Tiny Cosmos
Tiny Cosmos is here! Space Trucking in 8 bit style, with procedurally generated levels.
What you see above is a demo of Tiny Cosmos' Long Haul mode, where you attempt to get as far as you can on a single never-ending stage. Each time you reach the truck stop, the next one will be a bit farther.
Created for the Minimalist Game Jam 3 by Cliff Coffee. All art, design, programming, music and other assets created week of the jam. It is my first actual game release and my first game jam! 2-3 colors per sprite 10 colors for the whole game. Built with Aseprite, Jeskola Buzz, and Unity.
Note: The windows version is updated with bug fixes and includes ship upgrades, reduced cargo damage.
NOTE: Press SHIFT if using Keyboard or A Button on joystick to "PRESS START"
Tiny Cosmos is a simple and fast paced trucking / hauling game in space where just about everything is out to get you. You are not armed with missiles and guns like one would expect from a side-scrolling space game, instead you must evade and escape enemies and make it through without damaging your cargo too much. Your cargo itself holds weight and sways as you maneuver, as it is entirely physics driven.
Using your shield or boosting uses Power, which regenerates over time. In the current game demo build you can have 2 maximum power (+1 full regen gauge) and 4 maximum health.
Game Modes
- Career Mode - Make your mark in the galaxy as the most reliable Space Logistics company! Choose your ship, buy and sell cargo to space ports, undertake missions and contracts, upgrade your ship, and establish new routes.
- Time Trials - Compete with other haulers for the fastest times through some of the galaxy's most noteworthy and dangerous stages. These stages are not procedurally generated and ships are preset to create a level playing field for players to compete against one another for placement on the leaderboards.
- Long Haul (Survival) - This is the game mode demo'ed on this page. Get as far as you can with just basic upgrades and refueling in a stage filled with hacked military space station turrets, aliens, and asteroids. How far can you get, and how fast can you get there?
New Features in Development
Navigation Maps
Traveling between different systems, you'll get to choose the route you take. Each destination has its own features that effect what you encounter along the way. These are indicated on the map by the icons floating above the map nodes. If you backtrack through a route, you'll basically be running the stage in reverse, with some variations.
Screenshots
Download
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Comments
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It was a fun "go as far as you can" space flight. I liked the attention to detail, especially in the interesting level design. Sometimes when encountering enemies or those asteroids, you kinda wished you had a weapon, but you just have to stay alert and keep dodging. When having a whole keyboard, I guess it could be nice to have more options for the action keys, although I personally found the controls very usable when using the arrow keys for steering.
We are holding a game-making contest and your game could potentially do well in the jam games category!
The idea of collecting the cargo whilst dodging space structures is cool and it's combined with some pretty nice art and color schemes. However, mechanically, it's still a little too flawed to really be enjoyable. Not to say it's bad, I still played for a fair few rounds so there's clearly compelling elements, I think there's just a couple of elements that need tweaking and then it'll really be fun. I hope this feedback can help to improve it if you continue to improve it post-jam.
Firstly, the keyboard controls are very awkward. I'm guessing the intention was to use right shift rather than left but only left worked for me so it was only really possibly to play with one hand without the controller. You could still keep this control scheme in addition to having the arrow keys + z and x as an alternative. Also, having space be start when space isn't used in any other way was a little confusing, particularly when telling me to press start.
Secondly is the core mechanics, more specifically, the boost and the shield. From what I can tell, the boost and shield use up the same power, but where the boost can maybe get you out of danger if you're lucky, the shield completely makes you invincible?! That isn't really a tough choice. The boost also wasn't fun to use, I had very little control over it and it lasts quite a while, so considering this uses up my power I really didn't ever want to use it. I think if the boost was more short, quick and snappy it might be better, perhaps if it could also break rocks or something? Though having it drain what could otherwise be a shield is still too much.
Few other random points:
Cargo seemed to randomly disappear one time in a straight and safe corridor.
*and again when I was sure there was no threat, not even a wall in sight!
Turrets blend in way too much.
Any bit with timing felt awkward to me, possibly due to the slow versatility of the boost.
That's the main points of criticism I can think of for now. I hope this helps, good luck with any future development!
Its my first game so thanks for the feedback! Particularly on the control, for me it is comfy to use shift with one hand, but that is just me! I should open the controls up more for different size hands and keyboards (gamepad is best xp for this one I think)
So you know where I'm coming from on the boost / shield. I am trying to make the boost feel as uncomfortably fast as possible and necessary to use without being completely impossible. Like nitrous in a car - no going back once you've fired it - and hold on tight! It doesn't shine through quite enough in this prototype version yet - but you'll want to finish fast as you can to score points. Basically hitting the target time means a lot, and if you go to slow you'll get overtaken. The shield activation time will be quickened so it requires you to press the button closer to impact, more as a last second block. Interesting to hear your take though, I personally only use the shield sparingly and found the boosting's unwieldiness to be so fun to warrant making a game out of it.
Cargo - You are definitely right, it doesn't have a damage cooldown so collision damage can damage it a bit too quickly. There is damage to cargo pods based on velocity but I think it is seeing the sheer/perpendicular friction force of the wall the same as impact force. Cargo pods will be made more plentiful too.
Turrets - totally right, they do break the RED = baddie rule and will get some red on them to define this.