The First Wave
Probe intercepted. Contents: a gold disc. Revealed: a planet in a distant galaxy. Your mission is to reach it. You are the first wave.
Ver 1.5 | Post Jam (Game-Off 2020)
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Gameplay
Best experienced in full screen!
- Pick and train recruits, each with their own perks and flaws
- Stop by different planets on your mission to reach Earth. Some are barren rocks, others are teeming with wildlife.
- On planets with sentient life, develop and execute plans of action as a means to get what you need.
- Fight enemy spaceships, and master combat that involves three elements
- Upgrade your crew and ship with research to build toward a specific playstyle
- Mine metals from asteroids and hunt animals to collect biomass
- Discover up to 5 endings in your encounters with the human race
Quick Look
- Build a unique crew. Research and adapt to your playstyle
- Command your crew in gathering excursions
- Control your ship's weapon systems
Controls
- WAD - Turn
- Right Mouse Button - Zoom
- H - Help / Pause
Credits
We are MergeConflict Studios.
- Red Nur - Code, Music, 2D Art
- Carlos Fernandez - 3D Art, Sound FX
Development log
- 1.5 is here!Dec 23, 2020
- Big Improvements for v1.5Dec 14, 2020
- Game Jam Blues and Looking to the FutureDec 08, 2020
Comments
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Is there a way to download this? I am using Brave browser and it won't load...
estaria bien en version VR.
The entire concept was so well executed, the interface and icons were very intuitive and appealing. The sound design and little visual cues like changes in color and sparks after traveling made it more immersive. The tutorial info was concise, the variety in controls, the inclusion of mining and hunting, I have not a single complaint. Not only was it instantly engaging, it's the kind of game that can aid in learning and development.
The only thing I wasn't sure about was if there's anything that can be done for crew once they're injured and how modifying weapons/shield/etc with the lasers and such work together to affect the amount of damage you take and receive, but I was also too distracted by fun to really think about it on the fly. Question: Do military skulls represent how many ships you have to defeat? Anyway, wonderful job, really wish you'd ranked even higher. Much success to you on future games!
Wow this was so cool! It took a bit to figure out how to use things and what to do, but once I got into the swing of it, I really enjoyed it! It's a lot of strategy and you have to figure out what the best move is. I died the second time doing the wolf constellation though, haha!
You can really see the amount of effort and work put into this, especially in the character's weaknesses and strengths, and then once you survive you can save one of them to keep?!!?! That's such a cool aspect that really takes the cake.
Love it! I'll try again some other time to beat the hard constellations!
Hi MuffinCat! Glad you enjoyed the game and thanks for the kind words :)
Very interesting! Hands down, my favorite aspect of the game is pressing all the buttons and moving dials and things. This game reminds me of when I was a kid and would line up calculators on a desk and pretend they were buttons in a spaceship. You definitely nailed the spaceship cockpit aspect of the game. And I love that hex numpad -- now I wish I had a calculator that looked like that! Everything looks cool and the way the (nuke?) button animated was very satisfying. The sound effects for all the buttons was excellent too.
As fun as it was to press buttons, even after looking at the Help page and other clues I still couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do. If it weren't for the high production values I probably would have given up after the first try or two. But I did end up restarting the game about 3-4 times to play around with it some more.
The info/ability screen may be the most problematic. On the one hand, it is fun to press the buttons, but I could see having to press the buttons all the time to navigate the menu getting tedious very fast. Sure, you could just enable a mouse-select feature, but that would take away from the immersion.
I see massive potential in this game so I'll definitely be giving you a follow to see if there are further updates or future games you're making.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback 40wattstudio! We completely agree with you that the game's controls and mechanics aren't obvious to new players. We only realized that after submitting our game to the jam. We are currently working on redesigning the UI and making a short tutorial sequence to slowly and naturally introduce the player to all the mechanics and controls.
We also think this game has potential so we're going to continue working on it and make it the best game we can. We are adding new systems to improve replayability, new soundtracks, more intuitive control schemes, and much more.
Thanks for playing and for the kind words!
the same feeling as 40wattstudio, I have tried to follow with help and read texts to proceed but anyway stuck in someplace without understanding what I should do-click next(( It seems a short tutorial would be helpful.
Sorry about that ZeroToHero. We're releasing the post-jam version of the game this Tuesday (Dec 22nd) which addresses all of these issues. Hope you'll come back then and give the game another try. We've also added new mechanics and endings!
Seems like a very good game, but it wouldn't even load. I turned off my adblockers.
Hi GodlyAvenger! (cool name btw) Sorry you weren't able to play :( We've recently discovered that the game doesn't load on Chrome on MacOS Big Sur. Firefox seems to work better.
Could you let us know what browser and operating system you were using? It could help us discover the issue and fix it.
Hi. I checked back after some time to see it loaded. It just took a little while. I play on Microsoft Edge on Windows 10. Everything is fully updated (I don't know what version it is though). I tried to play it, but I kept forgetting the guidelines you wrote to prevent crashing. It seems like a great premise, but I will put it on the shelf until the bugs have been ironed out. Good job on creating a great game though!
Thanks for letting us know! The next update is planned for Dec 20th (when the game jam ends). All known bugs will be fixed so you should have a crash-free experience :)
Your controls are not very intuitive. The help messages are difficult to understand.
Example. Pushing the thrusters forward instead of pulling them back. It took me ~8 minutes to figure that out. Is it important to have a way that doesn't work? Maybe put that in the help.
Also, getting to the radar portion of the screen is super difficult (I still can't get there_. The help function should guide you step by step, not just tell you vague ideas. If I had better things to do, I would have left your game minutes ago due to difficulties in figuring out the controls. Which is a shame as your game looks interesting.
Hi Boopy2, we're really sorry about the confusion and the confusing controls :( This game was made for a game jam and we realized after the deadline that new players were having trouble understanding the controls. As the developers, we never even considered how unintuitive it would be for someone playing for the first time.
We are currently working on a short tutorial sequence and a UI rework to slowly teach the player all the controls and mechanics before throwing them into the full game loop. The game jam ratings end on the 20th and we're planning on updating the store page right after that. Hope you come back then and give the game another chance, there's a lot of interesting gameplay and strategic options to explore.
This game is absolutely amazing. I love the sound design and looks of the game. One of my favorite games on itch.io.
Thank you so much for the compliment Moist Grimm! It really means a lot to us! Glad you had fun playing. :)
It doesn't load on my PC
Hi odpadlik! The game won't load if you have adblocker or popup blockers enabled. We've also discovered recently that Unity WebGL doesn't always work on MacOS Big Sur. :(
This game was submitted to a game jam and is currently in the ratings phase so we can't change it right now. After the jam ends we will upload a Windows and a Mac build, and also fix the MacOS issue. Hope you come back and give it another try!
I let the tab open for a while and it works perfectly now.
I really want to download this game
Hi XDZ! This game was made for a game jam and it's currently in the rating phase. We can't provide downloadable builds right now but after the jam rating period ends we will provide downloadable builds for Windows and Mac. Thanks for checking the game out!
Great game, I recommend a more powerful and modern computer because the game crashed my computer on my first playthrough, but overall it is a great game, I would love more updates.
Super immersive. Looks good. Very impressed.
Thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it.
Impressive! Hard to get at the beginning but I really like the concept.
Art and controls are nice
Thanks for the kind words! We'll consider doing a tutorial sequence at the start