[LD38] Solar Smash

From the team that brought you Cup Snake (GGJ2017), we present our first finished Ludam Dare game (albeit a little buggy)! It was a lot of firsts for our fledgling team from first 3D game to first time using Blender. We learned a lot and can't wait for the next one :D

Entry description:
Group Effort presents SOLAR SMASH!

We did it! SOLAR SMASH is our first attempt at making a 3D game. It's been a challenging three days, but so very worth it.

At 6am on Saturday morning, we met at Group Effort studios (@AdoneKitching and @BsMcInnes lounge) to discuss the weekend ahead. We agreed that we wanted to challenge ourselves technically, but also take on a manageable enough task so that we could spend some time on juice and polish. With that in mind, we scrapped the 2D roguelike we had been toying with and decided to go with @william-za's (he doesnt have a twitter...yet) idea for a game where you destroy planets by flinging asteroids at them.

The idea fit the theme so well. We imagined idle gods who had grown tired of balance in the universe, and who decided to sow a little destruction instead - just for fun.

We hope you enjoy playing SOLAR SMASH as much as we enjoyed making it!

CONTROLS:
aim - mouse cursor
charge up your asteroid - left click and hold
fire your asteroid - release mouse button!

Itch.io Link
Ludam Dare Link

We worked really hard and are proud of what we accomplished. Feedback is always helpful so let us know what you think! :)

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Comments

  • Played this finally!

    I felt like the gravity simulation was satisfying, watching planets lose their orbit and destroy each was a lot like playing a game of Peggle (from my removed position of a bored god trying out a little destruction).

    I think if you were going to improve this, looking at how Peggle makes just watching a ball bounce around entertaining, would be a good start. Peggle employs a lot of little tricks that together add up to something quite brilliant.

    I think also spreading to other solar systems, and not being constrained to 8 or so planets would be a big help as well. Perhaps making the way planets break up a bit less random, and hitting the initial planet a bit more predictably, so it feels like the player can plan shots (even if in reality there is still a lot of randomness) would help. Peggle is a very random game in actuality, but at least the start of every shot feels planned so the resulting randomness feels reasonably connected to the players' actions.

    Well done on getting a game into Ludum Dare!
  • Thanks for the feedback Evan! We really appreciate it!

    It's funny that you mention Peggle because after we decided on our idea the first thing I did was go online and watch Peggle videos to try and take note of what they did. Unfortunately, due to our inexperience with jams (and the time management involved), we didn't really get time to try and dig deep into that kind of gameplay. As you say they have created a brilliant experience for the player. A lot can be learned from it.
    We did a focused feedback session at a community night and everyone's feedback aligns with what you have said which is really exciting because it gives us a solid direction to pursue. The sentence that I made at the top of my feedback notes say "MOAR PEGGLE JUICE" :D

    We will definitely take your advice into consideration as we are looking to work the game into a releasable game. Hopefully the next iteration will be ready soon!

    PS. We managed to port the LD version of the game to Android with literally no changes to the code. It works on my Xiaomi Redmi without any lag despite the horrifically inefficient code, which is really exciting as we think it could be a good fit for a mobile game! Hurrah for Unity!
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