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A jam submission

HeliophysicView game page

A Spinning Space Game
Submitted by Tea! — 6 hours, 7 minutes before the deadline
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Heliophysic's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity & Theme#2094.1824.182
Seriousness#3013.9773.977
Overall#3253.8273.827
Audio#3873.6143.614
Visuals#3904.0454.045
Enjoyment#9273.3183.318

Ranked from 44 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Game Engine

GameMaker

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Comments

Viewing comments 29 to 10 of 29 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

Very fun

Now i can have infinite earths

Developer

Ah yes the money printer build lol. Thanks for playing!

(+1)

Super fun concept! Congrats on creating such a polished-looking game.  I'd definitely play the hell out of a full version of this. I also loved the music. Here are a couple of notes that may be useful: 

1. Personally, I'm not a fan of putting a timer on the shop phase. 

2. I pressed the exit key a couple of times, expecting to pause the game, but that quit the entire game. Not ideal, especially for a jam, since that could be the difference between people playing the game or not. 

3. The timer on the shop led me to make a few rushed mistakes at first, like trying a run without any attacking planets, so it would be nice to have a tooltip show up if you're about to make that mistake. 

4. During the sell phase, I was expecting that hovering over a planet would tell me the planet's name

Developer(+1)

Oops! Esc is supposed to open the pause menu, not exit the game so you found a crash unfortunately.

I appreciate the feedback on the timer, that's a new one! I'd probably consider removing it on future versions as well but my playtesters never really bumped into it (bc they played the game too much by that point I imagine) so it slipped under the radar.

I did want more info on hover and a few other places, but this was my first game so by the end there my spaghetti code for the UI was making it take a really long time to figure out any UI changes >.<

Thank you so much for playing and giving feedback!!

Submitted(+1)

A fun strategy game. The planet system was well balanced. It would be nice if the asteriods came in a bit slower at the start, but overall really cool.

Developer

Thank you for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Very interesting game! I love the mechanics and how the planets work and I would say its highly creative! Visuals are awesome and audio is nice! I would also say its kinda serious! I did found a bug where on the tutorial after I drag saturn, after a while the game goes to black so I have to restart it. But it didn't happen again so is chill and it won't affect your scores much cos the game's good! Overall, really great game! Good work!

Developer(+1)

Arg! dang bugs.

Sorry you crashed but I'm super glad you enjoyed it!!

Submitted(+1)

Cool idea, really liked the visuals. I found the controls a bit too clunky to control for how fast the game was meteors where coming in. Maybe the planets could have auto fired on nearby comets, so the games about the spinning but also positioning. Nice entry.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing! I actually had mars auto fire in the earliest version of the game but I kinda wanted reasons for the player to not just always be spinning. I think I could probably revisit the idea of auto fire with a limited range like you suggest. Thank you for the feedback!!

Submitted(+1)

Great game and a super original concept. I love that the spin has different effects depending on the planets. Like others said, the difficulty is a bit high, but that’s nothing a small patch can’t fix later on. Great submission!

Developer(+1)

Yes, I definitely plan to do some number adjustments after the jam lol. Thank you for playing!

Submitted(+1)

this is such a fun concept! like others mentioned, the difficulty is super high, but other than that i really enjoyed the game

Developer

Glad you enjoyed! tyfp!!

Submitted(+1)

Very nice game! It makes fun and fits the theme very well. The gameplay is very polished and the tutorial is helpful. Great job!

Developer

Thanks for playing and mentioning the tutorial specifically! I found making that concise but informative to be one of the hardest parts haha

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

The game got great concept with very cool gameplay. Having a tutorial is neat and nice visual too. However, the difficulty is very high. The rotation with the mouse can sometimes cancel itself out.

One of the main issues I found, even if there is no issue with the controls, is the lack of resources, like slow XP generation and planets being expensive. One thing I tried was buying all Earth planets and spinning for them for the entire round, at most getting up to 200 XP, but all that got me was two extra planets, which destroyed themselves after use.

Stage 3 is the furthest I could get, but the difficulty spike got really high there. Still a good job! Just needs a bit of balancing in the numbers.

Developer

Thanks for playing! Yeah I think both me and my playtesters got too good at spinning so I ended up over-nerfing the XP gain. Thank you for the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

I have to try your game in another navigator than mine because right clic + movement is a key shortcut hahaha

It was pretty fun but really hard !

Developer

Oh interesting, I did not expect that control combo to ever be an issue lol

Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

This is such a cool concept! I really enjoyed playing it :D

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing!!

Submitted(+1)

can say absolutely nothing negative about this game no feedback to give its one of the best games i have ever played by far its a great and absolutely amazing game hats off <3

Developer

Oh wow thank you so much!

Submitted(+1)

This might be one of my favorite takes on the theme I've seen. A space-themed tower defense is a cool concept on its own, but the way you've deeply incorporated orbits makes for an engaging gameplay loop. You can't just spam left click with Mars to shoot your enemies or aim Saturn at everything that comes by, because you need to also keep up your ammo, rings, etc. It's good stuff.

As others have mentioned, the act of spinning itself is quite awkward. In particular, it seems that the system's rotation can easily fall behind how spinning—if I start holding right click on Mars and then try to spin really fast, Mars will end up offset from my mouse by a bunch. This not only makes it harder to orbit and keep up resources; it also makes it a pain to accurately aim planets like Saturn after you spin. I'm not sure what exactly the root cause of this is, but it's worth investigating should you develop this game further.

I also think the game could do with retuned difficulty.  Others have mentioned the alien invasion being a difficulty spike. What hasn't been specifically talked about tho is the spaceship that shoots projectiles. The moment that thing spawns, it shoots without any sort of chargeup or indicator. And it seems like once the projectile is out, you just have to tank it with one of your planets. For something so punishing when you let it shoot, you should have a lot more time to deal with it.

Aside from those blips though, the core of this game is really good! The visuals are also quite nice (the UI being especially smooth). Would love to see this fleshed out and turned into a full game.

Developer

Thank you for the feedback and for playing! I had not noticed the spinning falling behind like you described but now that you mention it I know exactly why that happens because I ran into a similar problem with Saturns rings!

I made the shooting space ship not shoot until it gets close enough to the far orbit track so you could have time to shoot it down but I can see how that is not enough time for a new player. The projectile could also probably be slower so it's easier to dodge with the planets but I did want you to have to tank a shot with the planet if the shot missing would otherwise make it hit the sun. 

I appreciate your dive into what you found difficult specifically with the alien wave!

Submitted(+1)

The cover art for this game on one of your comments drew me over here.

Art and UI look great, though I think the smaller text could use a more readable font. In my experience with games in this jam that use the mouse for spinning, it’s kind of a difficult mechanic to use. A larger, custom cursor would help me make sure I’m keeping my mouse around the sun and keeping things spinning properly.

This game feels like a good starting point for something more fleshed out, I’d love to see anything else you might do with it. More focused introduction to the planets would help me understand them better; I found myself buying Mars and Jupiter and just spinning the heck out of everything non-stop.

The transitions on the alien invasion and when losing could use some better pacing, and I found the XP flying to the edge of the screen very distracting. This is a really neat-looking game, though, and I think it has a lot of potential.

Developer

Thank you for such detailed feedback! And yeah the artist did a great job on the cover (as well as everything else). I like the idea of a custom cursor as I did lose track of my mouse a bit as well. I was also considering little gifs or something for the planets in the buy menu to show how they work better but I ran out of time in the end. I have not heard yet that the XP was distracting so that is good I info! Thanks again for playing

Submitted(+1)

Love the take on theme! Very fun game! 

Developer(+1)

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted(+1)

I love the idea of the game, lowkey this is good enough to be on steam. You should try adding some more planets, maybe some from different solar systems

Developer

Thank you for playing! The intention was to add all of the planets in our solar system but I didn't have enough time in the end haha. The artist already made art for the rest of the planets so I would like to add them at least once the jam is over

Submitted(+1)

I love the concept of this game, the art is charming and the sound design is really fitting ! A bit too difficult for me, but I would love to see how it could evolve. Great job !!

Developer

Thank you for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Great concept and the visuals and audio are so good!! Could use some difficulty balancing as other reviewers have said, but other than that this is so polished and well done

Developer

Thanks for playing!!

Submitted(+1)

Tower Defense on the planets? I love the idea. I... couldn't ever tell how much money I had, only if something was capable of being bought. On the web version, being full screen would've probably made this easier on me, that's for sure. Still, great idea. It's hard, but a little tweaking and it could be a fun full game.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! There's an xp count it the top right but yeah the game is a little too big for ppl's screens I've learned :(

Submitted(+1)

Such a fun idea and gameplay! Really impressed you also added an actual tutorial. Would love to see more planets and and maybe cosmic events to buff/debuff your "party". Great job!

Developer

Thanks for playing! Yeah I wanted to add all the planets but I started to run out of time

Viewing comments 29 to 10 of 29 · Next page · Last page