Stunning artwork, animations, and sound effects! I got a little confused which controls to configure next. Playing this was a fun experience that really matched the jam theme really well!
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The First Wave's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #6 | 4.541 | 4.541 |
| Innovation | #7 | 4.082 | 4.082 |
| Audio | #18 | 3.836 | 3.836 |
| Overall | #52 | 3.574 | 3.574 |
| Theme interpretation | #88 | 3.393 | 3.393 |
| Gameplay | #125 | 3.033 | 3.033 |
Ranked from 61 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/rednur01/the-first-wave
Theme interpretation
A daring endeavor to cross the galaxy and its many perils to reach Earth
Comments
3 years ago(+1)
Hi Zelveri! Glad you took the time to understand the control system and the various gameplay mechanics, and had fun doing it! We spent a lot of time and effort designing them. Sorry about the bugs - at the end of the jam we're rolling out an update fixing all the known issues, as well as adding some more cool stuff! Hope you'll check it out then!
Really cool game! I love the diegetic UI, makes you feel really in the game! I can totally see this as a VR game of sorts in the future :D. I really enjoyed messing around and pressing all the buttons, and actually I think i broke the game at the start because of my button pressing lel
Buuttt that was totally my fault! I reloaded the page, and actually followed the instructions the second time around, and things made kindof sense! I did get a bit lost with what I was supposed to actually do, but I was just mesmerised by how interactive and beautiful everything was :)
Hi Rayyan, thanks for the compliments! Glad you liked the visuals and sound.
Sorry about the bugs :( We only discovered them from user feedback after the submission deadline. We're going to be fixing them all in the next update, right after the jam ends. A UI rework and a tutorial are in the works too to help with learning the controls and mechanics early-game.
Thanks for playing!
Thanks for playing smokecastles, and for the detailed bug report! From the initial look into those error messages, I suspect some sort of browser add-on (like an adblocker or popup blocker or something along those lines) that's stopping the game from accessing certain parts of the browser. We will definitely take a closer look and try to find the exact cause. In the meantime if you would like to play again without the errors, firefox seems to work better than chrome for this game.
We will be releasing an updated version of the game shortly after the jam ends, where all known bugs will be fixed and the UI will be updated to be more beginner friendly. We also have a tutorial in the works to teach new players the mechanics and controls in a natural way. Hope you'll give the game another shot then. :)
Hi Sam! Thanks for the compliments and for playing more than once!
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback about the gameplay mechanic as well. We agree that the runs are a bit short right now, especially on Lupus where you can get to Earth in 4 planets if you go for the shortest route, or 5 planets in Olor. We will take a look at that and try to come up with a good balance between making the runs longer and feel more substantial while also allowing for fast-Earth strategies. We want this game to have a lot of replay value and we're working on redesigning some of the mechanics to allow for that.
Glad you enjoyed the game!
Hi cykelkatalogen! It's definitely not you haha, we got a lot of feedback that the controls and mechanics of our game aren't easy to get into for newer player. And we totally agree with that. We're currently redesigning the UI to address those problems and will be releasing an update shortly after the jam ends. We also have a tutorial planned for first time players. Thanks for playing!
3 years ago(+1)
Thanks for playing Fry! Totally agree with you about the UI, we're redesigning it right now to be more intuitive.
Thanks for thoughtful feedback Jake! We agree with some of the UI issues you brought up and we're currently redesigning the UI to fix those problems. The game lets you right click to zoom in, which helps with reading smaller text, but that feature is a little hard to discover at the moment so we'll be making that more obvious as well.
Thanks for playing and for the compliments!
3 years ago(+1)
Thanks for playing renato and for your feedback! We're working on changing up the UI so that information is presented to the player in a better way.
3 years ago(+1)
Thanks neonpixls! A lot of time and effort went into put into designing and creating the environment so I really appreciate it! Thanks for playing!
3 years ago (+1)
Thanks for playing Soul Grinder! Appreciate the feedback and the kind words. Glad you found the zoom feature useful, this the first piece of feedback we've gotten on that feature so thanks for that. Yes the controls aren't taught to the players very well right now :( We are working on improving that, its our top priority right now.
As for the ending, initially we had plans for a system where each ending would unlock new characters. They all have different abilities so this would unlock new playstyles with each ending you got, adding a lot of strategy and replay value. But for the jam we ended up unlocking all the characters and letting the players enjoy them all right away. Future versions of the game will definitely bring more weight to the different endings and add meaningful strategic choices for each one. :)
Thanks for the detailed feedback yousayrandy, we really appreciate it! Critical feedback will help us improve this game a lot and bring up all the weak points so I'm really glad you took the time to leave thoughtful feedback.
- There actually is an attack now button, it's right on top of the sliders. It's the big red button that says Fire. Unfortunately, we never explained this to the player. I decided to add that button just a couple of days before the deadline because I was having the same issue as you. I had gotten so good at the game that I was setting my sliders in 4-5 seconds and then just having to wait. Because that button came so late in development, we forgot to explain what it does at all :( But then again we did a poor job teaching any of the mechanics so that's an area we have to improve in.
- For hunting, not sure how far you got so I'll explain the whole loop. When you reach a planet, first you do a planet scan to reveal the resources on the planet, then you do a hunting scan to find where the animals are. This step will prompt you to use the radar, and you use the WAD keyboard keys to turn to the right and face the right console which has the radar. The start button will glow green so you press that to start hunting. The radar will show 3 animals on screen, a bunny (small yield), a deer (medium yield) and a bear (high yield). The smaller the animal the easier it is to catch. This is signified by the fact that they have smaller number for you to memorize and type in. You use the number pad right below the radar to type the number and then press the enter button on the pad. The in-game explanation for this mechanic is that you stay on the ship and use the radar to locate these animals, and then send the coordinates to the crew so they can catch them on the ground. There is a timer on the radar that goes down pretty quickly, it only refills as you catch more animals. Catching bigger animals gives you more time but it's harder so there's a risk-reward tradeoff there. Again, none of this was taught to the player and the only way to know how to do any of this would have been to press H once you selected hunting (but even then, a wall of text isn't the ideal way to teach mechanics to the player). Once you finish an activity, the tall screen on the front side to the right of the big screen tells you what the results of that activity were. So whenever I finish hunting, I look there to see how much biomass I collected and whether any crew members got injured in the hunt.
Thanks for taking the time to play! Hope you revisit the game in the future, we will work hard to make sure it's very beginner friendly and teaches the player all the mechanics and controls in an intuitive way. This was only the second game I've ever made in my life, and for both Cigfer and I this was the first game we made from scratch all the way to completion (design, planning, etc). We are both learning as we go and hope to improve over time :)
3 years ago(+1)
Hi Johnonym, thank you for the detailed feedback! During development we only managed to get a couple of playtesters so I really appreciate the thoughtful comments and constructive criticism. It'll help us a lot! We are definitely going to continue working on the game, and hopefully flesh it out a lot more and bring it to market. We really like the game and think it has a lot of strategic decision making and replay value that fans of the genre will like.
- Good point about the hyperdrive effect, we'll definitely work on the effect so it doesn't feel like something went wrong.
- The thruster lever gave a lot of players a hard time unfortunately. It turned out to be not as obvious/intuitive to use as we had thought. We will rework the UI for that so it's completely obvious how to use it, thanks for pointing out the problem.
- Glad you liked the UI! This was my first time doing 2d art for a game so I'm glad someone liked it haha (my main skills are programming and music)
- Yes, it's possible to skip all the planets and go straight to earth and try for diplomacy, although it makes it harder. In the game, there is a meter for how strong the galaxy's technology is. For each planet you visit, every planet gets a bit stronger (their ships become higher level during combat and your starting stats for diplomacy get lower). So the risk with going straight to earth and trying diplomacy is that you have a much lower chance of success. When I play for diplomacy ending, I try to research the diplomacy options that will increase my chances (upto +15% for both subjugation and trade) and that requires quite a bit of resources so I stop by other planets and gather those. But yeah as of right now, there's really no penalty for skipping all the gameplay and going straight to earth. It's actually even a good way to see all the endings quickly haha. Failing subjugation (the Captured ending) is my favorite. We will work on making it so that it's more punishing to go straight to earth and only very skill level players should risk that strategy.
Thanks for the compliments about the visuals and sound design. For a 2 person team, this was a pretty ambitious project and we're proud of what we've accomplished so far. We have a good vision for the final version of the game and will continue working to get there. Thanks for playing!
3 years ago (+1)
Hi Vasilis! Thanks for playing the game and taking the time to understand it. Sorry about the confusion, we realized after getting player feedback that the game is not beginner friendly, and we're working on the game now to improve in that area.
The combat has a rock-paper-scissors type of mechanic where the 3 elements are strong/weak against each other. If the player matches the elements properly they can do massive damage and take very little damage. Sadly the difficulty curve on that game wasn't adjusted properly so its really tough for new players to do well. We will fix this problem after the jam for sure.
You get the crystals (called gemstones in the game) from other civilizations. We treated this like a "money" value so you go to planets with civilizations and then either trade with them, subjugate them, or destroy them in combat to get their gemstones. Mining and hunting have a chance of giving gemstones as well but only if you perform really well (research makes this a bit easier). We will do our best to explain all of this in-game in a natural and intuitive way!
As for the other builds, yes we will provide downloads for all major platforms after the jam. Right now we are focusing on fixing all the bugs and improving the new player experience. Thanks a lot for your feedback and compliments, it means a lot to us! :)
The combat is semi realtime? The enemy attacks happen independently of the player actions?
From what I could figure the large combat icons (laser pistol, shield, large bullet icon?) represent the selection areas (attack, defense, ?).
The smaller icons above the numbers (that you can change with the buttons on the left of the control panel) represent the choice you make for each area. The value of the slider is the strength of attack, defense depending if I beat or not his selection.
Is this right? So I have to match both my attack selection to beat his defense selection and vise versa and have enough "slider" value in the area to overcome his value?
The large bullet icon area what it's for?
Can you give me a example of a round?
3 years ago (+1)
You understood the game pretty well despite our poor attempt at explaining it in-game. I'll try to explain all the inner mechanics of the game along with the numbers. Long post incoming, but I'll label the sections so you can navigate it better hopefully.
Timing
Yes, the combat rounds have a 15 second timer. The player has to make all their decisions within that time, that's the challenge of the combat game. (There is a crew member perk that adds 3 seconds to the combat timer to make it easier). Once you get the flow of the combat you can get good enough that you won't even need the full time. Then you can press the big red Fire button on top of the sliders to instantly drop the timer to 0 and start that round.
Meters & Weapons
The 3 meters are guns, shields & thrusters. Guns are how much damage you do, shields are how much damage you block, and thrusters increase your chance to dodge & crit. The value of the gun and shield meters are the values you will hit for and block respectively. The value of the thruster sets your dodge chance to 50% of the value and your crit chance to 25% of the value. Crits deal 2.5x damage. The total values for all the meters add up to your ship's reactor value. By default your reactor starts at a 100 so you get to distribute 100 points between the 3 meters. There are research options and crew perks that increase this. And yes, you use the sliders (left side, front console) to set the meters. The gun and shield sliders have 3 buttons each above them to set their respective element.
Nukes deal 100 damage instantly and stop you taking any damage for that round, but also injure all crew members so it's a risk-reward tradeoff. The nuke also takes about 5 seconds to arm so you have to make the decision to use it fairly quickly.
The element system
The element system is rock-paper-scissors. The 3 elements are called: Ballistics, Laser & Plasma. We made the "weak against" and "resistant to" based off pokemon's typing matchup system. If you match your shield to properly block the enemy gun, you're resistant and take very little damage. If you get completely the wrong type (the type that's weak against it, think a fire type in pokemon fighting a water type), then you take high damage. If you use the same element as them then you're partly effective and take medium damage. The element strength matchup goes likes this:
Ballistics > Laser > Plasma > Ballistics
This applies for both when you're choosing your gun type against the enemy's shield, and also when you're choosing your shield type against the enemy gun.
Injuries
Your crew members also have a chance to get injured, proportional to how much damage you take in that fight. So if you fight recklessly and don't block much, your crew will have a much higher chance of getting injured. A dead crew member doesn't contribute their perks anymore so that's a big loss. If all 4 crew members die, that ends the run.
Round example
Enemy sets: 50 guns (plasma), 30 shields (ballistics), 20 thrusters
I'll set my shield to about 40 so I can block most of the damage. I want it to be laser, since laser is strong against the enemy's plasma gun. (If I chose plasma, the same element as the attack, I would only block half of the damage, or 20. If I chose ballistics, which is weak to plasma, I would block 0 damage!)
Since I used up 40 on shields, I have 60 left for guns and thrusters. I'll set thrusters to 20. This gives me a 10% chance to dodge and a 5% chance to crit.
Now I have 40 left and I'll use that for guns. I'll set the element to plasma, since my plasma guns will beat the enemy's ballistic shields. Because I got the typing right, the enemy will block 0 damage so I get the full 40 damage in. If i crit then that's 2.5 x 40 = 100 damage.
My final setup: 40 guns (plasma), 40 shields (laser), 20 thrusters
Another round example (w/ Nuke)
Enemy sets: 80 guns, 10 shields, 40 thrusters (higher level enemy with 130 total reactor, 90hp left)
Lets assume my ship only has 140 hp left. The enemy has a high chance (10%) to crit here and kill me. I can either set high thrusters myself and try to dodge, or set my shields very high (~80) with the right element and try to tank the hit, or I can use a Nuke.
I decide on the Nuke. I take no damage for the round so I save my ship, and the nuke does 100 damage and destroys the enemy. The drawback was that all my crew members took injury damage and I'll now have to use biomass to heal them up.
Conclusion
Hope that explained the inner working of the combat system. It's a lot to throw the player into without properly guiding them through the mechanics. We tried to explain the basic system in the in-game help (H key brings up help any time in-game and explains whatever activity you're currently doing) but of course that's not really an ideal way to do it. The post-jam version of the game will hopefully do a much much better job of guiding the player through the mechanics so they can pick it up intuitively and then naturally get better at it over time.
Thanks a lot for your interest in the game and making the effort to understand it. We put a lot of thought into making the mechanics fun and strategic and really appreciate your effort!
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