Post Jam Version

If you'd like to see how this plays with some sound and a few improvements/tweaks, feel free to check out the post-jam version on itch.io. I'd like to make some more updates on it, we'll see how it goes!

COLONY COMMAND

If you've played the classic arcade game Missile Command, you've got the basic idea of how to play - watch out for incoming threats and take them out with your Defense Installations. Your Habitat Domes will grow as shuttles make deliveries, so do the best you can to protect them!

There is one resource - Energy - which is produced by the domes and used by the defense installations, firing missiles, building, and repairing. If you run out of energy or all your buildings are destroyed, your colony is lost.

Build new domes to expand production faster and more installations to have more firepower. Raise your colony's status from an Ordinary Outpost to a Sparkling Spacetropolis, defeat THE BOSS, and you win!


CONTROLS & INTERFACE

Unfortunately, the game lacks a tutorial, and as it is a sort of strategy game, I expect it to be pretty overwhelming for players dropped right into it. That video probably does a better job of explaining than any of this text, but here it is as well:

  • LEFT CLICK the lovely buttons in the lower right to switch between building Habitats, Installations, or Repair/Build mode. You may also use the keyboard shortcuts 1-3. (Waaaay faster, would recommend)

  • Toggle between whichever building mode you're in and shooting by Right Clicking

  • Shooting is pretty self explanatory. Click and your missile will go to where you clicked.

  • F to toggle full screen. BUG - the game does not scale to less than 1080p or to other aspect ratios than 16 x 9 My apologies, old monitor users!

  • ESC to quit.

  • R to restart the game entirely.

  • D if you feel adventurous and want to see what my crazy, messy debug mode is like.

KNOWN ISSUES & OTHER SLEEP-DEPRIVED THOUGHTS

Actually I hope there aren't too many huge gameplay problems. If there's anything game-breaking, please let me know! There are some balancing issues, but hopefully it errs on the side of too easy rather than too hard. An "ideal" play-through (i.e., no buildings damaged or destroyed) takes around 4-5 minutes to play.

Otherwise, once you get to the halfway point you will see how I ran out of time to do art. (Would you believe that everything that isn't 100% atrocious art was done in the last 2 hours? Because it was!) The lack of interface is a problem too but hopefully nothing important is missing...

And, the big one, no sound at all. That really annoys me this time because I had plans for a lot of cool audio/presentation stuff. But, since I spent all my time flailing about trying to get the gameplay functional...that all got left out.

I had fun as usual doing this, but it does get frustrating how my ability does not expand to meet my visions, haha. SCOPE, I need to learn it. Instead I spend all my time trying to fix the type of mistakes that were made on the last project. E.g. my last GM48 had kind of iffy gameplay and extremely poor (as in, none) background art...so I made sure to try and prioritize that this time. It's still not great, but..

Anyway, I hope people that try it are able to have fun with it!

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  • Ivanbje
    Patron

    Took me a few tries to beat, in the end I just went with 3 turrets and then as many domes as I can build. Sprayed bullets and replaced the domes that got destroyed. Was fun though, my main gripe would be the sounds, it's hard to get engaged with a game without sound, just some simple sound effects would've gone a long way. Looks pretty, had fun, great job!

    • kris24
      Patron
      kris24 Developer of Colony Command

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for playing, especially to the end! Missing the sounds is my biggest regret; I added some to the post-jam one and it does add so much to even just have missiles firing/explosions. And it really never actually takes that long to make a few sounds and add them in GM.

      Upon reflection I think wasted too much time figuring out pathfinding for the shuttles, I should have taken some of that time toward sound.

  • Zen00
    Lv. 15

    Was doing alright, but eventually...

    local variable basePoints(100003, -2147483648) not set before reading it. at gml_Object_o_game_Draw_64

    • kris24
      Patron
      kris24 Developer of Colony Command

      4yrs ago

      Wow you got really unlucky there - took me a bit of digging but I think your city must have been worth exactly 2000 points and since I accidentally left off the = on a conditional it crashed trying to display the level progress bar. Sorry about that!

      I've been working on an improved version with sounds and such...I'll make sure to fix it there, thanks for letting me know!

  • Tydecon Games
    Patron

    This reminds me of an old atari game where you have to fire weapons at incoming threats, a good concept and it's great to see it relived in this game, great job!

    • kris24
      Patron
      kris24 Developer of Colony Command

      4yrs ago

      Missile Command was definitely a huge influence for this! I thought a "simple" arcade game would be easier to code (ha!) Thanks for playing!

  • Elliot
    Lv. 2

    Was a good time! Not sure if it was just me but it seemed like there were no sounds? Otherwise i really enjoyed it.

    • kris24
      Patron
      kris24 Developer of Colony Command

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for playing! Yes, unfortunately there are no sounds yet - The time I had planned to use for sounds got taken up by fixing some game-breaking problems. Oh well!

  • TibiSoft
    Lv. 4

    Hey, that was great! :) I was fighting like a hell and the boss fight was epic. Those red-white bombs destroyed my buildings many times... :) I had to learn to switch from buliding mode to shoot mode immediately when bombs were coming. I was wondering how the big bulidings were damaged... looked good. My overall impression is great!

  • Chris
    Patron

    Great game, I liked the little spaceships flying from city to city. The artwork was nice and the boss battle was a nice touch. Sound effects would be a great addition. by the way "SFXR" is a simple sound effect tool that was made just for gamejams, I bet a lot of people on here use it

    • kris24
      Patron
      kris24 Developer of Colony Command

      4yrs ago

      Thanks! I had time set aside for sound effects (it's one of my favorite parts to do, to be honest) but then I had to fix a few game-breaking problems and so didn't get to it. Glad you like the shuttles; that was also kind of a last minute change but I feel like it adds a lot of life to the little world!

  • Team Seguin
    Lv. 2

    Fun! I liked the way the cities built themselves as you defended them. :)

    • kris24
      Patron
      kris24 Developer of Colony Command

      4yrs ago

      Thanks for playing! That was my concept and I'm happy it turned out as well as it did. Would definitely like to finish it with sound and art, I've done a little work on the post-jam version but we'll see how far I can get.

  • Big Gay Dinosaur
    Lv. 3

    i love it. the building and shooting and stuff is fun, there isn't much for sound and music but it's cool

    • kris24
      Patron
      kris24 Developer of Colony Command

      4yrs ago

      Thanks! Yes, missing sound & music is a big disappointment for this one - especially since it's a part I like to do a lot. I know that will hurt my rating quite a bit. But my time got taken up trying to get the gameplay working more how I wanted it.