[SA Game Jam 2017] UFO: Consider yourself probed

The mothership has run out of fuel :(
COLLECT resources at that small, blue planet nearby to resume your journey home.

image

A Free Lives Game Jam entry
Level of experience: Hobbyist
Time: 72hr

Get ready to be probed...
Download playable demo

Controls: W,A,S,D to fly, left mouse (shoot), right mouse (tractor beam)

Comments

  • Well I'm slightly glad I'm not jamming at a venue... time for bed. Nighty day! Zzzz
  • Phew, 1st playable demo finally done. You can collect resources now :) Feedback very welcome.
  • Hi @Conman,

    Just played a bit of your demo and really enjoyed that take on 'Collecting'.

    I like how you've also made use of different kinds of gravity - makes it incredibly challenging.

    Here are a few things that I thought of:
    - Are collisions with the meteors going to cause you to lose your abductee? Could make it interesting.
    - There is a lot of space to explore. Perhaps you could go to the MOTHER SHIP and get +5 points for that, or play it safe and go to the closer one there for the +1 point.

    Well hope you get some good rest tonight and finish off well tomorrow!

    CrissOle
    Thanked by 1konman
  • @CrissOle Those meteors are just for effect, but your idea is great as it adds a mechanic I haven't thought of. If there's time I'll see what I can do. Yeah man, I crunched on Fri so Sat was less productive. A balanced approach (sleep, exercise etc) to any Jam is definitely the way to go. Thanks for the feedback :)
    Thanked by 1CrissOle
  • edited
    Playable demo updated to v0.02.

    Added tanks and jets (they patrol along a simple spline route).

    UFO can now shoot (left mouse). The bullet explodes where you aimed (does no damage yet). I'm going to try for a "Missile Command" effect where you have to intercept incoming homing missiles from tanks and jets with your shots. Will see how that goes :)

    Also added fuel gauge and mission text for mothership. Zones are now countries (have flag and name).

    Oh and these aliens have no respect... they collect tanks and jets as resources too.
    Thanked by 1CrissOle
  • I think I have the homing bullet code down...

    using UnityEngine;
    public class Missile : MonoBehaviour
    {
    
        float speed = 0.3f;
        float rotateSpeed = 250f;
        GameObject player;
    
        // Use this for initialization
        void Start ()
        {
            player = GameObject.Find("Player");
        }
    	
    	// Update is called once per frame
    	void Update () {
            transform.Translate(Vector2.up * speed * Time.deltaTime); //move bullet
            var direction = player.transform.position - transform.position; //toward player
    
            //smooth rotation over time
            float step = rotateSpeed * Time.deltaTime;
            var targetRotation = (direction != Vector3.zero) ? Quaternion.LookRotation(direction, Vector3.back) : Quaternion.identity;
            targetRotation.x = 0.0f;
            targetRotation.y = 0.0f;
            transform.rotation = Quaternion.RotateTowards(transform.rotation, targetRotation, step);
        }
    }


    Starting to feel like a punch drunk boxer. Might be the last stuff I'm adding today. Will resume tomorrow. Might not get to add sound. Or maybe just a SFX for the tractor beam.
  • that mothership pilot should have gone with BP's new super unleaded fissionable materiels. probably spent the extra cash on space booze. mothership pilots these days.....

    Im just liking the breaking down on the journey back story, especially in the scifi enviroment you placed it in. cool stuff.
    Thanked by 1konman
  • Playable demo updated to v0.03.

    Added homing missiles, win condition, music (humble game making bundle) and some sound fx (www.sonnis.com).

    Now for some testing... Unit, Integration, Functional, System, Stress, Performance, Usability and Acceptance Testing.
    Not sure there will be time for the last one.
  • Final version completed: v0.04. See original post for download details.

    Thanks to Free Lives and MGSA for organising and hosting this Game JAM.
    It was fun! Good luck to all the contestants.
  • edited
    Just played your game, nice idea that fits theme well!

    Felt a bit confused at start. Thought the first screen was just a loading screen because of the collection bar.

    Really liked how the screens changed between environments (space, sky, surface). Changing between countries was also cool. Would be sick if each screen was representative of country. But that would obviously have take a lot of time and effort haha. Also took a while to figure out that the people were the resources! Might help to have some instructions/tutorial explaining this.

    Gameplay quite challenging. Think a cap on speed would help. If I press a certain direction for too long it takes quite a while to recover from it.

    Cool game! Getting probed wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!


    Thanked by 1konman
  • edited
    @SleepingSafari Thanks so much. I laughed at the idea of the player sitting there watching the start of the game while thinking it is a loading screen. Hahaha! I think your observations are spot on with the speed cap thing too.

    As a kid I always feared being abducted and probed by aliens, hence the title. The whole ufo theme obviously came from the Free Lives theme reveal movie, so not very imaginative on my part :) It was fun to make it though.
    Thanked by 1SleepingSafari
  • edited
    I had a weird bugging out the second time I played this (the human I had picked up went spinning like crazy).

    But it's a wonderfully ridiculous game!

    I'd love it more if it were easier to control, but I found it full of entertaining touches, like all the tanks and missiles and things. There's something wonderfully punk about it. It reminds me in a way of some of Messhof's work. (Messhof does some respectable games, you can find here: http://messhof.com/games/ but Messhof also makes batshit crazy games like Randy Balma Municiple Abortionist https://messhof.itch.io/ )

    Please work on this a bit more!
  • So after quite some time I thought it would be fun to re-visit UFO and experience some more probing... :D

    This time it is re-imagined using a circular world. Abduct the planet defenses/inhabitants to fuel the new death ray and crack the planet wide open so that its core can be extracted before meltdown! Once the death ray has decimated the planet inhabitants, steal its core!

    Inspired by older arcade games like: Meteors/Asteroids, Missile Command and Gravitar/Thrust combined.

    It needs a lot of work and I am not too sure how progression would go from here on in, apart from having more planets to conquer... thought this would be fun to share in the current state. Beware, programmer art heavy...

    Thanked by 3Moga iceblademush petrc
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