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SpaceBus's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #467 | 3.929 | 3.929 |
| Overall | #572 | 3.579 | 3.579 |
| Fun | #788 | 3.357 | 3.357 |
| Originality | #910 | 3.593 | 3.593 |
Ranked from 140 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
As time progresses, your ability to maintain this ship slips further and further out of control. Machines are dependent on one another, so as things break, other things break faster.
Did your team create the art for this game during the 48 hour time slot?
Yes
We created all art during the game jam
Did your team create the audio for this game during the 48 hour time slot?
No
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
Hi,
I have nothing to do with this Jam, I was just coming to test some games and this one really surprised me because it is really GOOD! ...
That's all...
Thank you!
Cute, solid game :) I loved the animations :)
The way the people get launched out of the ship gave me a really hearty laugh. Overall really good game! :P
this is a really neat and chaotic management sim! i love the theming and the artwork, and there's a real sense of juggling a million things as you're running from machine to machine. i think it would help the player if there was a jump button though, since sometimes it can be a bit frustrating to need to climb ladders and run all the way around the spacebus to fix something three tiles to the side, y'know? all in all tho, great work!
Great entry! Had a lot of fun playing it! Loved the presentation and the game at all.
Pretty neat! It feels really cool, and very chaotic! The graphical themes are very lovely and the controls are really tight. Very cool!
Thank you!
Fantastic game! The depth, the concept the gameplay... blew me away!
\(hehe pun)/
I loved the concept, the replayability, well done!
Really good work on the pixel-art! I had a bit of troubles understanding immediately what I was supposed to do, but I could figure it out by experimenting. I think the UI could be improved a bit in that regard, to highlight the most important informations.
The game becomes quickly challenging! Even by dropping some of the passengers, I wasn't able to survive very long! (I also accidentally dropped a tool out of the level, woops :p) At some point it didn't feel like my actions were having any effects: even by repairing what I could, the power was dropping pretty fast. It fits the theme, but is a bit demotivating.^^'
Still, I gave it several tries, and it was pretty fun! :) Good job overall!
Thanks for the feedback! We've improved the UI and added a tutorial for the next update, and have fixed the tool dropping bug . We may need to do some more tuning on how the engine power scales, but we also want it to get harder the more things break, so that the difficulty ramps up and the player feels like things are hard to keep under control.
Thanks for playing!
Finally had the time to play it :)
First thing I did was eject every passenger in a glorious fashion. I think they are alright. I didn't yet know anything about the game, just felt that was the right thing to do.
After playing it a good bit I really like it. Pathing around is really hard, you gotta be fast and know where to go. But you also have to be on your toes, because the fastest path might break. I think the breaking was feeling quite random though. It felt out of my control ... I see what you did there. Clever. While it hits the theme it didn't feel great. On the other hand taking care of the whole spaceship was chaos and it felt out of control as well. But that I liked a lot. I assume because it wasn't feeling random. It was so much to do and think about at the same time that it felt out of control but I was in control of being out of control. Often I would fix a pipe, just to see it break instantly afterwards.
When it comes to ressource management this game and post really helped me out a lot, so I leave this to you for some food for brain: https://lyrcaxis.itch.io/perish-alive/devlog/140464/a-designers-tricks-why-those-numbers
I think the ressources that are fastly depleting should be accesible more easily and the things that take longer should be harder to access. With the current layout I had a lot of fun and especially for 48h this is amazing!
One thing I didnt understand was the energy of the bus. So when things are broken do they influence it? Or is it just the number of people in it?
I really enjoyed playing this! It made me go "man I really wanna make a game like this too now". Thank you for making this and sharing it! Well done
Wow, this is such thorough feedback. Thank you! Thanks for sharing that link - that will be very helpful as we continue to balance this.
For the pipe breaking, there is a set number of pipes that will break during each wave/flight (it increases each flight). At the start of each flight, a random point in the duration of that wave is selected, and that's when the break is triggered. In the future, we might alter that so the same machine can't break twice in a row like that so that it doesn't feel like your repair is wasted.
For the SpaceBus Power bar, it wasn't explained super well in the jam version of the game, but it's a combination of thrust (% of working machines) vs weight (number of passengers) - so as more machines break, the energy will drop faster. But you can eject passengers to drop the weight below the thrust and make the SpaceBus power stop falling or start rising back up toward 100% again. In a future version, we'll make this relationship more clear.
We've updated to version 2.2 with some significant UI improvements, including many of the ones you mentioned.
Take a look! SpaceBus v2.2
Nice entry! It's a classic concept, but it really works well with the theme, and I think the execution was great for a 48 hour jam. Lots of quirky charm which is always great to see!
Thank you!
Love the art style. The gameplay's pretty fun. A multiplayer mode would do wonders for this game. Me and my girl would turn this into a "bad relationship" simulator cause we'd be fighting the whole time (in a fun way).
Thanks for the feedback! After hearing a few people compare it to Overcooked, I think there's definitely the potential to turn this into a multiplayer coop. We'll see!
Really liked this game and how you have to manage all the stuff that is going on without being too messy. Well done!
Thank you!
I like the concept, especially the bit where you can jettison passengers.
It's a bit frustrating not being able to get past the pipes when you're holding something. It'd be nice if you could quick fix if you're not holding the right tool for the job. You could also add alternate routes throughout the level so you can avoid the pipes entirely.
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I've started to notice that as well. In our next update, we've changed it so duct tape is the default response if you don't have the correct tool. We've also considered expanding the level, but I think for now we're going to focus on balancing what we have and only add more if it feels necessary.
Thanks for playing!
Things I liked:
I've seen several games very similar to this one, but what stands out here is the mechanic of jettisoning passengers. It's a brilliant way to spice things up, and it creates a great risk-reward system of figuring out exactly how many people to jettison in order to be able to stabilize without tanking your score. The pixel art presentation is nice, and I particularly like the animation of the passengers flying out of the airlock. Although it wasn't particularly noticeable during gameplay, your comments have pointed out that you have an extremely intelligent difficulty scaling system. The duct tape was a neat touch as well.
Potential areas for improvement:
One of my main problems with these kinds of games is that I seem to always run into a problem Mark Brown calls "optimizing the fun out of a game." In this case, I ended up just running around with a wrench to fix the pipes because everything else I could keep under control, which meant that I didn't end up engaging with your more unique and interesting mechanics. Specifically, I think making the jettison button easier to reach might help make it a more used tool, along with possibly allowing you to use duct tape while holding a tool (or even buffing the time the machine stays off). Having said that, you've already talked some about changing the tools to fix the pipes, which probably would also work-- maybe you can use that as another way to help scale the difficulty?
Overall:
This game is an original take on a classic game jam concept, with several features that make it stand out. I'm glad to see that you're still working on it, because I think with a little more balanced mechanics it will be much easier to interact with the elements that make this game unique. I'm excited to see how everything improves!
Thank you for your detailed feedback! I definitely agree that as-is, it still needs some balancing. When I play for long enough, it's easy to get into a rhythm where you can stay ahead of the game and nothing really breaks. In the future we plan to add a few more things that can break, including possibly incorporating additional single-use tools, e.g. things will catch fire and you have to go get a Fire Extinguisher. Thanks again for taking the time to review and comment, and I hope you'll play the updated version when it gets released!
Fun game, capturing the theme great as you run around fixing everything. I just feel like there could have been just one more system to try and balance, to add to the chaos
Thanks for the feedback! The plan is to add a few more small machines to break (like the pipes), but we didn't have time to get those in before the deadline. Thanks for playing!
This is pretty nicely polished graphics and style! It wasn't super clear what I was supposed to do, despite the tutorial. I thought I figured it out and was running around fixing things and would suddenly lose without knowing why. Maybe a touch difficult at the moment. But well done
Have you heard of "Bfxr?" For this kind of game, it makes it SUPER easy to create sound effects!
Thanks for playing! We're updating the tutorial to be clearer in a release that we're going to push through after voting closes. Basically, if too many machines are broken, you lose power faster. You can jettison passengers to lighten your load and bring your engine power back up to give you more time to fix things.
We have SFX ready to go! We just didn't get to submit that version before the deadline. Thanks again for the feedback!
Very fun game, just a note that two things were a bit frustrating, Tools near a ladder are an incredible nuisance to pick up (you keep climbing the ladder and you can't pick them up). The pipes feel like they break so often I might as well not bother fixing them.
Good feedback, thank you! We have a system set up where during each flight/wave, there's a set number of pipes that will break. The number goes up for each flight, but the interval between the breaks is random. So sometimes all of the breaks will happen at the same time, although they're usually more spread out. I think preventing too many back-to-back breaks is something we'll try to tune out in the future. Thanks again!
Thanks for playing! Those 2 things are actually connected - we're planning to make this more clear in our next update. The power bar is based on the number of working machines compared to the weight of the passengers, so if you start losing power you can jettison passengers to slow down the bar and buy yourself some time.
Hey very good game and concept! Makes me feel like a crew member in FTL. I might feel a little bad for letting most passengers go into space... but hey if the captain (and me) go down then everyone goes down anyway! Nice job!
Very polished game
I love the visuals and audio
Maybe have a bit more soudnfx for repairing?
fun concept to run around and repair things,
just feels a bit like a walking simulator if you need to pick up something from the other side to repair something on this side.
All in all a great game