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A jam submission

---Red---Tether-->View game page

Tugboat receives advanced rope, destroys entire alien invasion fleet.
Submitted by sleeper_games (@Sleeper_Games) — 45 minutes, 44 seconds before the deadline
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---Red---Tether-->'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Presentation#734.4554.455
Overall#894.1094.109
Fun#1263.9823.982
Originality#4113.8913.891

Ranked from 55 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
You fight a space fleet entirely by tethering yourself to ships or ships to each other to make them crash.

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Viewing comments 41 to 22 of 41 · Next page · Last page
Developer (1 edit)

Red Tether Redux is here! 


Red Tether Redux Version 0.6 
New Stuff
- Destroyed enemies now leave debris and ordnance behind, which you can then sling into other targets
- You can now use tethers to rip attachments from ships, disarming and damaging enemies in the process
- Added custom rip behavior for tethers on attachments (yanks at attachments and ships periodically instead of continuous pull)
- Firing tethers into a single ship now deals minor hull stress damage over time, but also makes tethers quickly expire
- Added enemy PDC attachment (mounted auto-cannon with limited targeting arc that will deal serious damage to you if you get to close)
- You can now stabilize your ship in place (s by default), great for braving those shock waves
- Reeling while stabilized pulls objects towards you, with more power than regular tether connections
- You can also rip attachments faster this way
- Certain lighter objects now get pulled towards you when swinging
- Added player health system as a second line of defense when your shields fail
- Added upgrade systems with collectible containers that alter your ship and tether stats
- Added 3 variants of Serf class cargo vessel:
Heavy Freighter - Comes with cargo containers that you can rip off and use against other ships
AM Hauler - Deals AoE damage when destroyed and carries antimatter containers with a similar effect
Tech Transport - Has multiple upgrades attached, but will self-destruct if it looses control of one
- Added Warrior class primary fleet asset as a new late game enemy
- Reworked tutorial to be less text heavy
- Reworked title screen and made tutorial optional
- Runs now continue up till wave 18 and each wave has 3 variants now
- Added lock-on system that shows object data, aids with targeting small objects and allows to tether missiles in mid-air
- Added pull force direction indicator that gets displayed while swinging
- Added a distortion system that makes UI elements glitch out and red-yellow shift under certain circumstance
- Added hit-flash system
- Added a whole bunch of new vfx/sfx
- Implemented basic dynamic mixing for background music
- Added a config.txt file that allows customizing controls and some game options (check readme for details)

Balancing and general changes
 
- You now turn faster while reeling in
- Tethers now expire after some time
- Tethers now gain some force as they contract
- Low threat objects now deal less collision damage to the player
- Crash damage ticks no longer destroy tethers
- Enemies dying and contraction to near zero now destroys tethers
- Improved how tethers animate in relation to player/input states
- Differentiated some sound queues
- Improved anti-matter explosion anim
- Adjusted object outlines so that they exclude parts of objects that have no harpoon collision
- Rocket pods are now attachments
- Rocket fire gets more accurate the closer you are to its origin
- Rockets now slightly home in on while approaching
- Slinger class rocket ships now has two rocket pods that it can fire independently
- Spearliz class light cruiser now fields two PDCs



Fixes
 
- Multiple tether between the same targets now correctly add up their pull force
- Enemies now deal their intended crash damage to thing they are in contact with (instead of a fixed rate for all crashes)
- Wave text should now type out correctly when starting a new wave
- I ton of stuff I've forgotten to log

Developer (1 edit)

#96 (eciN) of 5810!

Thanks to everyone who voted, you are the best!

Redux version is on the  way, but it'll still take a few days.


Submitted(+1)

Wow, visually this game looks awesome, I love all the lighting, the tether effect, and the hit impacts with camera shake, feel so polished. The control feels good too, but sometimes its hard to control, it will take a while to master for sure. nice job! Please continue your incredible work! :)

Submitted(+1)

This is a really cool concept and the execution is great for 48 hours.  The level of polish is amazing.  Given that you want to ram into stuff and the health isn't directly displayed, I might consider making the ship completely invincible, and instead adding a timer for how fast the player can complete each wave.  Just a thought.  Excellent work, that absolutely warrants further development.

Submitted(+1)

Loved this. Gameplay idea, sound, art, music. Only thing that felt a bit awkward was the times I found myself having to ram that last target when I didn't have anything to sling it into. But a great game overall.

Submitted(+1)

Great idea to make a hook and have to eliminate enemies with it. Loved the sound design and art style. Movement felt really great!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for all your kind words! Post-jam version is making progress.

Submitted

Awesome

Submitted(+1)

Definatly the most fun game so far. I loved how you need to orbit the ships quickly in order to survive in the later lvls. This is the first game that I am actually saving on computer after Jam.

Submitted(+1)

I had a lot of fun with this game. The visual is very stylish too. Nice one.

Submitted(+1)

AWESOME PRESENTATION!

Really nice neon colors and great music!

Submitted(+1)

This definitely should have more ratings, best iteration of the mechanic I've seen!  Very fun and gorgeous SFX and music, if there's one thing to critique it would be that you've to kill all the rocks before the next wave. If you could leave them it would add a little bit of strategy for the next wave, but overall amazing game!

Submitted(+1)

This is the best iteration of a grappling game I've played for this jam, quite fun and very juicy!

Submitted(+1)

Fun game with amazing visuals! A little hard to maneuver, but overall a great experience!

Submitted(+1)

The art direction is great and the game itself is really fun, except when you get stuck inside a ship so all your health is depleted in 2 seconds and you're too slow to react.

(Also you forgot to say to itch.io  that this was a windows build)

Submitted(+1)

The presentation of this one is off the charts, the sound fx especially complimenting the graphics and effects exceptionally well, it just has that "oomph" if you will. As far as gameplay, it's fairly fun, a bit difficult to get a hang of and the tutorial could use some work (as if I'm one to talk given my games tutorial lol), but, once you do it starts to feel pretty good, and again, the sound of asteroids or ships colliding with each other after having slowly been tethered in is so satisfying. Well done!

Submitted(+2)

I think this game is very coherent which helps to elevate it a lot. The art design, the choice of music, and the controls seem to all fit well with each other and with the main mechanic.

I find it hard to believe that you guys made this art in 48 hours, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, because while the quality is very high, there is not a ton of variation or too many different assets, so that makes it more plausible. Still, that's insane! Great job.

I found the movement of the character with W, A, and D to be somewhat confusing maybe because the camera stayed in the same direction regardless. I wonder if it would help if the camera rotated along with the player. Also, I wonder what would happen if the movement was limited to the tether swinging only. Of course, you guys will know about this better than I will, just some thoughts :).

I liked the gameplay, but from the screenshots / footage I expected something faster paced. The volleys / airstrikes that come in and try to take you out help. I can understand why the gameplay was slower paced initially - because the aiming, movement and tether take time to get used to and so the it has to move slower, but if those things were polished a bit, I would like to see if the gameplay could be faster too.

I am not a fan of the reading-based tutorials. I think you guys did a good job with it, but even then I think a more minimalist tutorial would be nice. Of course, I understand the constraints of the jam make that a lot tougher.

Overall though, pretty great submission, largely because of how cohesive it feels. 

I would love to see you rating / comments on my game too, so I can know how we did and what to improve as well.

Developer(+1)

I found the art tickbox a bit limited. I made all the art myself, but lots of it was made for other projects way back. I still had to adjust everything to fit the palette and artstyle during the jam, that took a ton of time. So I ticked that yes, but if there where boxes for "all art by myself", "used preexisting assets" and "used own art made beforehand" I would have ticked all three. 

I tried camera angling with player a couple times on other things and I find that way harder to aim with, since you need to adjust not only to cam movement but also angle. On my main release I added a mouse aim option where your jet rotates towards the mouse, but that wouldn't really fit here either since you need to be able to free aim. But it's definitely not ideal as it is here. Giving additional indicators for where your ship is facing might be an option. I don't really want take away your engines since that would limit the level design a whole lot and would still lead to a lot of dead end scenarios unless new systems are added to compensate. I think being stranded because of a wrong move would be punishing in a real frustrating way. Ultimately the goal was to make you feel powerful when tethered and somewhat helpless but not totally screwed when not.

In relation to that, making the game play faster is is definitely something I want to address, mostly with more area denial enemies in later waves to force you even more into quick movement. There will also be a lock on system that lets you tether things more easy while on the move. But yeah, the game has to start slower to allow you to adjust. In a full game I would add difficulty options that allow you to start more intense runs from the get go once you feel like you got the hang of it.

I also absolutely agree on the tutorial, I put that there in the last 20 minutes and it could definitely be improved.

Submitted(+2)

I've been looking for your game ever since I saw one of your Progression posts because it looked similar to our game just way better :D

This game is so good, the momentum is cool and the Ships feel heavy and strong, The hook is slow but really gets the feeling of heaviness across.

This game is also so well polished, little details like the "Ammo" as the Crosshair, a direction arrow when you're far away, Are so nice to see. Especially in a jam game.

The Aesthetic is also amazing, The colours are limited and used so well. The effects are also satisfieng.

All in all, Amazing!

 

Submitted(+2)

I love the polish in this one. the ship movement is great, the attack mode is amazing and the effects are just beautiful. the way the tethers change size, the boost on the ship, the explosions, the screenshake, all very curated, makes for a great experience. Congrats!

Submitted(+2)

This game is intense, awesome! Love the art style and effects! Great job for making this in 48 hours!

Submitted(+2)

One of the best games I've played during this jam! It looks great and it plays even better. Everything is so spot on: screenshake, sfx, vfx, controls. I especially loved that the crosshair actually shows how much tether you have left. So juice this game is. Well done!

Viewing comments 41 to 22 of 41 · Next page · Last page