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A jam submission

StarCubeView game page

Engine exhaust destroys enemies!
Submitted by voidonon — 1 hour, 50 minutes before the deadline
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StarCube's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Gameplay#613.3853.385
Overall#1013.2023.202
Authenticity (or, Creativity in use of resolution)#1133.6923.692
Audio#1132.8852.885
Graphics#1452.8462.846

Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Themes
Unconventional Weapon - engine exhaust is used to fight the enemies, which is unconventional both theme-wise and gameplay-wise.

Tools
No engines, only C (compiled to WebAssembly using Emscripten), Audacity for simple sound effects, GuitarPro 5 for music.

Lessons
Just some general experience that is hard to put in words.

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Comments

Viewing comments 22 to 3 of 22 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

What a fantastic idea! What really makes it come together is the omni-directional ship, I think. Had it been a more traditional rocket it might've been too unwieldy, but the lil cube ship makes enemies blastable from any direction, which is great. The number of times I just barely managed to take down an enemy before the last pixel disappeared from the screen. Sure, if they dropped a powerup it was gone, but the point is they didn't get away!

I will admit, sheepishly, to "running" against a screen border a handful of times to shred a clump of incoming enemies, though. That they didn't get out of the way means it's their fault!

A really solid little game.

Developer

Thank you for your kind words, I am glad you had fun playing it. :)

Indeed, one of my goals was to make it feel good (perhaps "juicy") to shred the incoming enemies, I am glad it did turn out that way. :)

Submitted(+1)

Nice minimalistic space shooter! I think the dual actions are nice (the thrusters being used for attack and flying)
It's overall super nice!

Developer

Thank you for playing and your kind words, I am glad you liked it! :)

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Interesting take on the space shooter genre. I like the simplicity and dual purpose functionality of the movement, Later levels can get a bit overwhelming when enemies flood the screen without much ability to counteract but solid entry overall.

Developer

Thank you for playing, I am glad you liked it. The idea was to make it become harder because it is an endless "shooter".

Submitted(+1)

The game has a pretty unique idea here, but I think some of the restrictions/executions hurt the exploration of said idea. The small screeen and the tighly packed enemies mean that going between the enemies and manouvering around is hard to do, and quite risky to your life, while the optimal play is to go on top/bottom/left edge and still press that direction to shoot the exhaust into the middle area, until eventually you finish them on the left side.

Graphics and sounds are nice (altought the bomb/lighning effect is a tad loud), pickups are a nice mixup, but I think they suffer from the same thing mentioned above.

Overall nice idea and execution, which (to me) suffers from the screen resolution being so low and the enemies spawning in tightly knit groups.

Developer

Thank you for playing and constructive criticism! :)

Submitted(+1)

A very unusual and well-balanced game, I lasted quite a while and it wasn’t boring. The game’s load time is awe-inspiring. Extra star for using C for game logic, I imagine the labour involved. The sound design is just right.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing and kind words! 

The game loads nearly instantly because the game itself (index.html and WebAssembly executable) is just about 60 kB in size. The rest of it (almost 2 MB) is sound assets in .ogg format, most of which is music (two tracks I have hastily composed, one for the title screen, other for the game itself), while sound effects are only about 115 kB. There are no graphical asset (files) since the graphics is hard-coded, some of it is in arrays (e.g. splash screen logo, 8x8 font and 3x5 "digit font"), some of it is proceduraly generated.

Submitted(+1)

A unique take on the theme which I really liked, having to navigate your ship whilst also aiming at the same time - it gets quite tricky as the game progresses! 

I would have liked to see more power-ups, maybe something that upgrades or changes your engine trajectory, or a shield or something to add some variety.  

But overall a fun little game.  I liked that you added damage indicators for both the player and enemies, and very cool that you wrote it all in C too!  

Developer

Thank you for playing, I am glad you had fun. :)

I was thinking about adding some more power-ups, but the deadline was approaching and in the end I was happy to have the ones I did add. A shield power-up sounds like a good idea, I am thinking of having it reduce damage proportional to how much of it is left and getting reduced on each hit.

Submitted(+1)

Your game is a fantastic take on the theme, with a unique and creative mechanic that really stands out! I particularly enjoyed how the exhaust mechanic forces players to engage in riskier gameplay, balancing the thrill of close encounters with the reward of taking down enemies.

The procedurally generated background adds a great layer of depth to the visuals, making each playthrough feel fresh and dynamic. I also appreciated the enemy variety, which kept the gameplay interesting and challenging.

However, I did feel that the game could benefit from a more open environment. A larger play area, perhaps with enemies attacking from all sides, could enhance the strategic elements and give players more room to maneuver and fully explore the game's mechanics.

Overall, you did an excellent job with this submission!

Developer

Thank you for your kind words and an extensive review! :)

It was mentioned in a few other comments that the game would benefit from a more open play area, so, as I said there, I might make a sequel that would incorporate it and maybe some other constructive suggestions as well. :)

Submitted(+1)

A very clever interpretation of the theme! The design of the exhaust mechanic demands players to approach the danger, maximizing both risk and reward! The enemy drops system also adds greater functionality to the combat, making it all the more interesting! It was really fun to fly through the groups of ships and cause as much mayhem as possible. This game is very fun and creative!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing and the review. I am glad you liked it! :)

Submitted(+1)

Captain’s Log 07: We made it far but it seems this is the end. The waves of ships has put a toll on the crew and the ship can only take another hit. We tried.

This was very fun and I enjoyed it thoroughly. The ships were cool and the bit of lore did enhance the gameplay. Loved that the ship colors changed in correlation with its health.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing, I glad you liked it, enjoyed the lore and noticed the health-dependent change of color. :)

Submitted(+1)

Great game. It's very interesting to play. theme used well․ good job!

Developer

Thanks! :)

Submitted(+1)

The idea of attacking while moving in the other direction is excellent and really makes you want to dig into this concept to find gameplay situations specific to this feature.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing, I am glad you like the concept. :)

Submitted(+1)

This is great, what I like the most is gorgeour background, variety in enemies, and that it was simple 4-directional movement. I was gonna say just gliding along the left edge of the screen works all the time, but then at later levels a wave of those round hunters would get me.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing and kind words. :)

The background is procedurally generated, I spent some time to program it and get it look right, so I am glad to see it appreciated. :)

Submitted(+1)

Solid! Always cool to see games built without an engine.

I really appreciated how "What You See Is What You Get" this game was. No hidden collisions from invisible hit boxes or object position rounding. It made bobbing and weaving once the enemy projectiles started strangely strategic, rather than just frantic.

That difficulty spike is pretty extreme. I'd be tempted to a) combine Waves 1 and 2 so the game keeps adding new features at a regular clip and b) make the first batch of projectiles shootable so you aren't suddenly being tested on evasion as well.

I think the sound generally worked well, but I would have liked a little more juice from the thruster, since its so central.

I really enjoyed the particles ricocheting. It was a nice moment when I realized it was happening.

Developer

Thank you for kind words and constructive criticism, I am glad you liked it! :)

Submitted(+1)

Interesting concept. Could use a bit more variety.

Also, a minor thing but the browser window moves around when pressing the arrow keys in the game. I think it needs an JS event listener attached to the canvas that consumes the event after it's handled by the game so that it doesn't propagate the event back to the browser.

Developer

Thank you for playing, I am glad you found it interesting. :) I might make a sequel in the future, using suggestions from (so far two) other comments to make the movement more open and it would include more variety. In this one, I was primarily experimenting with my new gameplay mechanics idea.

I know about the browser window issue, I forgot to add the e.preventDefault() and e.stopPropagation to keydown event handler and only remembered about it when the submission deadline was over and I was not sure if it is okay to re-upload after that while the voting phase is still ongoing (I also wanted to increase music volume from 0.25 to maybe 0.5 (after hearing that it is almost inaudible in some setups while sound effects can still be heard clearly), but decided against it (at least until the voting phase ends) for the same reason). The issue seems to be browser dependent (it somehow does not happen in Firefox, only in Chrome (and probably Chromium-based browsers in general)). The workaround is to play in full screen or use WASD controls (or a gamepad).

Submitted(+1)

Fun and well put together game. I made it to wave 8 I believe. 

Developer

I am glad you liked it. Thank you for playing! :)

Submitted(+1)

The background really looked nice and actually did a good job of adding depth. I liked the feel of kinda rhythmically going clockwise or counterclockwise with the arrow keys to shoot in a continuous spiral while trying to still dodge. Great use of the Unconventional Weapon theme.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing, I am glad you liked it and appreciate the background graphics. Despite being purely decorative, I have decided to put some effort in programming its rendering. :)

Submitted(+1)

The game is pretty fun

Developer

Thanks! :)

Submitted(+1)

Love the concept, very original but also easy to grasp right away. I feeling like I’m farting on foes as a weapon, and that… that really works :P

Developer

Thank you for playing, I am glad you liked it! :D

Submitted(+1)

Nice take on the theme and nice idea overall.

I didn't really like the sound effects and think the music doesn't fit but bonus internet points for composing it yourself (from my understanding)

I agree with one of the previous commenters that this kind of gameplay would have even more potential if it the game wasn't just scrolling. One idea would be to have enemies spawn from all around you converging on you (or maybe the planet you are supposed to defend?) with you moving all around the screen defeating them in all directions.

Developer

Thank you for playing and constructive criticism. :)

I must admit that the sound was an afterthought, it was the last thing I made for the game and, as such, it was heavily improvised. Similar goes for the music, which I did compose and the lesion I learned (but will likely fail to follow XD) was to not compose music in the very last few hours before the jam deadline. :D

As I said in a reply to the comment you are referencing, I am considering making a sequel that would be more open, so I appreciate suggestions for it. Honestly, I was just playing with this unconventional weapon idea and was not even expecting to push it as far as I did.

Submitted(+1)

Very satisfying and crunchy game! Difficulty curve felt good. I liked being able to shoot the enemy bullets to stop them before they hit me. Nice background art too. Congrats on the great submission!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your kind words, I am glad you enjoyed it so much! :)

Being able to shoot enemies was more of a side-effect of my exhaustion. I wanted to make some enemies shoot something at you, but I felt too lazy to program a new kind of object. So these bullets are just a type of an enemy ship (spawned every 32 frames by each shooting type enemy ship) and, as such, they could be shoot at by default, so I though why not use that to enrich the gameplay. :D

Viewing comments 22 to 3 of 22 · Next page · Last page