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Deep Space Trucker 9's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Interpretation of the Secondary Theme | #3 | 4.720 | 4.720 |
| Gameboy Soul | #5 | 4.600 | 4.600 |
| Overall | #68 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Gameplay | #124 | 3.320 | 3.320 |
| Graphics | #137 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Soundtrack/SFX | #220 | 2.760 | 2.760 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game match the theme?
The game takes place in space and revolves around managing your cargo space and weight. You can also alter the space inside your ship by moving around furniture.
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Comments
This is a game boy game and that's it you would have made some money in the late 80s ha
I'm glad you liked it! I wish I had gotten it out in the 80s then haha
I really liked the concept, it was creative and has a lot of promise! It was a handful of systems to keep track off for what I expected, but it’s cool how much was put together within the jam timeframe.
I think the gameplay could be a little snappier, it takes some time to load everything, and combined with the lag in space travel, the gameplay loop overall feels somewhat sluggish. I also got confused by the different stations until I read one of your replies, I agree that a location indicator would be nice in an updated version.
Great work overall though! I’d like to see more from this concept in the future with the later versions!
Thanks for playing! Definitely my biggest take-away from the jam is that the game could be a lot snappier in a lot of ways. I should have an update out today or tomorrow that I'm hoping solves a lot of the issues. I went through and tried to cut out any redundant dialogue boxes that slowed things down and I was able to minimize a lot of the space travel lag too.
I also broke up the tutorial a bit more to not overwhelm people with too many systems all at once. There is still a tutorial at the start but it mostly covers the broad strokes, and then a separate tutorial specifically for the cargo hold/space travel scene that you can play once you actually go to start loading your ship.
Glad to hear the improvements, I’ll give it another try when it’s up!
Thanks! I actually got the update out now, both for the web version and the ROM. Added a Windows .exe version but that one is a little less tested.
very nice, definitely something I can see myself playing on the gb back in the day
Thanks! The theme gave me an idea for where to start but I realized half way through that I was pretty much just making the kind of game I would have loved to have on my gameboy haha. I'm glad I'm not the only one!
I love the concept! With more variety it can become a pretty solid game!
Thanks! I'm going to do a post-jam release with a little more variety but I'm also planning to 'finish' this game too with a lot more options for ships, furniture, locations and more too.
Great game! You sure did get in a lot for this jam, very impressed. Great Gameboy look and feel and music.
Only a couple of "issues", at least for me. :) For some reason it took me a bit too long to figure out how to load the cargo, I was not standing in the right spot the first couple of times I tried. LOL Finally figured that out.
Avoiding things in space was mostly fun, except there were times with RNG where no matter what I wasn't able to avoid things. Maybe allowing the ship to speed up or slow down, but maybe it costs $ for fuel or has some sort of consequence. Or allow for the ship to move forward and back just a bit to make it so I could at least use some "skill" to avoid things.
As was already mentioned I couldn't figure out what moving the furniture did and it was pretty tedious to do so I gave up trying to figure it out. LOL Maybe make it so you could just push without it asking but you could pull by hitting the interact button to attach yourself, then press it again to let go?
The dialogs were nice for some things, especially when you flew your ship, but for some reason the first time I interacted with that person I didn't quite get that I was flying my ship off, thought I was just going into some other room, like maybe the cockpit. So I flew off the first time with an empty cargo. LOL
Another variation I thought of was something similar to the tetris type game I made, where instead of putting things onto the shelves you could grab items from somewhere in the station and then place them on your ship but then be able to slide them around to balance out the ship. Boxes could be odd shapes. Not needed but while I was thinking about some things this idea came to me.
Again, great job. Even without my suggestions it was a fun and interesting game.
Thanks for playing! Those are some great ideas. I wanted to make the game run on Game Boy so I'm using GB Studio which restricts some of the options. I'm not sure if I would be able to implement speeding up/slowing down, but I am hoping to add the ability to shoot in the space scene so that may help as well if you can break asteroids/debris.
That's a good idea with the furniture too. I'm going to try to see if I can make it so pressing something like 'select' or 'B' just pushes the furniture without opening a menu. I'll have to see if that's possible in the engine but I think I can probably make it work. Unfortunately I can only have up to 10 actors on scene at one time so while I originally wanted to do inventory tetris I ended up having to scrap the idea with the limitation. There may be a complicated way to do it with background tiles instead but it would have taken more time to figure out than the week.
I'll look at the cargo dialogue too. I probably could make it a little more straight forward and obvious that you are about to leave. I struggled a bit with figuring out how to word it so I'll just have to tweak it some more.
There's a lot in this game, I like the concept. The art and music are great; some sound effects for interactions etc. would be a welcome addition. The gameplay loop is solid, but I found the individual activities to be a little dry, often consisting mostly of menu navigation. I wasn't sure of the purpose of moving the furniture around, but it's cool that you can do it. And you can't beat the GB soul of this. Nice work overall!
Thanks, I'm glad you liked the concept! I wasn't able to figure out sound effects in time but I definitely agree that it would be a huge addition. I'm working on a post-jam update as well as planning to finish this game, so I'll try to get some sound effects in for the post-jam update.
The menus are a bit... overbearing for sure. Some of it is inherit in trying to make cargo management work in GB Studio but I also asked questions a few too many times. I've streamlined the cargo menu a bit for the post jam update so hopefully that helps a bit too. I'm planning to expand the furniture system too so you can purchase new furniture and customize the interior a bit more. It was mostly a proof of concept that I included.
This is extremely cool! The tutorial was a bit long for me, but you really nailed the retro/GB feeling. I like the music and gameplay very much. I like that this game has a lot to offer in terms of various mechanics. I'm impressed that you were able to do it in only 10 days. Good job!
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! Sorry about the tutorial, it is a bit long. There is a lot to cover in it so that doesn't help. There is probably a way I can try to break it up and spread it throughout the gameplay a bit more. I'll have to think on that a bit.
It's impressive that you managed to get so many systems working on such a short dev time (space trading, cargo management, flying). Very solid entry, congrats!
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. I was worried I was trying to do a little too much with the time and possibly with the furniture system that was the case. But I really wanted to get both the cargo management/trading system and the space scene working. It helped that Robert Doman and Pixel Pete have made such great tutorials, and that GB Studio is very straight forward. Wouldn't have been able to pull it off if not for that.
Nice to see more gb studio games here! Maybe you should reduce the time of the space travel a bit, at certain point I though it wouldnt finish. Nice game!
Thanks! I'll definitely look into the travel time. I've been trying to optimize the scene because there is a fair amount of lag still which makes the travel time longer than intended. I'm going to try to find a good time that is long enough but doesn't make you wonder if it's ever going to end haha.
Nice to see more gb studio games here! Maybe you should reduce the time of the space travel a bit, at certain point I though it wouldnt finish. Nice game!
This is a very impressive entry and concept. I think the character designs are especially charming. The music can be rough at points (although it is quite competent).
My main criticism is that everything takes a long time to do for how simple it is. I think the actual meat-and-potatoes cargo loading gameplay could be a bit quicker.
All-in-all, great work!
Thanks! I appreciate the feedback on the music, I would definitely agree on that. It was my first time making music ever so I struggled with trying to avoid being repetitive but I wasn't exactly happy with transitioning from one beat to the next.
Good point on the cargo gameplay! Partially because I added too many options. Maybe I could add one central spot to load all 12 spots from too.
This one is a little bit different. Liked it, I'm impressed with amount of art this game has, nice job. How did you manage to do so much art?
Thanks! I'm glad you liked the art, I was trying to hit the nostalgia-vibes of old school pokemon games. For how I got it all done in the time, not honestly sure exactly. I got practice using my drawing tablet and aseprite during my last game jam so that helped a bit. Since I was using GB Studio as well, the sprites were limited to 16x16 too so that prevented me from getting too complicated. All of the characters are built off the same base so that did save time for getting the four different character varieties out there. So I think probably a mix of all of the above.
Really enjoyed this game. The concept is great. I did have issues with the prices never going up and felt like I couldn't finish, but with some more time that kind of stuff could be balanced out and maybe adding a way to go to more destinations (also actually having to buy cargo would make decision making more interesting on what to load).
I'm glad you liked it! I'm planning to work on this one a bit more over the next few months and adding one or two more destinations is definitely something I'm planning to do. The prices not going up can be a bit tricky, and it probably doesn't help that I don't fully explain it.
Each station has preferred goods and so the price is more likely to rise on those versus the ones that aren't. However, when you deliver goods the price only goes down. So if you deliver a mix cargo of the top 3 items, there is a chance those 3 will all go down and the bottom two won't go up. I probably made the variable prices a little too complex honestly.
oh, I forgot to ask, since you built in gb studio, can you upload a .pocket file?
There's so much to love about this game! The balancing your ship is a fun and innovative idea, and avoiding the asteroids and space junk is a sometimes very hard! One question I have, is how do I know which station I'm at? I assumed I started at one, and we fly back and forth but I wasn't completely sure until the prices had changed. Overall, very impressive for the time limit, I loved it!
Oh man, it's always the simplest things you forget isn't it haha. Originally, I planned to have a third location that you could select when you talk to the dockworker which would help with telling where you are going to. But when I scrapped that I didn't think about adding something to make it clear what you're current location is. I think what I'll do is add a pinned label actor that will pop up briefly when you enter the station map saying which station you are in.
Thanks for the playing and the feedback! I'm glad you liked it.
Loved it!
Yes, that's a good idea!
Truckers 4 life
Stellar take on the jam theme! Even with the theme aside, it's a captivating gameplay concept.
Thanks! It's good to hear the gameplay can stand on its own outside the theme too.
This game is an interesting take on the space theme. I like the idea a lot!
Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked the concept. Originally I was just thinking of sci-fi games but trying to think outside the box with what space means I think really led to something a bit more fun and unique.