P.L.A.N.T.D.S.C

Pirate Lasering And Nullifying Terminators Dubbed: Starblight Couriers (P.L.A.N.T.D.S.C).

Made for GMJAM 10

WASD = Pitch and roll

Quick Tap W or S: Throttle

Quick Tap A or D: Yaw a little

L Shift = Target

SPACE = Fire (when locked on)

You can invert flight controls in settings (try this if the controls feel off)

Incomplete but playable game submitted for GBJAM 10

Bask thyself into a game with a bug where >4 colors are present :( , the window is way too small, and the game crashes when you die. Fun stuff...  (EDIT: these have been fixed in V2, woo!)

A little hint, don't be too comfortable when there's a decrease in enemy spawn rate ;)

This game has a complex wave system that should loop endlessly.

This is my first game jam, and lessons learned were:

• Build and test games early
• Art, sound, assets, etc, should come early on
• Avoid diving into new things or be prepared to spend allot of time (half of the game jam for me - GBCamera was a bit of a pain...)
• Playtest!!
• Avoid scope creep - the original plan for this game was to have at least a missile weapon, a FTL cutscene, and 4 menus that supported trading plants. Obviously I had to cut these down or I wouldn't have much of a game at all.
• INCLUDE SHADERS YOU INTEND TO USE IN GRAPHICS -> "Always Included Shaders" (this fixed the > 4 colors bug).

Hopefully in a future game jam I'll do a remake... overall I'm just happy I pushed out something playable for my first game jam :)

See Devlogs for any updates.

FAQ:

• What's up with the controls? If you haven't already, I recommend you invert the flight controls in the settings. The game was originally designed to conserve what buttons are used, since GBJAM only allows 8 buttons. To increase the throttle or yaw, you have to quickly tap the W/A/S/D key. If I were to do this over again, I would remap the throttle to Start and/or Select. Start & Select was originally designed for weapon switching, but then scope creep happened :)
• What does the information on the screen mean?
  Info on the left side is for the player's stats, info on the right is for target stats.
  • Player (Left Side):
    • LZR RDY (Laser Ready): the main weapon is ready.
    • LZR WAIT (Laser Wait): the main weapon is cooling down and cannot fire.
    • SPD (Speed)
    • HP (HitPoints/Health): If it reaches 0, game over and back to the main menu.
  • Target (Right Side):
    • TGT 1/23 (Target 1 out of 23 total targets): this shows if you have targeted something, and how many targets are left. (Originally, multi-target weapons were planned, hence the first number).
    • D (Distance): how far away the target is.
    • HP (HitPoints/Health) of the target.
• Theme? The connection to the theme is in the name of the game:
  Pirate Lasering And Nullifying Terminators Dubbed: Starblight Couriers (P.L.A.N.T.D.S.C). Note that the game's start screen shows "Starblight Couriers" Originally, the game was going to feature a trading system where the player hauls plant matter and food in a starving galaxy affected by a blight (disease that affects plants). In the final stages of development however this was cut in favor of having somewhat-playable gameplay. Luckily, GBJam allows for acronyms (see https://itch.io/jam/gbjam-10), which was where the name of the game comes in.