Vrtx. Prototype for Space exploration game

[meoiswa]

This is my little prototype of a game. Very bare bones for now

Vrtx.love

Version 2 or something

(14.01 KiB) Downloaded 226 times

UPDATE: Been busy this last weeks so I haven't done much. (Ok, I admit it, I've been mostly playing other games :b) Changed the galaxy generator, press M toggle the galaxy map, press Tab to select a neighbor system to jump to, press F to instantaneously jump to it. Other controls remain the same.
Changed the way systems link between each another, there's no jumpgates anymore. Made a list of constellation names (cleverly stolen from wikipedia, shhh) for the galaxy generator to pick from.
Can anyone tell me how to do spoiler tags, please?

Old content follows:

I haven't gotten to document any of it because from my previous experiments I've learned that in the very early stages of development the code can change much faster than I'm comfortable with making a documentation for each change.

The game consist of your ship, set in space, for no reason or purpose at all. Fly with the standard WASD layout. The game generates a galaxy with 10 solar systems, all fully randomized. The 10 systems are connected in a row by red Jumpgates, pressing F will navigate you between them. Q and E will allow you to zoom in and out to view larger spaces, while the cyan line shows your direction at all times. Planets can be either small and solid (with few moons) or large and gaseous (with lots of moons). No noticeable difference for now other than the size. Pressing R will re-generate the current system you are in.

Hold your mouse on top of a solar body to view its orbit and its children's orbit

Have fun and share any ideas you come up with while testing this.

Oh! I almost forgot, press P to take a screenshot, stored in the "LOVE game data folder"/Vrtx/screenshots directory



Has anyone ever tried to compute random textures on runtime? I have this wild idea of creating textures for planets randomly...

[Robin]

Zooming in and out doesn't seem to work properly. Also, I miss gravity and collisions.

Has anyone ever tried to compute random textures on runtime? I have this wild idea of creating textures for planets randomly...

Yeah, people have done that. It's pretty cool.

[meoiswa]

Zooming in and out doesn't seem to work properly.

How's that? It works fine for me.

Also, I miss gravity and collisions.

Unlike my previous prototype, this time there's no physics model, in fact the physics module is turned off in the configuration. Gravity and solid planets didn't work well for scaling, and Box2D isn't designed to deal with objects that differ in size by more than 20%, It was a nightmare to compute collisions correctly.

[Robin]

Zooming in and out doesn't seem to work properly.

How's that? It works fine for me.

For me it's very, very slow.

It was a nightmare to compute collisions correctly.

Rolling your own planetary collision detection and resolution system is not that hard. It's a loss less general than what Box2D is designed to handle, in terms of shapes and dynamic things (landing on a planet won't push it away, at least not enough to model it).

[meoiswa]

For me it's very, very slow.
Rolling your own planetary collision detection and resolution system is not that hard. It's a loss less general than what Box2D is designed to handle, in terms of shapes and dynamic things (landing on a planet won't push it away, at least not enough to model it).

Yeah I've done that its just that I don't think it fits the game anymore, planets are below the player and other ships. Thats why they look so small, colliding with them would break the scale of things.

[ivan]

Hey, pretty cool prototype. I like the idea of 2D exploration although I think it might be kinda hard to design a fun game around the concept.
I don't think collisions are 100% necessary for this sort of gameplay but there should be at least some sort of objective like collecting and discovering different items. Also it's kinda hard to figure out your position in relation to other objects, might be a good idea to add some backgrounds or perhaps auto-zoom out so that the player doesn't get lost. A radar minimap thingy might be cool too.

Box2D isn't designed to deal with objects that differ in size by more than 20%

What makes you say that?

[meoiswa]

A navigation HUD is in the works, a galaxy random generator follows (Generating random layouts of interconnected solar systems in other shapes than just a line), objectives (things to do other than just fly around) will come after that.

Some people have been complaining about zooming being weird. The problem with zooming is that its a factor, and so the zooming is quadratic (0.5 zoom = 1/4 of the total area, 1 zoom = 1 total area, 2 zoom = 4 times total area, etc) So it feels weird when it speeds up the farther zoomed out you are.

[Gravy]

Very cool. A nice starry background that moves to show you what direction you're going would be cool.

[meoiswa]

Very cool. A nice starry background that moves to show you what direction you're going would be cool.

Good suggestion, when zoomed in and moving there's no way to tell which way you're drifting, which while inmersive, can get a bit confusing.

Updated the first post to reflect the latest changes!