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A jam submission

ADENView game page

Gather resources, build spaceship modules, look for alien life and maneuver the dangers of outer space!
Submitted by erdostamasa — 21 hours, 30 minutes before the deadline
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ADEN's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Innovation#1123.1203.120
Graphics#1383.2403.240
Overall#1533.0403.040
Theme interpretation#1553.0803.080
Gameplay#1562.8802.880
Audio#2642.2002.200

Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/erdostamasa/ADEN

Theme interpretation
Shoot for the moon with the ambitious idea of finding and helping intelligent alien life evolve in a distant solar system.

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Comments

Viewing comments 24 to 5 of 24 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

Really deep gameplay and polished game. Love the visuals and audio. Mindblowingly good game!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Really cool experience! great graphics, the game feels very polish, with lots of features implemented and very enjoyable gameplay. Also wanted to highlight the tutorial at the beginning, it is very much appreciated :)

Well done!

Submitted(+1)

Really enjoyed ADEN - thanks for making it! The dynamics of the ship are good & challenging & I definitely got the feeling of having "bitten off more than I can chew" once or twice trying to retrieve a large asteroid. But was definitely satisfying getting the hang of plotting a good trajectory home. At the end of the day I was chasing a spinning undocked module far out of orbit, which was quite funny.

Submitted(+1)

I liked how the rotation would basically use the baricenter between the two objects to rotate around based on your thrust, however it did make for some very frustrating times where my ship would do nothing but rotate the wrong way. The Hauler module was a nice change to that, except that the asteroids would continually fall out of it in between the thrusters and the capsule. I'm not sure if this was intentional or a bug, but I feel like the scaffolding really needs to contain the asteroids as well. It was just so frustrating to have to constantly slow down and go back because my cargo had fallen out behind me.
I'm a sucker for games that use fairly accurate space physics, so I liked this despite how frustrating it could sometimes be. Nice job.

Developer

Thanks for playing! The hauler only has hitboxes on the engines, so you don't collide with it while trying to connect. I can see how losing asteroids that way was frustrating. Would you like it better if the scaffolding would only collide with the asteroids but let you go through it like now?

Do you have any ideas how could I make the start less frustrating? Maybe make the hauler cheaper so the player has to move less and smaller asteroids with the capsule? My goal with the current setup was to show how hard it is to gather resources with the capsule then introduce the hauler that would make it easier, but it made some players give up too early. 

Submitted(+1)

Personally I didn't find the start too bad. I think it might be a good idea to make smaller, lighter asteroid which are a bit easier to move but don't give you much. That way you can choose to make multiple slightly easier trips or to struggle with the big bulky ones that would reward you more.
My main issue was the collision boxes only being on the ship and the engines of the hauler module. If the scaffolding also collided with the asteroids, acting as basically a giant bucket on the front, then I think it would be much more fun. Just putting those collision boxes on a different layer would allow it to collide with the asteroid, but not the ship. You could still lose it if you were going too fast and tried to just stop without rotating, but it wouldn't fall out the back between the engines that way.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

I like your idea, although it is very hardcore and inherently ambitious (simulator).

A few comments about game and code: 

1) Relative to the rotation of the spacecraft. Although the possibility of direct activation of the RCS does exist, in fact, the rotation of aircraft and spacecraft is controlled either by setting the angular velocity or by setting the angle of rotation. In general, it would be good to develop a simple regulator for controlling the angular velocity of the spacecraft. 

2) And I looked at your source code, and I can say that you do not need to manually attach the activation of the engine to a particular button and there is no need for pre-manual distribution of thruster in directions, instead, in simple cases, you can use a dot-product to determine which engines are directed in the right direction for the desired movement and rotation, for example, like in my example in Activation method. I don't set any threshold in this example, because this script does not interact with physics, but is only needed for special effects, but you can set a special threshold (for example, if dot-product is greater than 0.5). This works well if your engines are directed orthogonally or collinearly to each other. You can see how this works in practice in the demonstration of my other old example.

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you for your feedback!

Regarding comment 1: It's a great idea, personally I would add an option to turn the regulator on/off, I will certainly implement this if I continue the  project.

comment 2: Doing it manually didn't feel like the proper way but time was running short and I didn't spend it looking for a better way. Your solution sounds very interesting, I presume it only works properly with orthogonal/colinear engine setups as you said? Thinking about it I only use engines in this fashion so that wouldn't be a problem. Can it handle any number of engines at arbitrary positions/orientations? (all orthogonal/colinear of course)

(thanks for the source code, will look into it)

Submitted(+1)

This solution will work in any case. In other words, the engines that are necessary for the required movement will always be activated.

However, if, for example, you have asymmetric pairs of engines with different thrust and any angles, and you act on Rigidbody through engines as now, then there will be side effects. For example, you have right-hand engines: the first with 1 kN and the second with 2 kN that are located at the same distance from the center of mass, and if you use my dot product approach to get acceleration to the left, then both engines will be activated at maximum power, and in addition to the linear force of 3 kN, you will also get torsion. To avoid such side effects, dot-product alone will not be enough and in order to accurately determine what the thrust should be for each engine to provide the necessary torque and linear acceleration, you will have to solve the linear programming problem. Alternatively, use a direct impact on Rigidbody, and use thrusters only as a special effects emitter, and in this case, you will only activate special effects using dot-product. which will be logically similar to realistic ones.

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks for the explanation!

Submitted(+1)

I think the tutorial would greatly benefit from being condensed and more interactive, like others have said. By the time I reached the end of it, I realized I'd forgotten most of what I read. I appreciated that I could open the controls list and keep it viewable while continuing to play, this did help a bit. Unfortunately I ended up getting trapped in a spin loop and wasn't able to figure out how to get out of it before giving up. It seems to have potential though :)

Submitted(+1)

I can appreciate the scale of the game world, the realism of the physics and the difficulty of the task. Personally I found it way too difficult. By the time I learned to control spinning and grabbed the first asteroid, the mothership was already too far away. I didn't have the patience to wait for the entire sun rotation, and racing was too difficult (the direction to the mothership is not visible). So yes, I didn't have the patience to complete the first mission.

Very nice graphics.

Submitted(+1)

Once I grabbed a meteor I couldn't stop spinning, hilarious if not sad, because I wanted to go back to the base. The tutorial feels overwhelming too, maybe a step by step mission would be better to introduce the mechanics. Graphics are great and I can see there's a lot of work behind the game, although I didn't get it. Nice work

Submitted(+1)

This was a great game. Getting used to controlling yourself was a lot of fun and having to plan ahead from actions that really let you feel the weight of your craft was enjoyable.

(+2)

You spin me right round, baby right round, like a rocket baby, right round round round.

Submitted(+1)

Unfortunately couldn't figure out how to stop spinning uncontrollably.  Seeing comments I figured that many players had the same issue, but figured it out after a while of playing. Since I'm not a fan of the genre, I didn't have enough patience.

The tutorial although thorough was a bit overwhelming. I wish it was given step by step as you play, but I do understand that there were resource/time limitations that probably prevented this.

Developer

Valid point, if I ever continue this game I will absolutely include a short interactive tutorial! I was actually going to have one but I ran out of time.

Submitted(+1)

Very in-depth game. Can easily see all the hard work that's gone into it. Congrats on making this gem!

Submitted(+1)

A little bit difficult to get started, it was good there was a tutorial but it was a lot at the beginning. Took a while to get used to gameplay and was fun after the introduction.

Pros:

  • Complex gameplay
  • Good theme interpretation

Improvements:

  • A bit difficult controls early on and complicated tutorial. A simpler tutorial would be nice

Good stuff, would love it if you checked out my game Moon Blob! =) https://avatar-nick.itch.io/moon-blob

Submitted(+1)

Graphics and all are very nice! I must say the game play at the beginning was nerve-wracking for me.. to get just a single ore was tough! Video review below:

42:09 Aden

Submitted(+1)

Cool graphics, I liked the scale, adding the zoom feature was smart. Controlling the ship was difficult, but that's the point I guess and adds a level of realism. I found the tutorial to be a little long - maybe make it interactive  or have a small tutorial level before releasing the player into the full sized solar system?

Developer

Thanks for playing! Originally I was going to do exactly that, but I ran out of time so I had to do the old school boring text tutorial. The freeplay mode would have been an interactive tutorial mission if I had more time :D

Submitted(+1)

There's so much depth to this simulation, really impressive! Maneuvering isn't too difficult but still interesting. It does take a bit longer to get from place to place than I would prefer, but the scale absolutely adds to the grandness of the world. The art is super crisp and fits well with the setting and gameplay. It's awesome that you were able to make a game with so many features and details for gamejam, great work!

Submitted(+1)

Protip: Crashing into space rock stops you from spinning uncontrollably haha

Had lots of fun with this and it reminded my of my physics classes. I liked the attention to detail with the movement and it's care made the game really immersive. Good job

Submitted(+1)

Also forgot to mention: amazing job on the tutorial it really was thorough and not intrusive and very much informed me on what to do

Developer

I'm glad you liked it, I'm happy it served its purpose well:)

Submitted(+2)

pretty challenging!  once i could start successfully maneuvering i enjoyed it.  very rewarding.

Submitted(+1)

Really cool physics game! It takes a while to get the hang of the controls, but after that initial learning curve you're dashing around making calculated moves and big brain maneuvers. It's much more proactive than reactive, it's about planning your trajectory rather than making it on the go. Now, for the creator, I couldn't build the scanning station things on the surface of the planets. I landed correctly, pressed 1, clicked, and nothing would happen. The first time I reached it I landed badly and couldn't build  the station, so I thought "maybe I can't build it because I botched the landing?", then I self destructed, returned, botched it again, tried to build anyway and nothing would happen, then I finally landed correctly but I still couldn't build. What was I doing wrong?

Developer

Thanks for playing!

Did you drop metal asteroids on the planets? If you drop metal asteroids on the 3 marked planets, the metal gets added to the planet's reserves. Each scanning station requires 1 ton of metal on the planet to build it. The planets should display how much metal they currently store.

Submitted(+1)

No, I didn't. I thought having it on the HUD was enough. I'll try it again soon, thanks for the help!

Submitted(+1)

It was fun trying to control the space ship.  I like the scale, but it does take a while to get around.

If you like platformers, please try our game.

Viewing comments 24 to 5 of 24 · Next page · Last page