I am not sure if the primary gameplay loop (i.e. maintaining the ship) is all that fun. Even in the short demo, it got tedious pretty quickly. Not helping is how there is not much else to do on the ship.
The writing is clever and funny; makes me wish there was more of it. The graphics, sound, and special effects are charming and snappy. (Every time the ship jumps, I smile. Makes me think of Battlestar Galactica.) I like the local and star maps--the system makes sense. Manual navigation is somewhat fun, but bland--it's not quite there yet.
The primary gameplay loop is fairly enjoyable. It has a Han Solo vibe. The player movement is slower than I'd desire. Components get filthy a lot faster than I'd expect, and maintaining them can be a chore. Exploring uninhabited planets seems interesting at first, but in practice, not much happens--I think there's a lot of potential there.
I encountered a few bugs. Once, I had a strange glitch that is difficult to describe, but it looked as though the player was translated horizontally by about a screen, and the camera was no longer centered on the player. Crates left on the loading dock are not being cleaned up when a mission fails. Using the mouse for the menus doesn't quite work right, so I always chose to use the keyboard. Finally, my save was eventually corrupted, like everyone else's, and I was unable to continue.
Just had the following error message, during the tutorial on delivering the first cargo to Khouzoup IV:
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object con_tutorial:
global variable name 'nextobjectiveplanet' index (103274) not set before reading it. at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)
I loved it.
Finally managed to play it and it was great, big fan of mr Croshaw and I love where this is going.
Loved the gameplay loops, I think initially the things gets broken too often, maybe is for the tutorial sake but the alignment thingy thingy of the generator was a bit annoying.
Small suggestions/Bug Reports:
When the camera focuses on another room as the target for the next task the room appears black, I would probably show an icon on that room. not only the dark room.
If you get in bed with one of the tool, like the plunger thing, you scrub the bed like you are cleaning it just before falling asleep
I would make the reaction clouds/animation last a split second less.
When you need to force open a door it would be nice if the tip icon would make you understand that you have to mash the SPACE rather than just keep it pressed, the same when you login you might want to communicate that you have to keep the button pressed to enter password.
The pickup interaction is too sensitive, sometime if you click too fast while close to a thing you pick it up and drop it again real fast.
I dont know if it is an issue of my pc, but the font on full screen is a bit unreadible, especially the second option on the dialogue pick. It gets foggy kind of
I encountered a bug where on the manual drive minigame the objects only appear at the end of the quadrant and only go up rather than coming towards the mini-ship.
When the alerts are appearing beneath the life bar, they are not really clear about what they are. Same when the ship has a problem, would be nice if in the diagnostic module you would have an icon on the submenu where the problem is, rather than having to go through the whole of the submenus to see what was wrong.
That said, I want to say again it is definitely a great game and would buy it for sure.
Thanks for sharing this and I hope that those comments help
Really good start for a demo/alpha version, feels like a pretty well developed idea right out of the gate.
Positives:
1. Simplicity: The ability to quickly switch between items and actions is helpful and a great time saver, makes jobs much less of a hassle than they could be. It's very easy to get into a groove/schedule which is increadibly important for these type of games.
2. Game definitely feels like it has its own unique sense of style, lots of retro-futurism going on here which is a style/theme that I feel has been pretty neglected in the past decade or so in favor of the "iFuture" style.
3. Likewise, everything on the ship looks distinct, easy to see, and understand what something is or does. Like the engine looking like a battery, coolant system looking like a water tank, etc... Great visual shorthand.
Glitches/Bugs:
I only experienced 1 major bug which is why this bit is going before the critiques, because I don't have much to report otherwise. Ok, so if I'm in the middle of a maintenance job or looking at a console (Like the main console), and I get a notification from the computer, then there's ~ a 50/50 chance that the game's commands will lock up (IE, I can't move the MC, pick things up, switch items, etc...). I know this is an in-game problem and not my PC because I can open up a different app or open a browser and everything works fine there.
Critiques:
Most of these aren't too bad, actually. Mainly just quality of life improvements and personal preferences with these types of games.
1. The pacing can in the start can be a bit wonky. You have a reasonably paced intro, followed by a period of slow grinding, followed by a period of better pacing that gets quickly disrupted by things like engine failures or low stamina, which while the former is a quick fix the later can take multiple cycles to complete and puts a hard break on the pacing. (Items used to boost stamina could be a big help)
2. The "City Planet" areas are kinda difficult to navigate, due to buildings looking same-y and said buildings overlaying walkway entrances to get to other sections. Makes getting through theses areas a bit of a pain. This is why I said everything on the ship looks good, because outside of it things can get kinda difficult to deal with.
3. A shorthand alert for what needs to be done would be very helpful. On a few occasions something broke in the ship and I spent a couple minutes wandering around trying to find the issue because it wasn't immediately apparent what the issue was. Like the engine blowing out, because due to the red and black background a problem like that tends to blend in with the scenery.
4. The carrying/use command should be the default position, with the 3 tools being equipable as they are now. Bit of a nitpick, I know, but if I'm carrying a tool and I need to do something like get outside the ship to fix a problem, I don't want to have to switch out of the tool, get out, and then re-equip the tool I already had equipped.
As a side note: Have you ever played Rune Factory 4 or the Story of Seasons (AKA, the real Harvest Moon) Friends of Mineral Town Remake by any chance? They're made by the same man who made the OG Harvest Moon games and both are on the Switch (RF4's Special Edition is, RF4 is on the 3DS). RF4 is a story focused action RPG and farming simulator that kinda became the standard farming sim for the 2010's due to how much playability it has, with the FoMT remake taking a lot of those systems and refining them even more. Basically, if you're stuck with anything or don't know how to fix a gameplay issue chances are these games have already figured out that solution, so they're very much worth looking into if you have the time. (How to integrate a story with a daily life sim for example)
Great game. Strangely enticing! Now for the bugs list:
1) Profile selection menu is still active when "confirmation" message pops up.
2) Character name does not allow pressing Shift. Capitals can still be entered with Caps Lock, but COME ON!
3) Typing in a different program still triggers in-game shortcuts. This is horrible when trying to play this game in the office and swapping back to answer corporate emails.
4) When in Boako Prime jobs place, main menu and sell menu keep alternating when ESC is pressed. This goes away after you sell everything. If this was PEBCAK then ignore.
5) You can sell trash at Boako Prime (for $0) and then be unable to finish the dumping errand.
Took a "find my bag" quest. After I found the bag and put it on the ship I went back to the planet and found another identical bag. Didn't have room to take it up to the ship but when I went back down it was somewhere else on the planet and now I have 2 in my cargo hold. So basically fetch quest items keep reappearing until - I presume - you deliver the goods.
Really enjoying the core experience so far! Dialogue is snappy and funny and it's pretty easy to settle into something of a routine with deliveries and missions.
Glitch report: (No save glitch that others seem to have had :D )
1. Invisible cargo when docking with another ship, that's also partially permeable, so I got stuck
2. When text boxes e.g. messages from Dripberg come up sometimes the character gets locked into movement and keeps walking while the message is up
Misc. Notes
Like a few others have said (maybe at this point a consequence of the barebones build) but the re-rolling surfaces results in the loss of totally survey devices. I also found when I was a second menu deep in the ship controls, ESC wouldn't return to the previous menu .
i honestly quite enjoyed tho i have encoutered three glitches
1. the save game crash but everyone and their mother is talking about here so i'm gonna move on
2.if i keep roling one of the scoops clockwise i can gain infinite amount of speed
3. once game didn't spawn cargo for the job i assume it was because i put expired cargo from a diffrent there
ok time for some gameplay feedback
1. the totally a survey drone is pretty annoying for one picking up drone cost stamina, and seeing how you have to do try and error with it doing it while under (even if noexistant) threat running out of oxygen it is not worth the reward i fell that drone still "beeping" while getting carried would elevate some tedium or remowing stamina cost of picking it up
2.while we are on topic of O2 on the desolate planets i feel it runs out way to quick and (not sure if bugged) recharges very slowly and it is a big problem because...
3. every time i go back to ship and back, the planet surface rerolls, and i know it's a pure gameplay loop test and randome generation is a stand in for carefully designed areas, but i was pretty annoyed when i lost my totally a survey drone just because i was scarred of a nonexistant threat, although i probally should act as if there a fail state even if there's none at the moment
4. while i didn't play for long i feel that delivering samey crates can get old quickly maybe have contracts where you have to deliver fragile cargo where if you hit an asteroid cargo gets destroyed, how about animals that you have to feed with food that so far don't have use aside from side quests. maybe some animals have favorites and dislikes or even specific diet that can die if fed or not, or some black market stuff that pay way more but are risky due to cargo being illegal there and you have to dogde patrols, like in tutorial you have to turn off the ship to avoid detection
5. game lacks a penalty for losing a contract, it's kinda akward when contract expires you are stuck with cargo and have to dump it on a planet you don't get response from freight company theres the possibility of money penalty but how about there are diffrent freight companies and if you fail you lose trust but if you're quick enough you gain it and attach some reward to it
6. also add a way to rebind controls on a gamepad
that's most of my major thoughts on game so far i might try doing a third savefile and avoid left warp drive like a plauge or wait for a patch so that hopefuly fixes my save because i quite liked second playthrough honestly can't wait for more your dev diary series is so fascinating i wander what full game will look like
Loved my initial play session with this, but the save bug took the wind out of my sails. I wasnt that keen to give the game another go for a few more days, and single session it. However, I do have some feedback.
The fact that vast majoritay of feedback is Technical and Quality of Life stuff is a good sign, that the underlying gameplay is pretty cool and enjoyable.
I didnt reach the "end game" as it were. I was post -revival, pre-warp drive, so some of my feedback may have been addressed later in the game
Technical Issues:
Any thing under this heading feels like something that is broken.
I have encountered the same save bug others here have, so won't repeat it here.
If I have the ship menu open, when approaching the first planet in the tutorial level, the game will not fully close the menu, and control will not return to me. Basically, a lock and I cannot return to the game. Had to restart.
Issues with the Mouse cursor and fullscreen mode. Mouse cursor is offset from its actual position, and I was often pointing to the far right bottom corner, in order to interac with the menu. This was not a problem im window mode, so played the game there.
Issue with the mouse and menus when stacked on top of each other. It was possible to interact with both the top menu, and the menu underneathat the same time. The best place to see it when selecting a save, and the confirmation menu appears. Both menus can be interacted with simultaneously, and it is confusing.
Issue with the mouse overriding keyboard commands. If the mouse was on a menu, and I was trying to drive commands via the keyboard, the KB command appears to execute and then the mouse. This gave me the impression my inputs were not being received. Was particularly noticable on the Starmap menu, with all its little boxes. When I rememebred to move the mouse far off to the side, I was fine. When I went to do something as I played, and used the mouse, it could recreate the issue for me. Maybe a test that mouse position command is only accepted if the mouse moves between frames / steps?
Visual issue with platform control console sometimes hiding behind planet elements. I could still use the platform, it is just more of a wierd visual thing.
Game Feedback
Actual feedback on the gameplay itself (not much here).
The portion of the game where I am tasked with getting the 6000 and the ship upgrade felt a little grindy, though I am also thinking that may have been the point (its a job, and it can get a bit like that). I actually had the ship upgrade part before Dripbert told me about it, so I pre-emptively skipped a stepping stone that would have occured before this point, and I had a stretch where all I had to do was work to earn the credits in an undirected fashion. It didnt help that while hunting for work to do, the Job Board seemed to not have jobs that were useful to me. A lot of them were "Collect a thing, retun it to X person" but some part of the job required access out of system. I got frustrated, and ended up just collecting warp fuel from one planet, and shipping it across to another. It would have worked (baring the save crash), but it felt a bit like I had fallen away from what was intended.
Dripberg dialog regarding his "Clue" for the upgrade units. If I already have it, is the clue necessary? Could the dialog of the clue be modified, to acknowledge that you have it already? Still have him call in, do his spiel (which does give information in story as to what it is), but also give some context dialog like "Ohhh, you already have it? Great!". I always like it in games when you get the jump on things, and the dialog acknowledges it. (though in saying that, how would Dripberg have access to this information that you already obtained the item?)
Text in the Communications (not the character dialog) when it approaches the end of line. The last word in the line that will exceed the line lenght will start to print on the current line, then jump the last word of the line to the start of a new line. It fine, its not broken, but it made reading these as they came in a bit jarring / jumpy.
On a planet, I sometimes got a little lost from the platform. The worlds are not that large, and without the pressure of a death state from lack of oxygen, the stress of getting back quick isnt there, so I can take time to find the platform . However, knowing the general direction to the platform would help when you add the O2 limits and other such aspect in.
And for my stupidest feedback - Dumping toxic waste on a uninhabited planet feels like it should have a reaction of some kind. I know there is no life there, and its a "victimless crime", but it also feels like something a Captain Planet villain would do. Not sure if I am asking for consequences (a cargo being hazardous and affecting the player), but maybe acknowledgement of it being a less-than-great thing? This might be something you will come back to on the story side.
General, Misc and Stickler Feedback
These things dont feel broken, but just need some polish. "Quality of Life" feedback.
Backing out of the menus feels inconsistent. In the PDA menu that accompanies the player at all times, the Escape key can be used to step back up one level in the menu. In the ship menu, particularly the diagnostics for the ship, I had to select a distinct "back" button.
When does the game save its progress? If its communitcated to the player, I dont know and may of missed it. It feels like it saves each time you return to your ship, or tied to the end game event, but that is just at a guess based on my one good save and reload (before the bug). Not advocating for a particular solution (a big intusive "GAME SAVED" propmt, the ability to save anywhere, in-story acknowledgement of a save mechanic) rather just a little clarity here would have made me comfortable in my first playthrough before I went to bed.
A way to skip the opening text crawl (if only for dev builds like this, where story is not a big factor). We had the option to speed up most other dialog (and was appreciated)
Starting at the title screen, and going to settings menu, using only KB input (no mouse). The settings menu is a stripped down version of the PDA with only one node (settings). I still needed to select the Settings node, before getting access to selecting the options within. It feels like in this case, the node should be pre-selected, saving a button press. My narration is shit-house.
Key displays that show a "mini-version" for the Ship (the navigation minigame, the starmap) have a ship sillouette that always has the ships nacelles in. Visually, this is great (as it gives the ship a rough triangular V shape to it, so direction of motion is clear) but when I was tramping around without the warp drive, I saw it and then couldnt un-see it. Other places (particularly the ship diagnostic views) d adjust based on whether the ship has nacelles or not. It just feels inconsistant.
The ability to remove missions from list (particularly missions aquired from the Jobs board ). I accepted a few I didnt mean to (for items I did not know, or planets I could not get-to pre-warp), and they hung around in my list. This was towards the end of my playthrough, so the feature may already be there and I missed it. Apologies if this is not an issue.
so, I crashed my game by trying to dock on another ship with cargo on my platform. the cargo was invisible, but blocked my path. Once I picked some of it up the game froze.
Pretty sure this one has been reported already, but issue trying to reload my save file from yesterday here:
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object con_tutorial:
Variable con_tutorial.drip(103161, -2147483648) not set before reading it. at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)
But I totally understand. My last error message in my own game was equally infuriating.
First of all, I want to say that the experience seems very good. The interface works, the controls are easy, and the graphics are surprisingly clear despite the deliberate pixilation. However, after arriving at Gumord V and delivering my cargo, I encountered this bug, which crashed the game:
So, yeah. That happened. I’ll try again tomorrow to replicate it.
Other notes:
It feels like reactor breakdowns are happening too often and/or repairing them consumes too much stamina. On my first flight from Gumord III to V, I lost power three times, including once while I slept to recover stamina. Either a loss of power should be easy to fix, or it should be rare. Perhaps you could shift the “prone to failure” aspect over to the engines?
Having to manually force open doors every time the ship loses power is very annoying, especially since there are two doors between the cockpit and engine room.
It’s awkward to shift constantly between having a tool out and having my hands free to use something. I think you should either enable using things like consoles regardless of what’s in my hand, or map that to a separate key.
The dialogue so far is bloody fantastic. The AI in the tutorial in particular was hilarious.
Also, I had an idea you might be able to use somewhere in the story. Dripberg jokingly referred to the PC as the President of the (now defunct) Galactic Federation. But, legally speaking, the PC IS the last citizen of the Federation, and could claim to be its president (assuming the Federation was a democracy). Perhaps you can declare your ship to be under Federation jurisdiction and “grant asylum” to a potential crewmember who is on the run from the law, or something like that. It obviously shouldn’t be a major story point, but you do have a lawyer character already established to explain that sort of thing.
Tried to store extra fuel rock near the fuel tank and I guess I got between the pixels of "in" and "in front of" the tank and the game crashed. Whenever I try to load that file now I get this message:
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object pkp_waste:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0] at gml_Object_pkp_waste_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_pkp_waste_Draw_0 (line -1)
Here's my stream of the first 2 hours. Got kinda stuck on the sidequests. No idea where to find a Pea Pod and couldn't get the second survey device to work.
Windows keyed out and killed it in task manager when the game locked progress behind picking one of nine asinine character portraits. A deep failure as a role-playing exercise, utterly unsympathetic from a neutral assessment, and entirely unnecessary to the gameplay. Everything was acceptable to that point. Cut that out as unneeded and unsalvageable.
bug report: game froze when I went back to the computer after activating the first impulse trip, also the blue overcoat with the white shirt makes it look like you have earings
Really good work! And hilarious!! I cackled several times. Here is my feedback from just playing the tutorial. I tried to play further, but either it bugged out or I'm dumb, but I couldn't find the ship or how to get to it after you talk to Dripberg. I tried to save and reload, but got the save bug others mentioned.
*The mouse controls are buggy. I started in windowed mode, and the mouse worked fine. But once I put it to full screen, where the cursor was and where the selection was were not synced. Also, sometimes if the mouse was on screen, you couldn't also use the keyboard controls to navigate menus.
*Nitpick: the Tutorial should have you fix the outer hull break before the solar panel to keep up a sense of urgency.
*The air cycler noise is annoying. Too fast and loud. Even just in the tutorial I tried to avoid standing near one.
*Bug: warp ring didn't visually appear fully aligned when it said it was.
*The warp ring noise should be more science-y/mechanistic
*Controls: I wish you could switch between tools with mousewheel as well as keyboard, as that feels more natural than q and e. I did use q and e, but I feel like in case of emergency, mouse wheel would be faster.
*Rock explosion noise is too harsh, should be more...rewarding/less explosive
*LOVE the personality selector, that is a really really good idea and wish you luck with implementing it, that seems like a lot of work
*In general, the little bit of dialogue is really funny. Dripberg's commission gave me a good cackle.
I really like seeing you develop this and explain the theory behind it, and would certainly pay for a beta version.
In the tutorial when using the welder to repair the generator inside the ship it's not immediately obvious where you need to use it. Maybe you could add some more sparks or something to make it more obvious.
A couple of bugs to report:
Fullscreen mode breaks my mouse control. To get it to select the correct place I have to point at the bottom right of the screen.
Mouse control when confirming a new save slot just seems to select a different slot from behind the confirm menu not confirm the action.
In the selling menu (at the trading post) when selling multiple items going down to the back button at the bottom then going back up to the top causes the top items name to disappear (although when selected the item still sells successfully)
Putting an item down above the left hand side of the cockpit door caused the game to crash with the error:
############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object con_onboard:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0] at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
It would be great if you could implement a backup save file (from maybe the previous room or 1 minute before to avoid losing progress in case there is a crash (or a manual save system).
I also agree with one of the below comments about not being clear how many cycles it will take to get somewhere or how many have passed whilst travelling unless sleeping.
During my first playthrough, the game crashed the first time I tried to warp (screenshot with error message below). The gauge on the left of the HUD was in the red zone, so I assume the game just doesn't have a response to trying to warp with a broken engine at that point in the game. The only other thing I did was manually realign the ram scoop at some point as I was messing around with the controls, so that might have something to do with it.
After resetting and playing for about an hour, I ran into another crash which occurred when I tried to place an item to the north of the power generator in my ship. My only theory is that I somehow managed to place the item inside of the generator, causing the game to crash since that isn't a valid location. Upon trying to load my save, I'm greeted with this crash:
I started a new save, played for a little while, then manually quit to desktop. Coming back later, I received the below crash when trying to load that save. So far, I have not been able to actually load a save outside of the very start of the game:
I also ran into a bug with control rebinding. I rebound the pause button from Esc to Shift so that I could pause the game without moving my hand from the default position. However, this prevents me from capitalizing letters in text fields, as pressing shift immediately exits the text entry.
I also ran into issues with the key rebinding menu. The function a key is bound to would be performed as I am trying to rebind a key, preventing the menu from functioning properly. For instance, let's say I want to rebind move left to the L key. When I press Space to select move left, instead of waiting for my next input, move left is immediately bound to Space. In other words, using the interact key to select the function I want to rebind immediately binds that function to the interact key I just pressed. This means that the only way for me to use the key rebinding menu is with the mouse. Also, when rebinding the pause function, as soon as I press the new key I want to rebind to, the menu is immediately closed since I just pressed the key which is now bound to pause. Similarly, when rebinding the move left key, the menu selection immediately moves to the left since I just pressed the left button when I rebound the key.
I'm sure others have mentioned this already, but mouse controls are utterly broken on the select save file menu. After selecting a file, the mouse cursor is still able to change files by mousing over them. Also, clicking on the confirm/go back buttons do nothing; you have to use the keyboard to select (although you can still highlight them with the mouse). There also doesn't seem to be a delete save file function.
Also, I found a strange behavior with menu mouse control when entering text. If you have one text field selected and use the mouse to select another text field, the text will be transferred from the first text field to the second. Maybe that's the intended behavior, but it was super unintuitive; I expected selecting the next text field to simply confirm my selection and move onto the next one. You also can't deselect the text field by clicking outside of it with the mouse. Unless I'm missing something, it seems like the only way to deselect a text field is using the keyboard.
This next one isn't a bug, but still an issue. The first time I went to an uninhabited planet, I didn't realize that the layout was randomized every time you go back to your ship. As I was using my oniris device, I ran low on stamina, so I decided to leave it on the surface and go back on my ship to sleep and recover my stamina. It was a bit of a nasty surprise finding that my device had disappeared when I went back down, especially since items are persistent on inhabited planets.
I also wound up missing the deadline for the first cargo shipment of mundanium. I didn't realized what had happened at the time, as the dialog didn't acknowledge that the shipment was late, but the boxes weren't being taken. Having a popup to notify the player of a missed shipment would have helped. You may also want to not have a time limit for the first delivery so that players have some leeway to figure out the systems.
On a related note, I wasn't sure if cycles were passing in real time, or if it only happened when I went to sleep since that's the only time there's obvious feedback for cycles passing. I'm sure I could figure it out by staring at the delivery timer for long enough, but it wasn't clear to me as I was playing for the first time. (Overall, the delivery timer UI a bit hard to gauge, since it doesn't seem to tell you the exact number of cycles remaining).
Finally, as I was writing this comment, I noticed that the game still takes input even when the window isn't focused. Even with the game minimized and my computer focused on my internet browser, I somehow managed to open up a new save file and begin the tutorial as I typed.
Anyway, I really enjoyed what I got to play of the game, especially when I got the warp drive and unlocked the multi-start-system deliveries. I especially enjoyed the item lifting/placing mechanic; moving things around in that sort of embodied way is really satisfying. I hope this issue report helps you create a more polished experience!
Had 2 files so far get the "###### ERROR in action number 1...." corruption, but I have a feel for the gameplay loop and I like it.
1. Game exploit: You can crank your ram scoop to the right for as much speed as you want. The upgrade is semi permanent, only seeming to go away once in a new star system, or when I reboot, but either way its easy to get my near insta-travel back.
2. I feel the bed should really heal stamina more. As it stands It can take 7-8 cycles to refill it from empty, and it seems excessive to have to spend a whole solid week in bed to recover from moving a few boxes and punching a few buttons. you usually cant afford to sleep for longer than 4-5 cycles without having to do maintainence anyway. Maybe the bed heals a percentage of your bar, like 20%-33%, so you only need to spend 3-5 days in bed.
3. A better idea of how time is passing would be helpful. The bar for delivery jobs works, but it's hard to know how long a trip will take or whats going on since you are only really told about cycles passing when you sleep.
If I just keep turning scoop 2 to the right then my max speed just... keeps going up. Also fullscreen mode breaks the main menu. This is on a shitty old laptop though, hell the planet's surfaces lag lol.
I’m not sure how I did it, but when aligning the scoop, I turned it too far and realised it kept going up. So I spent a minute just rotating the scoop around and around and got my max speed up to 200 before letting it go. My coolant went instantly foul, of course.
I found the tutorial sequence and the constant repair+low stamina bar a bit tedious, but once I was delivering packages, buying things and all that, I really enjoyed it.
Then a gltich crashed my game as I was putting toxic waste in a part of my ship for an upcoming delivery. Now my last save is ruined, and an error message shows up everytime I pick it, and I dont feel like doing the tutorial again.
This is the error that pops up
___________________________________________
############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object pkp_waste:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0] at gml_Object_pkp_waste_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_pkp_waste_Draw_0 (line -1)
So yeah, if theres any way to fix this or at least a "skip tutorial" function, it would be great
Love the game so far, the story is campy and fun, computer is the best character ever. So far the one gripe I have is the opening sounds were very loud and there were a lot of them. While there needs to be a sense of urgency, it was a lot of sensory overload.
I enjoyed the start I havent had much time to fully try the hole alpha, I liked what I have played so far the sounds really add to the games feel in a satisfying way and the pixel art looks great. But i did have some negitives.
I was in the cockpit, when i was about to arrive and the first planet and the game crashed, not sure why. Another small issuse was that in full screen mode I found that the dialoge box was hurting my eyes, I think it was the text with two colours, I think this as no other text in the game was an issue.
This is a really fun Alpha build! I do think the tutorial can be restructured a little, it was a little overwhelming to begin with. I also wonder if it might be nice to have the Hand tool assigned to a default button, so that I don't need to switch away from a tool to, say, climb outside the ship.
Sound effects are great, and the ship packing mechanic - finding space for 8 crates in a tight space - is intuitive and interesting. I think it's a great central mechanic to structure the game around. The loop of pack, transport, deliver, pack is really solid.
Encountered an unfortunate game breaking bug. After my second delivery mission, when I was told I was a Preferred Delivery Choice, I was moving when the PDA popped up. My character kept moving during this scene, and when the PDA went away I was stuck in a corner and unable to move.
-On the second delivery mission, with the small transport platform, I put a crate down outside of the loading zone, to the right of where the platform lands. I went up to the ship, and when I came back the crate was gone, effectively failing that mission.
-Fullscreen seems to break the mouse when using it in menus.
-(See attached image) Game froze when I lifted a box through ship geometry when trying to place it down.
Got a game crash when I want to play my first save from yesterday.
Code Error:
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object con_onboard:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0] at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
I got a bug where I put down a crate outside of the loading zone and went up with the platform. When I came down again, the crate was gone. Also, the story still says "Recover an upgrade unit from a crashed ship and go to a ship yard to install warp drive" (or something like that) even when I've done it.
Btw, when i try to load my save file I got this error: (I managed to load a save earlier, but now I can't)
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object con_onboard:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0] at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
So I've only been playing for about an hour now. I'm enjoying it, but there doesn't seem to be much variety in the early shipments. At one point I took 6 cabbage crates from Yub IV to Yub Prime. once I turned them in, the next mission was 6 cabbage crates from Yub Prime back to Yub IV. Maybe there needs to be something to prevent the random cargo from being the same as your last drop. I also thought that perhaps there might need to be more types of cargo. Perhaps certain deliveries need to be split between 2 planets. Perhaps there could be live cargo that would deplete your oxygen faster than it normally would, or perhaps they would need food to be carried and fed to them on the journey. The game is still great in its early state, I plan to play more tomorrow.
Unless you plan on introducing direct threats, i.e. enemies, I'm not sure why you have health AND stamina if your stamina just drains into health anyway. Unless you plan on tweaking how each individual bar recovers (like stamina regenerates, but health needs a doctor), they're functionally the same bar split into two different colours. Especially since a lot of the health hazards I can imagine there being in SV would logically make you tired too. Poisonous atmosphere, electrical shocks, suffocating, working hard. All of those personally make me want a nap.
Some notes on my playthrough. I played up until I completed the first delivery that dripberg gives you.
During the tutorial I encountered a pretty nasty softlock https://i.imgur.com/xxKe6oA REPRO STEPS: start game, play tutorial until you get the message from the robot federation. After that message *make sure you keep the cockpit menu open* and continue flying to the planet. Upon arriving to the planet you should get the softlock.
When the game's window loses focus it should ignore keyboard input. When writing these notes I found that jacques would wander around the screen whenever I happened to type a 'w' 'a' 's' or 'd'. Gamemaker seems to have let you check focus with this https://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospice/002_reference/windows%20and%20views...
The mouse controls don't work properly on this menu https://i.imgur.com/BQ9BBiS you can't click confirm or go back
During the tutorial I initially didn't realize that my coolant was low, so my engine just kept exploding every time I repaired it. I reset and made it past that part, and eventually realized that low coolant causes the engine to overheat. This might be made more obvious, like if you try to fix then engine while low on coolant there's a flashing red "COOLANT LOW" badge on the UI.
The menus seem to always put you on the first option when you press b to back out, instead they should remember whatever option you were previously on.
By rotating my scoops clockwise over and over again I was able to get my speed way past where it's supposed to be https://i.imgur.com/RUbrOPY This let me get to my destinations almost instantly
The clouds on planets look a little odd. They move along with the player instead of remaining more or less stationary (ignoring wind) with respect to the world. Also they seem to additive blend with the background which makes them appear to glow a little. I haven't used GMS but it appears they use bm_add (bm_src_alpha, bm_one) instead of bm_normal (bm_src_alpha, bm_inv_src_alpha)
The panning on some of the audio is a little aggressive (e.g. the second ship leak you patch in the tutorial), I think it'd sound more natural if the audio never panned left or right more than like 70% or so.
On a more positive note the writing really is quite excellent, all the characters are fun and distinct, and much of the dialog is quite funny. I really like the alignment chart thing, which makes me wonder how much unique dialog you'll have to write. Also getting to pick your ship is really cool. The plot starts to move along once you introduce general crumbbum and the robot federation, which acts as a solid hook into the inciting incident. The game is packed with appealing little details that make it actually quite fun to perform simple actions.
First, praise: In spite of its early stage of development, the game as a whole is intriguing. The humor is good, I like the concept, and on a specific note, the use of a DnD-style alignment chart as your primary dialogue controller is both hilarious and very clever from a design standpoint. I was amazed at how much the ambient audio really helps sell the experience, almost to such an extent that music barely feels necessary. You’re onto something good, and your time investment has not been a mistake. Keep going.
I’ve only played as far the warp drive (an hour or two) but I’ll probably go back and try again at some point. Maybe once I’m done writing this post, even.
Short list of issues in order of perceived severity (most to least):
Inputs still getting processed while alt-tabbed really is a major pain, had to unbind the keyboard just to take notes
Being unable to use your hands while holding a tool feels more annoying than interesting
You’re right, having to hold a button to confirm actions is kind of irritating, especially when I have to do it every time I want to interact with the ship’s console
Consider a crude map (or at least a pointer to your landing pad) to keep from getting lost on planet surfaces
Having to drop the surveying probe on the ground in order to get a reading was mildly annoying
The text box is a little big, and the text itself is somewhat hard to read, probably due to a lack of contrast
When boarding other ships, your boarding platform seems to create a wall outline next to the cockpit on the inside of the ship
Be mindful of color-coding the tools, it may cause issues for color-blind people
Regarding “mixels”: Somebody else commented on the issue of varying pixel sizes in places as an aesthetic issue. Recommendation: 640x360 is a base resolution that scales by clean integer multiples to all major 16:9 screen sizes. At 2x scale, it’s 720p, at 3x, it’s 1080p, 4x = 1440p, 6x = 4k, and so on. You can even cut it in half for a resolution very similar to the old Gameboy Advance. It’s almost ideal for pixel art games, though I’m not sure how it’d look with your current graphics.
Regarding stamina: Consider the role that stamina actually plays. In Harvest Moon and others, the purpose is to limit what you can do in a day, because the day is the fixed measurement of time around which the entire game is centered. In Starstruck, I’m not certain stamina actually serves any purpose, and even if it did, I’m not sure it would enhance the experience any.
Finally, a thought on the general direction of things: The core loop feels like it wants to be about maintenance. Polishing and tightening and sealing and sorting and what have you. To that end, I’m going to make a somewhat controversial suggestion: Abandon the navigation minigame, and maybe even the pick-a-direction interface. Just choose a destination and go, and let the main loop be about mid-journey upkeep. That align-the-intakes thing feels like it’d make for a good mid-flight minigame where they slowly drift away from what’s optimal and you have to adjust them to keep your speed up. More things like that - Rather than just having things break, have your performance be gradually impacted. Less oxygen generation means slower move speed (short on breath). Dirty coolant means your engines perform worse. You know, keep it within the narrative scope of “Keeping this worthless rustbucket in working order, I swear it’s falling apart at the seams, oh fucking Christ did Xorox drop his toothbrush in the turbines again, it took me three hours to realign the blades last time”, and so on.
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I am not sure if the primary gameplay loop (i.e. maintaining the ship) is all that fun. Even in the short demo, it got tedious pretty quickly. Not helping is how there is not much else to do on the ship.
Very excited to finally try this.
The writing is clever and funny; makes me wish there was more of it. The graphics, sound, and special effects are charming and snappy. (Every time the ship jumps, I smile. Makes me think of Battlestar Galactica.) I like the local and star maps--the system makes sense. Manual navigation is somewhat fun, but bland--it's not quite there yet.
The primary gameplay loop is fairly enjoyable. It has a Han Solo vibe. The player movement is slower than I'd desire. Components get filthy a lot faster than I'd expect, and maintaining them can be a chore. Exploring uninhabited planets seems interesting at first, but in practice, not much happens--I think there's a lot of potential there.
I encountered a few bugs. Once, I had a strange glitch that is difficult to describe, but it looked as though the player was translated horizontally by about a screen, and the camera was no longer centered on the player. Crates left on the loading dock are not being cleaned up when a mission fails. Using the mouse for the menus doesn't quite work right, so I always chose to use the keyboard. Finally, my save was eventually corrupted, like everyone else's, and I was unable to continue.
Just had the following error message, during the tutorial on delivering the first cargo to Khouzoup IV:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_tutorial:
global variable name 'nextobjectiveplanet' index (103274) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)
Addendum: it happened again
I loved it. Finally managed to play it and it was great, big fan of mr Croshaw and I love where this is going.
Loved the gameplay loops, I think initially the things gets broken too often, maybe is for the tutorial sake but the alignment thingy thingy of the generator was a bit annoying.
Small suggestions/Bug Reports:
When the camera focuses on another room as the target for the next task the room appears black, I would probably show an icon on that room. not only the dark room.
If you get in bed with one of the tool, like the plunger thing, you scrub the bed like you are cleaning it just before falling asleep
I would make the reaction clouds/animation last a split second less.
When you need to force open a door it would be nice if the tip icon would make you understand that you have to mash the SPACE rather than just keep it pressed, the same when you login you might want to communicate that you have to keep the button pressed to enter password.
The pickup interaction is too sensitive, sometime if you click too fast while close to a thing you pick it up and drop it again real fast.
I dont know if it is an issue of my pc, but the font on full screen is a bit unreadible, especially the second option on the dialogue pick. It gets foggy kind of
I encountered a bug where on the manual drive minigame the objects only appear at the end of the quadrant and only go up rather than coming towards the mini-ship.
When the alerts are appearing beneath the life bar, they are not really clear about what they are. Same when the ship has a problem, would be nice if in the diagnostic module you would have an icon on the submenu where the problem is, rather than having to go through the whole of the submenus to see what was wrong.
That said, I want to say again it is definitely a great game and would buy it for sure.
Thanks for sharing this and I hope that those comments help
Really good start for a demo/alpha version, feels like a pretty well developed idea right out of the gate.
Positives:
1. Simplicity: The ability to quickly switch between items and actions is helpful and a great time saver, makes jobs much less of a hassle than they could be. It's very easy to get into a groove/schedule which is increadibly important for these type of games.
2. Game definitely feels like it has its own unique sense of style, lots of retro-futurism going on here which is a style/theme that I feel has been pretty neglected in the past decade or so in favor of the "iFuture" style.
3. Likewise, everything on the ship looks distinct, easy to see, and understand what something is or does. Like the engine looking like a battery, coolant system looking like a water tank, etc... Great visual shorthand.
Glitches/Bugs:
I only experienced 1 major bug which is why this bit is going before the critiques, because I don't have much to report otherwise. Ok, so if I'm in the middle of a maintenance job or looking at a console (Like the main console), and I get a notification from the computer, then there's ~ a 50/50 chance that the game's commands will lock up (IE, I can't move the MC, pick things up, switch items, etc...). I know this is an in-game problem and not my PC because I can open up a different app or open a browser and everything works fine there.
Critiques:
Most of these aren't too bad, actually. Mainly just quality of life improvements and personal preferences with these types of games.
1. The pacing can in the start can be a bit wonky. You have a reasonably paced intro, followed by a period of slow grinding, followed by a period of better pacing that gets quickly disrupted by things like engine failures or low stamina, which while the former is a quick fix the later can take multiple cycles to complete and puts a hard break on the pacing. (Items used to boost stamina could be a big help)
2. The "City Planet" areas are kinda difficult to navigate, due to buildings looking same-y and said buildings overlaying walkway entrances to get to other sections. Makes getting through theses areas a bit of a pain. This is why I said everything on the ship looks good, because outside of it things can get kinda difficult to deal with.
3. A shorthand alert for what needs to be done would be very helpful. On a few occasions something broke in the ship and I spent a couple minutes wandering around trying to find the issue because it wasn't immediately apparent what the issue was. Like the engine blowing out, because due to the red and black background a problem like that tends to blend in with the scenery.
4. The carrying/use command should be the default position, with the 3 tools being equipable as they are now. Bit of a nitpick, I know, but if I'm carrying a tool and I need to do something like get outside the ship to fix a problem, I don't want to have to switch out of the tool, get out, and then re-equip the tool I already had equipped.
As a side note: Have you ever played Rune Factory 4 or the Story of Seasons (AKA, the real Harvest Moon) Friends of Mineral Town Remake by any chance? They're made by the same man who made the OG Harvest Moon games and both are on the Switch (RF4's Special Edition is, RF4 is on the 3DS). RF4 is a story focused action RPG and farming simulator that kinda became the standard farming sim for the 2010's due to how much playability it has, with the FoMT remake taking a lot of those systems and refining them even more. Basically, if you're stuck with anything or don't know how to fix a gameplay issue chances are these games have already figured out that solution, so they're very much worth looking into if you have the time. (How to integrate a story with a daily life sim for example)
game crash with our favorite ### error when I tried to upgrade my warp coil
Great game. Strangely enticing! Now for the bugs list:
1) Profile selection menu is still active when "confirmation" message pops up.
2) Character name does not allow pressing Shift. Capitals can still be entered with Caps Lock, but COME ON!
3) Typing in a different program still triggers in-game shortcuts. This is horrible when trying to play this game in the office and swapping back to answer corporate emails.
4) When in Boako Prime jobs place, main menu and sell menu keep alternating when ESC is pressed. This goes away after you sell everything. If this was PEBCAK then ignore.
5) You can sell trash at Boako Prime (for $0) and then be unable to finish the dumping errand.
Took a "find my bag" quest. After I found the bag and put it on the ship I went back to the planet and found another identical bag. Didn't have room to take it up to the ship but when I went back down it was somewhere else on the planet and now I have 2 in my cargo hold. So basically fetch quest items keep reappearing until - I presume - you deliver the goods.
Really enjoying the core experience so far! Dialogue is snappy and funny and it's pretty easy to settle into something of a routine with deliveries and missions.
Glitch report: (No save glitch that others seem to have had :D )
1. Invisible cargo when docking with another ship, that's also partially permeable, so I got stuck
2. When text boxes e.g. messages from Dripberg come up sometimes the character gets locked into movement and keeps walking while the message is up
Misc. Notes
Like a few others have said (maybe at this point a consequence of the barebones build) but the re-rolling surfaces results in the loss of totally survey devices. I also found when I was a second menu deep in the ship controls, ESC wouldn't return to the previous menu .
Looking forward to seeing more!
i honestly quite enjoyed tho i have encoutered three glitches
1. the save game crash but everyone and their mother is talking about here so i'm gonna move on
2.if i keep roling one of the scoops clockwise i can gain infinite amount of speed
3. once game didn't spawn cargo for the job i assume it was because i put expired cargo from a diffrent there
ok time for some gameplay feedback
1. the totally a survey drone is pretty annoying for one picking up drone cost stamina, and seeing how you have to do try and error with it doing it while under (even if noexistant) threat running out of oxygen it is not worth the reward i fell that drone still "beeping" while getting carried would elevate some tedium or remowing stamina cost of picking it up
2.while we are on topic of O2 on the desolate planets i feel it runs out way to quick and (not sure if bugged) recharges very slowly and it is a big problem because...
3. every time i go back to ship and back, the planet surface rerolls, and i know it's a pure gameplay loop test and randome generation is a stand in for carefully designed areas, but i was pretty annoyed when i lost my totally a survey drone just because i was scarred of a nonexistant threat, although i probally should act as if there a fail state even if there's none at the moment
4. while i didn't play for long i feel that delivering samey crates can get old quickly maybe have contracts where you have to deliver fragile cargo where if you hit an asteroid cargo gets destroyed, how about animals that you have to feed with food that so far don't have use aside from side quests. maybe some animals have favorites and dislikes or even specific diet that can die if fed or not, or some black market stuff that pay way more but are risky due to cargo being illegal there and you have to dogde patrols, like in tutorial you have to turn off the ship to avoid detection
5. game lacks a penalty for losing a contract, it's kinda akward when contract expires you are stuck with cargo and have to dump it on a planet you don't get response from freight company theres the possibility of money penalty but how about there are diffrent freight companies and if you fail you lose trust but if you're quick enough you gain it and attach some reward to it
6. also add a way to rebind controls on a gamepad
that's most of my major thoughts on game so far i might try doing a third savefile and avoid left warp drive like a plauge or wait for a patch so that hopefuly fixes my save because i quite liked second playthrough honestly can't wait for more your dev diary series is so fascinating i wander what full game will look like
Loved my initial play session with this, but the save bug took the wind out of my sails. I wasnt that keen to give the game another go for a few more days, and single session it. However, I do have some feedback.
The fact that vast majoritay of feedback is Technical and Quality of Life stuff is a good sign, that the underlying gameplay is pretty cool and enjoyable.
I didnt reach the "end game" as it were. I was post -revival, pre-warp drive, so some of my feedback may have been addressed later in the game
Technical Issues:
Any thing under this heading feels like something that is broken.
Game Feedback
Actual feedback on the gameplay itself (not much here).
General, Misc and Stickler Feedback
These things dont feel broken, but just need some polish. "Quality of Life" feedback.
after launching my 3rd file I was then able to get back to my 2nd file that got the "########### ERROR" crash of doom for some reason
so, I crashed my game by trying to dock on another ship with cargo on my platform. the cargo was invisible, but blocked my path. Once I picked some of it up the game froze.
Pretty sure this one has been reported already, but issue trying to reload my save file from yesterday here:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_tutorial:
Variable con_tutorial.drip(103161, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)
But I totally understand. My last error message in my own game was equally infuriating.
I also got this exact message.
First of all, I want to say that the experience seems very good. The interface works, the controls are easy, and the graphics are surprisingly clear despite the deliberate pixilation. However, after arriving at Gumord V and delivering my cargo, I encountered this bug, which crashed the game:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_tutorial:
global variable name 'nextobjectiveplanet' index (103274) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)
So, yeah. That happened. I’ll try again tomorrow to replicate it.
Other notes:
It feels like reactor breakdowns are happening too often and/or repairing them consumes too much stamina. On my first flight from Gumord III to V, I lost power three times, including once while I slept to recover stamina. Either a loss of power should be easy to fix, or it should be rare. Perhaps you could shift the “prone to failure” aspect over to the engines?
Having to manually force open doors every time the ship loses power is very annoying, especially since there are two doors between the cockpit and engine room.
It’s awkward to shift constantly between having a tool out and having my hands free to use something. I think you should either enable using things like consoles regardless of what’s in my hand, or map that to a separate key.
The dialogue so far is bloody fantastic. The AI in the tutorial in particular was hilarious.
Also, I had an idea you might be able to use somewhere in the story. Dripberg jokingly referred to the PC as the President of the (now defunct) Galactic Federation. But, legally speaking, the PC IS the last citizen of the Federation, and could claim to be its president (assuming the Federation was a democracy). Perhaps you can declare your ship to be under Federation jurisdiction and “grant asylum” to a potential crewmember who is on the run from the law, or something like that. It obviously shouldn’t be a major story point, but you do have a lawyer character already established to explain that sort of thing.
Tried to store extra fuel rock near the fuel tank and I guess I got between the pixels of "in" and "in front of" the tank and the game crashed. Whenever I try to load that file now I get this message:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object pkp_waste:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0]
at gml_Object_pkp_waste_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_pkp_waste_Draw_0 (line -1)
Stumbled upon the exact same glitch in my second playthrough. Crashed the game but it let me continue that same save file.
Minor grammar nazi thing: Can't capitalize your characters name with shift
You can use caps lock, or as I did, press shift before clicking on the text box
Pea pod is just "Pea" you can buy at shops, but yeah, inconsistent naming
I love that the power cell looks like a Duracell battery. It's a nice way of conveying what it is with visual shorthand.
Also, how do you get off the first city map? I spoke to Squidberg, bought the ship, but I can't find the ship on the map.
Yeah the problem with how the pathways are designed is that when a street is north to the building you might have trouble seeing it
Windows keyed out and killed it in task manager when the game locked progress behind picking one of nine asinine character portraits. A deep failure as a role-playing exercise, utterly unsympathetic from a neutral assessment, and entirely unnecessary to the gameplay. Everything was acceptable to that point. Cut that out as unneeded and unsalvageable.
bug report: game froze when I went back to the computer after activating the first impulse trip, also the blue overcoat with the white shirt makes it look like you have earings
Really good work! And hilarious!! I cackled several times. Here is my feedback from just playing the tutorial. I tried to play further, but either it bugged out or I'm dumb, but I couldn't find the ship or how to get to it after you talk to Dripberg. I tried to save and reload, but got the save bug others mentioned.
*The mouse controls are buggy. I started in windowed mode, and the mouse worked fine. But once I put it to full screen, where the cursor was and where the selection was were not synced. Also, sometimes if the mouse was on screen, you couldn't also use the keyboard controls to navigate menus.
*Nitpick: the Tutorial should have you fix the outer hull break before the solar panel to keep up a sense of urgency.
*The air cycler noise is annoying. Too fast and loud. Even just in the tutorial I tried to avoid standing near one.
*Bug: warp ring didn't visually appear fully aligned when it said it was.
*The warp ring noise should be more science-y/mechanistic
*Controls: I wish you could switch between tools with mousewheel as well as keyboard, as that feels more natural than q and e. I did use q and e, but I feel like in case of emergency, mouse wheel would be faster.
*Rock explosion noise is too harsh, should be more...rewarding/less explosive
*LOVE the personality selector, that is a really really good idea and wish you luck with implementing it, that seems like a lot of work
*In general, the little bit of dialogue is really funny. Dripberg's commission gave me a good cackle.
I really like seeing you develop this and explain the theory behind it, and would certainly pay for a beta version.
I like the core game loop a lot.
In the tutorial when using the welder to repair the generator inside the ship it's not immediately obvious where you need to use it. Maybe you could add some more sparks or something to make it more obvious.
A couple of bugs to report:
Fullscreen mode breaks my mouse control. To get it to select the correct place I have to point at the bottom right of the screen.
Mouse control when confirming a new save slot just seems to select a different slot from behind the confirm menu not confirm the action.
In the selling menu (at the trading post) when selling multiple items going down to the back button at the bottom then going back up to the top causes the top items name to disappear (although when selected the item still sells successfully)
Putting an item down above the left hand side of the cockpit door caused the game to crash with the error:
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_onboard:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0]
at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
image of crash: https://imgur.com/a/Kl7WHJT
The above error also corrupted my save file.
It would be great if you could implement a backup save file (from maybe the previous room or 1 minute before to avoid losing progress in case there is a crash (or a manual save system).
Looking forward to the next update.
I also agree with one of the below comments about not being clear how many cycles it will take to get somewhere or how many have passed whilst travelling unless sleeping.
A few bugs/issues to report:
During my first playthrough, the game crashed the first time I tried to warp (screenshot with error message below). The gauge on the left of the HUD was in the red zone, so I assume the game just doesn't have a response to trying to warp with a broken engine at that point in the game. The only other thing I did was manually realign the ram scoop at some point as I was messing around with the controls, so that might have something to do with it.
After resetting and playing for about an hour, I ran into another crash which occurred when I tried to place an item to the north of the power generator in my ship. My only theory is that I somehow managed to place the item inside of the generator, causing the game to crash since that isn't a valid location. Upon trying to load my save, I'm greeted with this crash:
I started a new save, played for a little while, then manually quit to desktop. Coming back later, I received the below crash when trying to load that save. So far, I have not been able to actually load a save outside of the very start of the game:
I also ran into a bug with control rebinding. I rebound the pause button from Esc to Shift so that I could pause the game without moving my hand from the default position. However, this prevents me from capitalizing letters in text fields, as pressing shift immediately exits the text entry.
I also ran into issues with the key rebinding menu. The function a key is bound to would be performed as I am trying to rebind a key, preventing the menu from functioning properly. For instance, let's say I want to rebind move left to the L key. When I press Space to select move left, instead of waiting for my next input, move left is immediately bound to Space. In other words, using the interact key to select the function I want to rebind immediately binds that function to the interact key I just pressed. This means that the only way for me to use the key rebinding menu is with the mouse. Also, when rebinding the pause function, as soon as I press the new key I want to rebind to, the menu is immediately closed since I just pressed the key which is now bound to pause. Similarly, when rebinding the move left key, the menu selection immediately moves to the left since I just pressed the left button when I rebound the key.
I'm sure others have mentioned this already, but mouse controls are utterly broken on the select save file menu. After selecting a file, the mouse cursor is still able to change files by mousing over them. Also, clicking on the confirm/go back buttons do nothing; you have to use the keyboard to select (although you can still highlight them with the mouse). There also doesn't seem to be a delete save file function.
Also, I found a strange behavior with menu mouse control when entering text. If you have one text field selected and use the mouse to select another text field, the text will be transferred from the first text field to the second. Maybe that's the intended behavior, but it was super unintuitive; I expected selecting the next text field to simply confirm my selection and move onto the next one. You also can't deselect the text field by clicking outside of it with the mouse. Unless I'm missing something, it seems like the only way to deselect a text field is using the keyboard.
This next one isn't a bug, but still an issue. The first time I went to an uninhabited planet, I didn't realize that the layout was randomized every time you go back to your ship. As I was using my oniris device, I ran low on stamina, so I decided to leave it on the surface and go back on my ship to sleep and recover my stamina. It was a bit of a nasty surprise finding that my device had disappeared when I went back down, especially since items are persistent on inhabited planets.
I also wound up missing the deadline for the first cargo shipment of mundanium. I didn't realized what had happened at the time, as the dialog didn't acknowledge that the shipment was late, but the boxes weren't being taken. Having a popup to notify the player of a missed shipment would have helped. You may also want to not have a time limit for the first delivery so that players have some leeway to figure out the systems.
On a related note, I wasn't sure if cycles were passing in real time, or if it only happened when I went to sleep since that's the only time there's obvious feedback for cycles passing. I'm sure I could figure it out by staring at the delivery timer for long enough, but it wasn't clear to me as I was playing for the first time. (Overall, the delivery timer UI a bit hard to gauge, since it doesn't seem to tell you the exact number of cycles remaining).
Finally, as I was writing this comment, I noticed that the game still takes input even when the window isn't focused. Even with the game minimized and my computer focused on my internet browser, I somehow managed to open up a new save file and begin the tutorial as I typed.
Anyway, I really enjoyed what I got to play of the game, especially when I got the warp drive and unlocked the multi-start-system deliveries. I especially enjoyed the item lifting/placing mechanic; moving things around in that sort of embodied way is really satisfying. I hope this issue report helps you create a more polished experience!
Had 2 files so far get the "###### ERROR in action number 1...." corruption, but I have a feel for the gameplay loop and I like it.
1. Game exploit: You can crank your ram scoop to the right for as much speed as you want. The upgrade is semi permanent, only seeming to go away once in a new star system, or when I reboot, but either way its easy to get my near insta-travel back.
2. I feel the bed should really heal stamina more. As it stands It can take 7-8 cycles to refill it from empty, and it seems excessive to have to spend a whole solid week in bed to recover from moving a few boxes and punching a few buttons. you usually cant afford to sleep for longer than 4-5 cycles without having to do maintainence anyway. Maybe the bed heals a percentage of your bar, like 20%-33%, so you only need to spend 3-5 days in bed.
3. A better idea of how time is passing would be helpful. The bar for delivery jobs works, but it's hard to know how long a trip will take or whats going on since you are only really told about cycles passing when you sleep.
If I just keep turning scoop 2 to the right then my max speed just... keeps going up. Also fullscreen mode breaks the main menu. This is on a shitty old laptop though, hell the planet's surfaces lag lol.
I got that exploit too =) yay insta travel lol
Bug report, Day 2.
I’m not sure how I did it, but when aligning the scoop, I turned it too far and realised it kept going up. So I spent a minute just rotating the scoop around and around and got my max speed up to 200 before letting it go. My coolant went instantly foul, of course.
I found the tutorial sequence and the constant repair+low stamina bar a bit tedious, but once I was delivering packages, buying things and all that, I really enjoyed it.
Then a gltich crashed my game as I was putting toxic waste in a part of my ship for an upcoming delivery. Now my last save is ruined, and an error message shows up everytime I pick it, and I dont feel like doing the tutorial again.
This is the error that pops up
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object pkp_waste:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0]
at gml_Object_pkp_waste_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_pkp_waste_Draw_0 (line -1)
So yeah, if theres any way to fix this or at least a "skip tutorial" function, it would be great
Love the game so far, the story is campy and fun, computer is the best character ever. So far the one gripe I have is the opening sounds were very loud and there were a lot of them. While there needs to be a sense of urgency, it was a lot of sensory overload.
I enjoyed the start I havent had much time to fully try the hole alpha, I liked what I have played so far the sounds really add to the games feel in a satisfying way and the pixel art looks great. But i did have some negitives.
I was in the cockpit, when i was about to arrive and the first planet and the game crashed, not sure why. Another small issuse was that in full screen mode I found that the dialoge box was hurting my eyes, I think it was the text with two colours, I think this as no other text in the game was an issue.
All in all, I look forward to playing more.
This is a really fun Alpha build! I do think the tutorial can be restructured a little, it was a little overwhelming to begin with. I also wonder if it might be nice to have the Hand tool assigned to a default button, so that I don't need to switch away from a tool to, say, climb outside the ship.
Sound effects are great, and the ship packing mechanic - finding space for 8 crates in a tight space - is intuitive and interesting. I think it's a great central mechanic to structure the game around. The loop of pack, transport, deliver, pack is really solid.
Encountered an unfortunate game breaking bug. After my second delivery mission, when I was told I was a Preferred Delivery Choice, I was moving when the PDA popped up. My character kept moving during this scene, and when the PDA went away I was stuck in a corner and unable to move.
Here's another few bugs for the pile:
-On the second delivery mission, with the small transport platform, I put a crate down outside of the loading zone, to the right of where the platform lands. I went up to the ship, and when I came back the crate was gone, effectively failing that mission.
-Fullscreen seems to break the mouse when using it in menus.
-(See attached image) Game froze when I lifted a box through ship geometry when trying to place it down.
I really like the game though!
Got a game crash when I want to play my first save from yesterday.
Code Error:
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_onboard:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0]
at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
I got the same, but I managed to load the save once before I got it.
I got a bug where I put down a crate outside of the loading zone and went up with the platform. When I came down again, the crate was gone. Also, the story still says "Recover an upgrade unit from a crashed ship and go to a ship yard to install warp drive" (or something like that) even when I've done it.
Btw, when i try to load my save file I got this error: (I managed to load a save earlier, but now I can't)
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_onboard:
Variable Index [0] out of range [0]
at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
So I've only been playing for about an hour now. I'm enjoying it, but there doesn't seem to be much variety in the early shipments. At one point I took 6 cabbage crates from Yub IV to Yub Prime. once I turned them in, the next mission was 6 cabbage crates from Yub Prime back to Yub IV. Maybe there needs to be something to prevent the random cargo from being the same as your last drop. I also thought that perhaps there might need to be more types of cargo. Perhaps certain deliveries need to be split between 2 planets. Perhaps there could be live cargo that would deplete your oxygen faster than it normally would, or perhaps they would need food to be carried and fed to them on the journey. The game is still great in its early state, I plan to play more tomorrow.
Unless you plan on introducing direct threats, i.e. enemies, I'm not sure why you have health AND stamina if your stamina just drains into health anyway. Unless you plan on tweaking how each individual bar recovers (like stamina regenerates, but health needs a doctor), they're functionally the same bar split into two different colours. Especially since a lot of the health hazards I can imagine there being in SV would logically make you tired too. Poisonous atmosphere, electrical shocks, suffocating, working hard.
All of those personally make me want a nap.
Some notes on my playthrough. I played up until I completed the first delivery that dripberg gives you.
During the tutorial I encountered a pretty nasty softlock https://i.imgur.com/xxKe6oA REPRO STEPS: start game, play tutorial until you get the message from the robot federation. After that message *make sure you keep the cockpit menu open* and continue flying to the planet. Upon arriving to the planet you should get the softlock.
When the game's window loses focus it should ignore keyboard input. When writing these notes I found that jacques would wander around the screen whenever I happened to type a 'w' 'a' 's' or 'd'. Gamemaker seems to have let you check focus with this https://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospice/002_reference/windows%20and%20views...
The mouse controls don't work properly on this menu https://i.imgur.com/BQ9BBiS you can't click confirm or go back
During the tutorial I initially didn't realize that my coolant was low, so my engine just kept exploding every time I repaired it. I reset and made it past that part, and eventually realized that low coolant causes the engine to overheat. This might be made more obvious, like if you try to fix then engine while low on coolant there's a flashing red "COOLANT LOW" badge on the UI.
The menus seem to always put you on the first option when you press b to back out, instead they should remember whatever option you were previously on.
By rotating my scoops clockwise over and over again I was able to get my speed way past where it's supposed to be https://i.imgur.com/RUbrOPY This let me get to my destinations almost instantly
Some of the ui seems to sort a little oddly, and it is hard to read when layered like this https://i.imgur.com/Bkk7kJ2 or this https://i.imgur.com/pR9lkFZ
The clouds on planets look a little odd. They move along with the player instead of remaining more or less stationary (ignoring wind) with respect to the world. Also they seem to additive blend with the background which makes them appear to glow a little. I haven't used GMS but it appears they use bm_add (bm_src_alpha, bm_one) instead of bm_normal (bm_src_alpha, bm_inv_src_alpha)
The panning on some of the audio is a little aggressive (e.g. the second ship leak you patch in the tutorial), I think it'd sound more natural if the audio never panned left or right more than like 70% or so.
On a more positive note the writing really is quite excellent, all the characters are fun and distinct, and much of the dialog is quite funny. I really like the alignment chart thing, which makes me wonder how much unique dialog you'll have to write. Also getting to pick your ship is really cool. The plot starts to move along once you introduce general crumbbum and the robot federation, which acts as a solid hook into the inciting incident. The game is packed with appealing little details that make it actually quite fun to perform simple actions.
First, praise: In spite of its early stage of development, the game as a whole is intriguing. The humor is good, I like the concept, and on a specific note, the use of a DnD-style alignment chart as your primary dialogue controller is both hilarious and very clever from a design standpoint. I was amazed at how much the ambient audio really helps sell the experience, almost to such an extent that music barely feels necessary. You’re onto something good, and your time investment has not been a mistake. Keep going.
I’ve only played as far the warp drive (an hour or two) but I’ll probably go back and try again at some point. Maybe once I’m done writing this post, even.
Short list of issues in order of perceived severity (most to least):
Regarding “mixels”: Somebody else commented on the issue of varying pixel sizes in places as an aesthetic issue. Recommendation: 640x360 is a base resolution that scales by clean integer multiples to all major 16:9 screen sizes. At 2x scale, it’s 720p, at 3x, it’s 1080p, 4x = 1440p, 6x = 4k, and so on. You can even cut it in half for a resolution very similar to the old Gameboy Advance. It’s almost ideal for pixel art games, though I’m not sure how it’d look with your current graphics.
Regarding stamina: Consider the role that stamina actually plays. In Harvest Moon and others, the purpose is to limit what you can do in a day, because the day is the fixed measurement of time around which the entire game is centered. In Starstruck, I’m not certain stamina actually serves any purpose, and even if it did, I’m not sure it would enhance the experience any.
Finally, a thought on the general direction of things: The core loop feels like it wants to be about maintenance. Polishing and tightening and sealing and sorting and what have you. To that end, I’m going to make a somewhat controversial suggestion: Abandon the navigation minigame, and maybe even the pick-a-direction interface. Just choose a destination and go, and let the main loop be about mid-journey upkeep. That align-the-intakes thing feels like it’d make for a good mid-flight minigame where they slowly drift away from what’s optimal and you have to adjust them to keep your speed up. More things like that - Rather than just having things break, have your performance be gradually impacted. Less oxygen generation means slower move speed (short on breath). Dirty coolant means your engines perform worse. You know, keep it within the narrative scope of “Keeping this worthless rustbucket in working order, I swear it’s falling apart at the seams, oh fucking Christ did Xorox drop his toothbrush in the turbines again, it took me three hours to realign the blades last time”, and so on.
I eagerly await future releases. Good luck!
Glitch on the Main Menu: Mouse Controls if you leave the window, the cursor doesn't change the selection.