Godot Wild Jam #57

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A jam submission

[ɐ⊅] — Stars ExhumedView game page

Rediscover ancient magical constellations to save Earth!

Submitted by ian-h-chamberlain — 24 minutes, 16 seconds before the deadline

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[ɐ⊅] — Stars Exhumed's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Originality	#14	3.952	4.385
Theme	#21	3.190	3.538
Audio	#22	2.912	3.231
Overall	#25	2.942	3.264
Graphics	#28	3.051	3.385
Accessibility	#33	2.427	2.692
Fun	#34	2.635	2.923
Controls	#38	2.427	2.692

Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
v4.0.3.stable.flathub [5222a99f5]

Wildcards Used
N/A (ran out of time)

Game Description
Rediscover ancient magical constellations to save Earth! Learn spells from the stars, and use them to destroy incoming meteors that threaten the planet.

How does your game tie into the theme?
The player is recovering forgotten knowledge of casting spells using constellations as magical symbols.

Source(s)
https://github.com/ian-h-chamberlain/stars-exhumed

Discord Username(s)
ian-h-chamberlain

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1 (this is my first time making a game with Godot!)

My game has an export for Linux, Windows, & Mac and/or is playable through HTML5

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Comments

hopemSubmitted1 year ago

The idea to draw constellations was very interesting. I didn't have much fun though. Choosing a different constellation didn't change the spell. There isn't really a way to lose, but that's probably okay because the controls for casting were very hard and I nearly gave up. But I figured it out in the end. So if there was more urgency in the meteor part and if different constellations gave you different spells, or maybe the meteor part could be something else. Because I think the main mechanic is super cool and I can see it being used as a spell system in an RPG or something like that.

The music was cool. The graphics are basic, but the particle explosions were very underwhelming and felt janky, but that doesn't make the main idea worse.

Submitted

Towers of Knowledge

ian-h-chamberlainDeveloper1 year ago

I wanted to add different spell types for different constellations but ran out of time since I had focused so much on the spell casting itself.

Adapting the spellcasting to a different RPG-type of game is definitely an interesting idea… if I keep developing this I’ll have to consider that. It could be cool to build up a spellbook over a longer game and use those spells as part of the core gameplay.

As for the graphics - yeah, definitely “programmer art” over here, haha! The explosions especially were just thrown together quickly because it was even jankier without them, lol.

Thanks for playing!

VostSubmitted1 year ago (1 edit)

What an ambitious first game! O.O
I am amazed that you manage to do that well in such a tiny amount of time... Well done! As some people already mentioned, reliable pattern recognition, with projection of 3D lines in 2D, is not the easiest thing to code.

However, like the others, I struggled with the controls and felt that the tutorial could be enhanced. I also noticed that the music is not looping.

I didn't reach the end and kept destroying meteors forever... Is there one at some point?

Anyway, nice job! :)

Submitted

ian-h-chamberlainDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks, I definitely spent the most time on the constellation and spellcasting pieces which left a lot unfinished in the other parts of the game, haha. For example, there was no ending and meteors would come forever until quitting the game, as you noticed.

I didn’t notice that about the music, will have to check that more carefully next time.

Thanks for playing!

WingedSubmitted1 year ago

Great job making 2-in-1 games using Godot for first time! Took some time to get used to the controls. The feeling of putting your own constellations to use was quite pleasing.

Potential idea if you plan to expand the game: different patterns could have different effects when casting them, ex. if you make a more circular-looking, then the spell will have a wider range but travel slow. Or if you make a sharp-looking shape, it travels fast and can go through multiple meteors. I can also see this work well in VR, but that's another can of worms. :P

Overall, pretty original idea and a fun game.

Submitted

ian-h-chamberlainDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Thanks for playing! It definitely seems like controls were one of the biggest pain points so if I come back to polish I’ll definitely reconsider how that all works.

I was considering something kinda like what you suggested, where more stars = more power for a spell, or having elemental magic per-spell. The special effects based on the shape would be really cool if I can figure out how to implement that!

Thanks for your feedback!

FerevranSubmitted1 year ago

I’ve played the Windows version, this game felt very ambitious (I think pattern recognition isn’t easy to create) and I found the idea of gaining the spells from the constellations to be very interesting. The music and sounds created a nice atmosphere, making the experience more enjoyable.

I found it difficult to recreate patterns with 4 or more stars, however 3-star angle-shaped constellations were recognized rather reliably, so I used them most often.

Submitted

The storm of spirits

ian-h-chamberlainDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

I hope it worked okay on Windows since that was untested! You’re right that I went a bit ambitious on this one, and the spell recognition could definitely use some polish especially with spells that have >3 stars. I think it would be nice to add some “guidelines” or guard rails for the player choosing their spells too, to make sure it actually would be recognizable later on.

Thanks for playing!

strutcodeSubmitted1 year ago

That was awesome! For lack of a better description the "feel" was just fantastic. I love the creativity, it felt really refreshing. The spell casting was really surprisingly forgiving too which made it work even better.

The controls were exceptionally confusing for me. I panicked a bit trying to memorize the long tutorial texts before dismissing them, even for basic stuff that I already know like how to move, run and jump.

Some static labels on the screen that relay the non-standard game controls (Q, E, RMB, LMB) would really help as a persistent reminder after the tutorial is done.

A really fantastic entry for a first game made in Godot; it can be a hard engine to switch to without any practice so great work! I'm excited to see what you come up with next. :D

Submitted

The Garden of Everything

ian-h-chamberlainDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it! Complicated controls definitely seems to be what most people have struggled with while playing - some more on-screen help is a good idea, I’ll definitely need to add that if I come back to polish this game up more.

Thanks for the kind words, I really enjoyed learning to use Godot as well!

bodhiSubmitted1 year ago

Very cool idea! I loved creating some patterns and was really pumped to use them to defeat Earth :D

It took me some time to understand how to use the spells, but after restarting the game and making more simple ones (with only three stars), it worked! And it felt really nice to explode some of those Asteroids!

Nice game, especially for the first time working with Godot! Very impressive!!

ian-h-chamberlainDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for playing! Yeah, admittedly I didn’t do as much playtesting on spells with 4+ stars and there isn’t really any incentive to create anything other that very simple spells, which I would have liked to add.

guladamSubmitted1 year ago

Hi ian-h-chamberlain,

First of all, congrats on your first Jam Entry. Cheers to many more in the future! :)

Funnily enough, we had a really similar idea for this theme. You need to draw spells in order to defeat enemies / danger.

Despite that, these are 2 drastically different games. I loved the idea of using constellations! :)

The tutorial feels a bit rushed but I imagine you were running out of time at the end.

Overall I enjoyed it, you come up with an interesting mechanic which definitely could be explored further! :)

Submitted

Big Black Book of Magic

ian-h-chamberlainDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for playing! I look forward to playing your game as well to see how our ideas compare to each other :)

The tutorial was definitely rushed towards the end as I realized the controls would need quite a bit of explanation to play effectively. I think more of a step-by-step walkthrough would probably be a lot better.

Glad you enjoyed playing and thanks for your feedback!

raptor9999Submitted1 year ago

Cool entry even though I think it's way too complicated.

I love the presentation though, esp starting out like you're floating in a star field essentially, and then even the second act is pretty cool looking too, especially the meteors and the parchment. Sound and music is pretty nice also!

Controls could def use some simplification I think.

I had to restart once to figure out how to make spells and then I couldn't ever actually get them to cast at the meteors.

Submitted

ian-h-chamberlainDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for playing! I agree that I probably over-scoped a bit and ended up trying to add too much to the game (and of course I even had more ideas I wanted to implement too…)

Regarding the controls, I had trouble trying to decide how to simplify it, since the spell casting mechanism is somewhat unusual - maybe more mouse-driven control would be easier (like click, draw spell, click)? I wanted to make sure the player could always regain mouse control if they wanted, which is part of why it got kind of confusing. Perhaps more on-screen helpers (a real tutorial) would help instead of just a written description.

Glad you liked the presentation, thanks for your feedback!