[rotten_tater]

Super Space Rogues
1st Prize winner of GameJolt's Rogue Competition

A game by
Ted Lauterbach (rotten_tater)
featuring Music by
Heatex



More Images
- -

DIRECT DOWNLOAD
[13 mb]

Visit Super Space Rogue at GameJolt


CONTROLS

WADS or ARROW KEYS-------------- Move
Right Click -------------------- Switch between Navigation and Combat Modes
Left Click [in Nav Mode] ------- Interact
Left Click [in Combat Mode] ---- Fire


INFORMATION
Journey through space in search of $50,000 to pay off your debt to an angry space overlord. Super Space Rogues spans across two randomly generated solar systems for you to collect minerals, defeat pirates, and buy upgrades.


'INTERESTING' FACTS
Super Space Rogues was inspired by a plethora of different games and Scifi themes, and was blasted together in a little under 2 weeks for GameJolt's Rogue Competition. It is my first development effort using Game Maker 8, although I have been using Game Maker since version 4 point something or other. I decided to go full thrust with that nifty 'new' alpha transparency capability. The game has also gotten first place in the competition it was made for!

Inspirations
Bosconian
I've been playing this game for a long time, and I always loved its simplicity in multi-directional combat. The way enemy ships move in Super Space Rogues was inspired by Bosconian, although there isn't much resemblance between the two. A working title for Super Space Rogues was 'Vosconian'.

Transdimensional Hellspider
In Transdimensional Hellspider, you have a circular mode of navigation, and I thought it was brilliant. I'm not sure that Transdimensional Hellspider was the first game to use this interesting movement mechanic, but it was definitely the one that inspired me to use such a system in Super Space Rogues.

Callisto
This has been one of the largest inspirations for me in game development for a VERY long time. Callisto is a now abandoned Game Maker WIP developed by Conman that was meant to be a large scale Real Time Strategy space simulation, where the player has the ability to claim planets to mine for resources and wage war. The demo that he has provided demonstrates his great vision with stunning images of planets, suns, and nebulae placed in a procedurally generated GALAXY. It's one of the WIPs in the community that simply captivates me.

Star Wars
It is no secret. Jabbot is just a reinterpretation of Jabba the Hutt. Klyde and Duke are essentially Han Solo, as they had to give up their cargo to save themselves.

Spore
You might have thought that the way they used their procedural generation might have inspired me, but Spore's planets were the source of my own planets. In Spore, planets always were two vibrantly contrasting colors to represent their land mass against their watered portions. I used a similar technique to draw planets of my own (with a small Tablet).




Contact
I hope that this was as much for you to play as it was for me to make! And as always, please post any comments or criticisms you may have with the game here in the forum!

Ted Lauterbach
rotten_tater
ted.lauterbach@gmail.com

This post has been edited by rotten_tater: 01 February 2010 - 03:17 PM

[Dannerz]

Looks to me like a decent game.

edit : Oh i just noticed that there's a map over you if you right click and are in detection mode.
I'll play more then comment more.

edit more:
Ok i beat the game now. I think it was a great game. I rate 9/10.

This post has been edited by Dannerz: 30 January 2010 - 02:55 AM

[Kain12309]

Very fun. I'm curious as to why there aren't more posts in this thread. The one above my own does not accurately describe the greatness of this game.

Good graphics, gameplay, and engine. I only wish the game was longer, with a saving feature added in. It's not really story-oriented, but that didn't seem to bother me. Rarely do I play games other than RPG's for the storyline, anyway. The abrupt ending was rather dull, though.

Great job on this game, sir.

[rotten_tater]

Kain12309, on Jan 30 2010, 12:44 AM, said:

Very fun. I'm curious as to why there aren't more posts in this thread. The one above my own does not accurately describe the greatness of this game.

Good graphics, gameplay, and engine. I only wish the game was longer, with a saving feature added in. It's not really story-oriented, but that didn't seem to bother me. Rarely do I play games other than RPG's for the storyline, anyway. The abrupt ending was rather dull, though.

Great job on this game, sir.

Yeah, unfortunately, it is rather short, but I'm attributing that to the fact that I only had 2 weeks to work on it. I'm considering expanding it, but that'll depend on whether or not it's worth taking to the next level. The ending was lousy too in my eyes, mostly for the same reason that it was short.

Does anyone else have some ideas about things they'd like to see in an expanded version, or does everyone think that it can stand well on its own?

Thank you Kain and Dannerz for your posts!

[Dannerz]

Quote

Does anyone else have some ideas about things they'd like to see in an expanded version, or does everyone think that it can stand well on its own?

Thank you Kain and Dannerz for your posts!

I rated it 9/10 because i felt you could have added more stuff to the game.
I would have rated it 10/10 if there was more powerups, enemies and objects in the game.

If you're asking for ideas i'll try to come up with some:

Alien larve in space, blow up eggs and peupa stages of the aliens before they hatch into winged enemies.

Can buy missiles at the shop, missiles are limited ammo that you have to buy, but they do spread damage.

Add an item that mines resources out of planets maybe.

Can save progress at shops for a price maybe.

After you pay off your debt to the lord, there should be a new objective.
Becoming rich enough to buy your own planet or something like that.

Metalic asteroids that have more armor but are worth more money.

Super rare gem and gold asteroids.

Ice astroids that are easy to kill but have no value.

Multiple guns that you can switch between:
Homing shot,
Penetration laser,
Shot gun,
Shockwave gun,
etc.

I will rest my head until later if you want more ideas, hopefully 1 or 2 were good ideas.

[rotten_tater]

Thank you for such an in depth set of ideas, Dannerz!

And for anyone else who's interested, Super Space Rogues just won first place in the competition!

[Dannerz]

I think it's great that you won.

[SunnyKatt]

Featured on YYG. Great job.

You already heard my two complaints.

[Outlawimpy]

Just got done playing, although I opted for screw em and regretted it shortly thereafter....

Great game. I'd love to see it expanded.

[Apocalyptica]

Great game, amazing for being made in <2 weeks.

The only thing was that it was too easy to get all the powerups, maybe increase the prices a bit or something.
Also you should give the player the chance to continue playing after defeating Jabbot, and maybe add more weapons and upgrades. Perhaps you could add a continue feature for newbies?

Overall I'd say 8/10. I'd love to see this become a full-er game now that you've won the competition.

This post has been edited by Apocalyptica: 08 February 2010 - 01:23 AM

[Keiferr]

Very sick game. I couldn't figure out what was going on at first, and got lost immediately, but once I learned the navigation system it was pretty great.

9/10.

[FragmentedVortex]

I think this is an awesome game!!! I am in the process of making my own game, quite similar to yours, and this game just stunned me. Part of me is thinking 'There is no way my game could get anywhere near this good'. The other part of me is thinking 'This game is amazing and I hope mine is good too'.

Either way, VastSpace is going to be a series of space-related games set in the same universe with the same technology, and I'm starting with the 'free-roam', 'asteroid-mining' kind of genre. Then I'm going to make an RTS.

P.S: I am badly in need of graphics, and I'll need quite a lot. If anyone thinks they can help, PM me or email me at sck9000@gmail.com. As always, anyone who helps out gets a free copy and their name in the credits, and a splash screen if they help loads.

[ynspyred]

Incredible. You got this together in two weeks, and it won a competition? Amazing! I'm going to play it now, and will come back and 'report'.
PS: Someone needs a sig update!

EDIT:
My immediate thoughts after playing:

An odd control scheme, with everything rotating rather than the ship. You've made it work, though.
I like that effect with the background stars, giving a good illusion of speed. Like that effect in Star Wars when they jump to hyperspace.
Seems a rather small screen size. I often lament with space games that makers don't use larger screens with everything spread out. It's a good design aspect, if you ask me - gives the effect of empty space well, which is what space is.

On the whole, though, good job.

This post has been edited by ynspyred: 21 February 2010 - 06:13 PM

[illisid]

I loved this!

The execution was very smooth, which is the most important thing in any game, in my opinion. The graphics are great, the navigation system was really cool, and once you learned it it was very easy to use. Games like this get me addicted very easily, it reminded me of that flash game, motherlode.

It would be really cool if you added more... STUFF to the game. Dannerz's suggestions could be really cool. As is it stands as a complete game on its own. But it would be way too cool if there was more to it. Do you think you'll be adding anything?

[queviltai]

Amazing - I loved this game! Really fun. Although the fighting can get a little tedious.

[Tarik]

Excellent game, of course I regret the scale, length and polish but it is completely understandable in a competition with ugly deadlines. Great work, I really enjoyed myself!
Would love to use your idea to present far away objects in a circular zoomed out map overlay. Let me know if you don't like the idea of that!

Looking forward to your next game, keep it up!
- Tarik