Warp Explorer
Warp Explorer - A Nodebuster inspired space exploration incremental!
Intro
After a strange portal appeared, you've been tasked with exploring the Warp found on the other side.
Earn Science by going far into the Warp, and spend it to upgrade your ship and gain the ability to explore deeper.
But be careful. Learning more about the Warp may also reveal some initially unseen dangers... or inhabitants.
(PS. Try to make it to the portal at least once and you'll get upgrades to make it easier!)
Controls
Press space to launch the ship, use the mouse to buy upgrades. You can scroll/zoom on the upgrade screen.
You might also need to use WASD or the arrow keys after getting a certain upgrade.
After each launch, you get science points depending on how far into the warp you got too.
The game research tree is directly inspired by Nodebuster.
Theme: Unseen
This game is a submission to Godot Wild Jam #82.
My first take on the theme was that the Warp would initially seems devoid of dangers, but many unseen dangers are actually lurking inside. As you learn more about the Warp, more dangers become visible, and the Warp itself also start noticing you!
It wasn't on purpose, but the research tree also ended up fitting the theme quite well. It is initially entirely unrevealed, and you can only see adjacent nodes once you spent points in an adjacent one, so it's mostly unseen at first.
Notes
Sadly, I didn't get much free time during the jam and I wasn't able to make an ending for it. I also drew all research tree icons and added all of the SFX in the last 2 hours of the jam, which I think is very noticeable, especially on the icons...
Still, I think this demo does a good job at showing up the concept. If I had more time, I would have liked to add a LOT more upgrades, and a final encounter where once you reach "100% Warp Knowledge", it fully notices you and come to attack our world, in a final boss battle!
Comments
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The vial to unlock "real ship" is red on the bottom, but pink/purple on the screen.
I didn't chase after it as I had a ton of pink/purple already.
Whoops, good catch! Gonna fix that as soon as jam judging is over, thanks
Maybe after the jam ends you could finish the game?
Yeah, I plan to! :)
Very cool take on the incremental skill tree genre. I am very very excited to see the full version of this game.
i like it
Very nice
I like how this game genre shifted twice. First we start as a launch game, and it's like oh that's neat. Then we get to the first star, and it becomes a Flappy Bird. And then we reach the second star and it becomes a space shooter.
I really appreciate that you didn't just got inspired by the node buster genre, but what's unique in your game, is the gameplay changing,
The fact you start focusing on the launch, then you have to control WASD, then you have to shoot,
I really hope in future you'll stay on that mindset, maybe having homing missiles that you control with mouse, shield that you can have with E, Space for dash in future, then maybe for another "universe" you are more in a topdown shooted instead of horizontal, this is a neat way of exploiting the node buster/astrodle genre !
Pretty darn atmospheric and neat, I really hope you expand this into a post-jam version!
It seemed the arrow slowdowns don't work very well, and it leads to a frustrating situation where you want to just commit suicide to try again with better launch speed, but meh, that's the kind of jam jank that's more than acceptable!
I did especially like how the music changed as your awareness grew, and I think you are critiquing yourself a bit too hard on the icons, they're a bit rough, but they weren't 'distracting', so I might not have noticed if you didn't mention it!
The way "launching" works right now is a bit janky (launching straight horizontally is way better too). That's probably the part I would have refactored first with one more day ;)
For now I'm motivated to keep on working on this, stay tuned!
Thanks for the icons, that's reassuring
really good game, i thought it was great. I got stuck in the red warp, with the enemys, and the first stage of the laser. overall it was great though.
Thanks! :)
That's pretty much the end anyway (you can get one new research using enemy blood if you kill a few, but that's it). I had an ending planned but ran out of time.
The launch arrow moves too fast for it to be playable
Later on you can buy an upgrade to make it easier.
But I agree, it started a bit too hard, I just made it slower. Can you try again? :)
Definitely helped make it playable. Very nice overall, would like to see where you go with it for a finished version in the future.