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A jam submission

The First WaveView game page

If you shoot for the stars, they might shoot back.
Submitted by ColorPalette, Cigfer — 10 hours, 59 minutes before the deadline
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The First Wave's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#64.5414.541
Innovation#74.0824.082
Audio#183.8363.836
Overall#523.5743.574
Theme interpretation#883.3933.393
Gameplay#1253.0333.033

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

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Comments

Viewing comments 20 to 1 of 49 · Previous page · First page
Submitted

I love the using-controls-in-FPS-view concept and the modeling and lighting are absolutely gorgeous. It took me forever to figure out what was going on though (and lol I still might not know.) 

Developer

Hi never_k! Sorry about the early game confusion :( We realized a bit too late that the game is not easy to pick up for newer players and we're now working on improving in that area.

The premise of the game is that an alien civilization found the Voyager probe that we sent out from Earth and they're now coming over. You are commanding the ship that's making the trip across the galaxy, and you take a crew of 4 with you on your journey. On your way you will find other planets, some with civilizations of their own. You collect resources to upgrade your crew and your ship and when you meet other civilizations you can trade with them, subjugate them, or fight and try to destroy them.

All of this should definitely be explained in-game though haha. Thanks for giving the game a try!

Submitted

Your interface is very unique - and I can tell this is definitely a game that takes a bit of work to understand.  Pretty cool.

Developer

Thanks for giving the game a try! We set out to make a game with a lot of strategy and replay value but it ended up being a little hard to understand for newer players. Glad you liked the interface!

Submitted

Super cool stuff, and very creative too. Not gonna lie, I had a bit of a hard time understanding what to do at the beginning, but I wanted to understand. The hunting and gathering minigames were really fun and I had a great time overall. Good job :)

Developer(+1)

Hey SixthMoon! Sorry about the early game confusion, that's the biggest point of feedback we've been getting and we're working on improving in that area.

I really appreciate that you stuck with it and took the time to understand the mechanics. Thanks for playing and glad you had fun!

Submitted

I knew there was some sense to be made from all of it :). I got the 1st ending btw (not gonna spoil what it is)

Submitted

The graphics, animations and audio of this game were fascinating. In the beginning, it was hard for me to understand the game mechanics, but after understanding it I truly enjoyed playing the game, which is very interesting. I was wondering what would happen  if I got to the Earth and after that I wanted to play again.

But sometimes I forgot about some crash warnings which made the game crash and that was the terrible feeling, so fixing that would be great.

Great game so far!

Developer

Hey Lythmass! Glad you enjoyed the game. Really sorry about the bugs. :(

There are 5 endings in the game right now if you manage to reach Earth. Each one takes a specific crew build and/or upgrade path to make it easier to get. Sorry about the confusion early on, we realize now that our game isn't very beginner friendly and we're working on a short tutorial sequence and a UI rework to help fix that.

Thanks for playing!

Submitted

I like this game.. though I'm still a little confused about it lol, might because I'm not a big space game fan. I get to be friends with human and the game ends? Should I select 4 and attack them? would there be more content with that? 'Cause I see there are two panels I haven't got chance to use lol, and the first time when I select 4 and use the slider it get stuck.

I like the panels and controllers, would be awesome on a VR(is this game intended for a VR game?). Or maybe mobile is also better than PC.

It reminds me of a game we did before, to use PC as the main screen (attack and render the main game) and an iPad as a second screen(see map and play mini games). 

Looking forward to see this game to have more content!

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks for playing the game! Sorry about the confusion, that's one of the main feedback we've been getting.  We're working on a short tutorial sequence at the start to slowly introduce the mechanics and controls to the player, and a UI rework to make everything more intuitive.

There are currently 5 endings in the game right now. Being friends with them is 1, you can also fight and destroy them, or subjugate and rule over them - depending on how you approach it. The gameplay loop is meant to get the player to collect resources as they go through the galaxy and research upgrades (since the diplomacy and the combat gets harder over time). The original idea behind the endings was that each ending would unlock new characters and mechanics so you could play again and try for different playstyles and endings but for the jam we decided to unlock everything right away.

We do have a VR port in mind for the future. We will keep working on this game and make it better, glad you liked it! And sorry about the bugs!

Submitted

I really enjoyed playing this! The graphics were great and really original. Looked like it could work in VR as well. 

Took me a while to get to grips with the controls - but once I had it I really liked the way it worked. The mini-games (for want of a better term) were well thought out and made sense.

Audio was good too, enjoyed your intro music :)

Developer

Thank you for the compliments! Glad you enjoyed the game. We do have a VR port planned for the future so if you have a VR rig keep an eye out haha.

Submitted

Wow, I really appreciate the immersive interface here! All the buttons and controls feel very tactile, and the illumination of your current task is a helpful design. I agree with others that you do feel swamped with information and controls at first, before you understand the flow of the game and the cues like illumination.

I think one way to help introduce the game more smoothly could be to start with only one pre-rolled crewmember and already be at the planet-gameplay stage. Choosing the crew at the start wasn't really fun since I had no clue what their perks did, or even how the game would be played. Adding crew along the way would be a fun rougelite element on top of the upgrades and force players to specialize their strategy according to what options they're offered. Similarly, the list of upgrades feels like it offers too many choices at once and too soon. It could be fun to roll those out in pairs or triplets to the player as they achieve research thresholds to help clarify the choices they have to make.

Again, the art and aesthetic are amazing and everything is brought together with great sound design. I love the icons too. The concept you have here of a super immersive rougelite spaceship simulator is so promising, I hope you continue developing the idea!

Developer

Hi Ben, thank you for the thoughtful suggestions. That's a really good idea and we thought of something similar as well but only after we had submitted and realized the game was too info-heavy too early for new players. The idea of adding in crew members and upgrades slowly over time is a really good idea and would solve a lot of the issues the game unfortunately has right now with being impenetrable for newer players.

Glad you liked the icons and the sound! This was my first time doing 2d art and music for a game (I'm a software engineer by trade) so I was quite nervous about those haha. We are definitely going to continue working on the game and we even have a VR port planned for the future. Thanks for playing!

Submitted

Looks amazing. Really cool simulator. Took a bit to figure out what i am doing, but got the hang of it eventually. Sound was deep spacy combat stylish cool. Graphics are stunning and i love the vibe. Cool and interesting approach.

Developer

Hi Arenk, really appreciate the kind words! Thanks for playing the game and taking the time to figure out the flow.

Submitted

A well polished game despite a few crashes. As mentioned before a tutorial would have been appreciated but as a whole it really is a lot a fun once you get it.

Developer

Thanks for sticking with it and taking the time to understand the flow of the game! We are definitely planning a tutorial sequence to slowly ease the player into the controls and mechanics so it's not overwhelming right at the start. Glad you enjoyed it.

Submitted

Even though I saw the game crashed if you maxed the sliders I still did it like 5 times :S

super polished and lots of fun little things to interact with.

Developer

Thanks for playing and sorry about the bugs! Glad you liked the interactions.

Takes about a minute to load but the experience is great. Pretty high quality so maybe you'd want to use a more modern computer to play.

Developer

Thanks for playing and glad you liked it! I worked on a macbook air 2015 while working on this so I tried to make sure it worked well for machines with about that much power. We will definitely work on optimizations and allow quality and performance settings in the future!

Submitted (1 edit)

This is really impressive - hard to believe that this was done in a month! Some of the controls were a bit difficult to discover but I can see the beginnings of a good tutorial system around it. The crew states seemed a bit noisy. I really like the scanning and diplomacy minigames. Game crashed before I could get into the combat. Graphics and sound are phenomenal for a game jam of this scope!

Developer

Thanks for playing! We are currently working on overhauling the UI and adding a short tutorial sequence to slowly introduce all the controls and mechanics. Glad you liked some of the minigames and sorry about the bugs!

Submitted

The idea of using a ship's controls as a game controller is really original and cute. Excellent graphics and sounds are well chosen, some icons may not be immediately intuitive but it is part of the game! Good job!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing stivens!

Submitted

The graphics and concept are super impressive! It took me a while to understand how to get playing.

I got a really serious VR / Imperium Galactica vibe from it which I loved.

Developer

Thanks for playing and for the kind words!

Submitted

Very very good entry. It'll be a very good VR game (and/or mobile ;))!

Did you plan a post-jam/full game version?

Little suggestion : Improving the game first contact should be nice. For now, you have too more information at the beginning.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your feedback! We do plan to make a full version: new mechanics, polishing old ones, as well as a complete environment. We actually had considered making this a VR game very early in development, and we both have experience in creating for VR, however unfortunately neither of us own a headset or a VR compatible rig. That may change in the near future, but until then we have a lot to work on anyways. Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

The visual aesthetic and effects are incredible! The game is... kind of impenetrable. That's not necessarily a problem if that's your intention (games like MirrorMoon EP enjoy cult followings, after all), but if not then I think that should be the thing you focus on; bugs aside the rest of the game has been made to a very high quality, so it's a shame if people aren't able to get into it. That doesn't necessarily mean tutorials or prompts (of course those would definitely help), more thinking about what the user knows at each point in their play experience, working out what questions they're going to be asking and thinking about how to make the answers obvious.

(I got about three planets in, got into my first combat and died crashed the game by accidentally setting defence to max, but I was about to die so it doesn't really matter. )

Still, there's definitely the shape of a full game that you could bring to market here (perhaps even as a VR title, since the controls are so tactile?), so I hope you'll put in the work to really make something of it! Great job on the jam!

Developer (2 edits) (+1)

Thank you for your feedback! The mindset of thinking about the experience from the player's perspective - what they know and what they want to know - is definitely one we'll use more. And yes - we are seriously considering taking this to VR! That possibility was brought up very early in the game's design. We'll start that port only when it's more polished, of course. We still have a lot we want to do with this. Me and ColorPalette actually met in a team project for a VR game so we have a little bit of experience in that area. Thanks for playing!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the detailed feedback! We have plans for a short tutorial sequence to slowly introduce all the controls and mechanics to the player in a natural and intuitive way. 

We will definitely keep working on this and yes, we also have VR in mind! Both of us developing the game have worked on a VR title before and we'd love to bring this game to the medium as well.

Submitted

It was a bit hard to work out how to do everything at first (as others said before) but the overall gameplay experience and the parts I did play were a lot of fun! If you had slowly eased into learning all the controls and what to do it probably would have taken 3x as much of content though so I understand why it drops you in a bit suddenly. Overall great and the graphics/audio is a major standout!

Developer

Thank you! We're planning a tutorial sequence to slowly ease the player into all the controls and mechanics. Glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted

Took a while to load, but finally able to play.  Could not figure out how to get the ship to go to the next star after hiring a crew.  Could select a star, but would not travel when pushed the lever.

Developer(+2)

Hi impsbro! Glad the game was able to load for you, the build size is on the higher end.  In order to travel from planet to planet, you have to hover over the planet and match the hyperdrive number with the thruster lever. Pushing it forward will increase it from 1-3, and pushing it backward from -1 to -3. Once you match the hyperdrive number, you have to keep it there while the bar fills. Then you'll be on your way! We understand that some of the game mechanics are hard to pick up at first - we're currently working on our UI prompts for a smoother experience. Thanks for checking the game out! 

Was unable to play at all; It didn't load in Chrome, Edge, Opera, or Firefox, even after clearing cache, going incognito, or resetting PC and trying all that again :(

Developer

Sorry about that :( I'm not sure what would have caused that issue for you. I had the same problem in my browser initially but disabling adblockers fixed it for me. I'll definitely take a look and try to figure it out.

I didn't even think to disable my adblockers; Let me do that and try again

Submitted

Art is super cool! Nice.
Sadly while i trying to understand how to play this game i get errors (while toggle fire button to max)

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Sorry about that bug :( Hope you'll give the game another chance it's  bug free for the most part. There's a lot of fun content past that point. :) For now just don't set any slider all the way to max and it'll be ok

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