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[Space_man]

You are a pilot on an interplanetary spaceship, and it's your job to dock it with various space stations.  This is no easy task, as you have to control the spaceship's speed in all directions as well as it's orientation in order to perfectly dock with the space station... without crashing.

The Compo version is finished now!



My friend Lelldorianx who did the music put together an awesome website for the game.  Check it out and download SpaceDocker 9000 here!
Website
Download

If the game doesn't work try installing this.


W,A,S,D - move up/left/down/right
UP and DOWN Arrow Keys - move forwards/backwards
LEFT and RIGHT Arrow Keys - rotate left/right



I'm making the game in C++ with SDL, unless I run out of time in which case I might switch over to Game Maker.
The game will include (hopefully):
-space stations of increasing difficulty ranging from a simple station to a huge rotating ring
-limited fuel
-various backgrounds
-awesome space music
-big explosions if you crash

Hopefully I'll actually finish this by the end of the competition(or at least get it to a playable state)

[Mikademus]

Please please "An der schönen blauen Donau" when docking!!! I will NOT accept "Sorry, Dave, can't do that!" for an answer!

[Traveller]

YAAAAAAAAAY.  I'm going to blow a lot of time playing this.  :D

[nunix]

This is fantastic.

[Space_man]

I've had some time to work on this the past few days now that I'm mostly done with midterms so I thought I'd post an update on the game.  Movement is now mostly implemented, and just needs a bit more tweaking.  Currently it lags if you zoom too close to the space station (I'm using rotozoom from SDL_gfx), but I'm working on trying to make it faster.

I also have a friend who is probably going to make some music for the game, so now I don't have to take it all from 2001: A Space Odyssey 
I'm going to try and have a demo with one space station ready in about a week or so, once I have some better graphics and I have everything working fairly smoothly, so get ready... for the MOST AMAZING 2D SPACE DOCKING SIMULATOR EVER! :D

I would post a screenshot, but at the moment the placeholder graphics are no better than that concept picture, and a lot of things are still missing.

[Space_man]

I've been working on this a ton the past week, the extension should help me get a lot more content done for it now that the main game is working.

Anyways, I now present you with a demo!
Download it here.
Space Docker 9000

If it doesn't work try installing this.

The graphics aren't final yet, and there's only one space station so far.  I'll try and have more space stations, music, backgrounds, a menu and fuel added in a week.

[Space_man]

The compo version's done, and now there is a rotating space station! (That took me all afternoon to get it to work properly  )
I also updated the graphics and added some more locations.

My friend Lelldorianx who did the music put together an awesome website for the game.  Go check it out and download SpaceDocker 9000!
Website
Download

This was my first complete game using SDL, so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  Try it, and tell me what you think!

[Fuzz]

The website says "downoad". :D

[Lelldorianx]

The website says "downoad". :D

False

Game's finished, site's finished - check it all out!  I understand Space reads here frequently, decided I'd pop in and say hi to those who are interested in SpaceDocker 9000.

Let us know your comments.

[Mikademus]

Ｉ　ｐｌａｙｅｄ　ｉｔ　a few times but never understood exactly where to dock. In the big centre block, or actually in the small nodule with the crosshairs next to said block?

[Lelldorianx]

Ｉ　ｐｌａｙｅｄ　ｉｔ　a few times but never understood exactly where to dock. In the big centre block, or actually in the small nodule with the crosshairs next to said block?

Try the readme... you need to line the crosshair up with the crosshair on the red platform.  The colors on the crosshair will match perfectly, the readme explains gameplay further.

[Space_man]

Ｉ　ｐｌａｙｅｄ　ｉｔ　a few times but never understood exactly where to dock. In the big centre block, or actually in the small nodule with the crosshairs next to said block?

I was going to make a tutorial level, which would have made things more obvious, but I ran out of time.  Maybe I'll add it later.  You have to line up the crosshairs with the target block, with the idea being that the spaceship's docking port is aligned with the big circular part.  If you're having trouble, make sure that you're facing the right direction and that you're not moving too fast in any direction.

[Lelldorianx]

You must be traveling below 1 m/s

[Lelldorianx]

I am very pleased to announce that we have had a 400% increase in SpaceDocker 9000 downloads in the past 24 hours.  Since so many of you are downloading it, perhaps a few more could give us your thoughts on improvement/successes? 

Thanks for playing our game!

Lell

[Will Vale]

I think you've got a pretty fun game there, manuevering strikes a nice balance between being responsive and being too easy, although a bit more feedback about safe docking speeds (speed towards the screen) would be nice.

At one point I started in front of a gas giant and couldn't see a station. Not sure if it was visible at the start and I looked away or something, but an indicator pointing in the direction of the target when offscreen would have helped.

The boppy tune is addictive, and despite being totally out of place (Blue Danube is pretty much mandatory) I found it went with the game quite well. Perhaps because you're playing the game slowly and carefully while listening to energetic music, so you have to separate thet two things in your head?

Will

[Space_man]

Glad you liked it.  The space station should always start on screen, though it's not perfect and can start right at the edge and move off immediately.  An indicator pointing towards it is one of the many things I never got around to adding, but I'll put one in when I have a chance to update.  I'll look into the safe docking speed issue as well, since a lot of people seem be having problems with that.

The boppy tune is addictive, and despite being totally out of place (Blue Danube is pretty much mandatory) I found it went with the game quite well.

Yeah, Blue Danube was the original plan, but my friend wanted to make some music for it so I decided it would be cool to go with something original instead.  I could add it in as well, but it would probably be pretty strange to have the game switching between two completely different types of music.

[Farbs]

I can't remember the last time I felt like I was flying a space ship. Thanks for bringing that feeling back 

[Cymon]

I liked it... generally. You have this whole 3D navigation thing down, and that's great. But then there's nothing much to do with it besides this one thing.

It's also too exacting. I got the direction lined up, the distance, and must have been just a little too off from the center and I crashed.

Also, when I press ENTER to try again the game crashes.

I'm curios to know what tools you used, IE what was this written in?

Taking that readme and putting it at the start of the game would have been better. No one reads readmes unless you put an intro screen that says "see the readme for more information."

[Space_man]

I made it in Visual Studio 2008 with C++ using SDL.

I agree with you that there isn't enough stuff making the game play interesting, that is mostly a result of the 3D movement taking a long time to get working the way I wanted it to since this was my first game using C++ and SDL.  If I have some time later I might try and add in things like fuel which will hopefully make it much more challenging and interesting.

I don't think you're position off of the center was a problem, as long as you're on the red target you should be fine.  I'm guessing it was the speed towards the space station, which needs to be less than 1 (I'll adjust that later as well since it seems to be a common problem).  As for the game crashing, that does happen sometimes (I haven't figured out the reason yet) but generally it tends to work.

[Fuzz]

No one reads readmes unless you put an intro screen that says "see the readme for more information."

It's disturbing that there are people who think this way. Whenever a readme is provided, I always think "oh, can't play the game until I read that".