute design, and I like all the color choices. Nice work getting a 3D game completed for the compo!
Adding indication on heroes of their stats was on list but I did not figure out quite the GUI for those fitting with the other elements and then run out of time.
You definitely had to plan to fail some quests which added a surprising amount of complexity. At first I was trying to send heroes on the quests that were closest to failing but that strategy loses pretty quick lol. Once you've got multiple heroes and harder quests it gets pretty hectic! I think the tension is good for a time management game.
My two biggest critiques are that the UI can be difficult to read and sometimes the physics of the capsules can make it a little frustrating. I had two heroes return at the same time and it looks like they collided with each other and shot into the drop machines. That said what you accomplished within the time constraints is impressive!
A QoL suggestion I have would be adding an outline around an object that you can interact with. Overall great job!
Anyway, a solid entry, I hope you had fun! :)
Maybe the text on the board could be more laconic so it would be easier to understand what's going on.
I figured out the gameplay loop pretty quickly, but it was a losing battle for me as I did not get my hero back fast enough to stop bleeding money, so I was stuck in that regard. I completely understand that a lot of the UX that would make the gameplay a bit more understandable would take too much time for a solo dev in a compo, so it's great that you managed to publish this. Congratulations on that!
I like the intention of seeing the progress of the mission. But the gameplay feels very slow, especially when the progress bar goes into negatives. It was also unclear when you lose your moneys. Is it when the bar goes -100?
Music is catchy and reminds me of old PSX times.
Good job!
One aspect I liked was reading the quest descriptions, and the descriptions of our heroes actions. But at the same time it feels like there's this disconnect because im playing as a cute cat hovering over the world, and all the quests are very much fantasy themed. Not only that, it made me feel like the interesting adventures are happening elsewhere, and I'm stuck here as a manager :p (Not that I dont like the cute cat though!)
Overall, it was a nice game and I had fun with it, nice job!
There is a lot of waiting, especially later on when you get to the challenging and hard quests. I enjoyed reading all the little info texts telling you what the heroes are currently doing on their quests, but it feels like there should be something more to do in the Nexus. Perhaps just adding more quests and tubes would help solving the issue, but it might also be better to add something for the player to do in the meantime. Maybe a way for the player to help the heroes with their quests, like sending buffs or equipment?
The deployment mechanic was a bit clunky - it took me a moment to find where and when to throw the hero capsules. During my first playthrough, I've spent a lot of time just throwing them off the edge, as apparently they didn't get detected by the tube colliders properly. Props for adding a teleport-back mechanic, both for the items and for the main character! (A couple of times I got a bit too close to the quest screens to read the text... Oops!)
The graphics are really impressive for a compo game. I especially enjoyed the globe revolving in the background. :) The music is fine, sounds exactly like something I'd expect to hear in a management game like this.
Overall, it's a great compo entry! And it's a pretty good base to expand upon, I think this idea is worth working on beyond the LD time limits. Well done!
i found that the scaling was a bit off, so i wasn't able to get very far in the game. i couldn't really figure out what the lose condition was but it just said i failed. regardless, lots of interesting ideas in this entry, congrats!