Moontest: Moon Habitat Simulator
Introduction
You are a prospector on a newly discovered moon.
Your habitat has been constructed and your mining systems are operational.
As a resident engineer, you must manage life support systems and
mining equipment to ensure your income is adequate for survival.
Expenses are deducted from your balance at regular intervals.
The amount deducted increases as time goes on, increasing the
difficulty of the game the longer you play.
Moontest is playable in both single player and multiplayer game modes.
Click here to watch a gameplay video.
Gameplay
This is your nuclear reactor, the power source for your habitat.
Left click the reactor to turn it on or off. If the reactor is overloaded
or you turn it off, all of your equipment will have to be manually restarted.
This is your gravity generator. Without it, other machines become unstable.
Left click the generator to turn it on or off. Right click to adjust the intensity.
The gravity gravity generator's power consumption is dependent on the intensity.
Lower values allow you to divert power elsewhere. Higher values provide more stability.
Any value over 100 will also cause your machines to become unstable.
The formula used to calculate gravity's effect on machine stability is below.
if gravity_on() and generated_gravity > 100 then --intensity is too high
stability = 92 - (generated_gravity - 100) --stability is reduced
else
stability = 8 + (gravity_on() * (generated_gravity - 16)) --stability is increased
end
if stability > 92 then stability = 92 end --stability limit
if math.random(0, 100) > stability then something_fails() end --failures occur
This is your oxygen generator. Without it, you cannot survive. Left click the
generator to turn it on or off. Right click the generator to adjust it's output.
The oxygen generator's power consumption is dependent on it's output.
Lower values allow you to divert power elsewhere. Higher values provide more safety.
Extremely high oxygen output settings can be dangerous.
This is your hvac system. Without it, you cannot survive. Left click the
box on top to turn it on or off. Right click the box to adjust the thermostat.
The hvac system's power consumption is dependent on the thermostat setting.
Lower values allow you to divert power elsewhere. Higher values provide more safety.
Extremely high thermostat settings can be dangerous.
This is your mining drill; your primary source of passive income.
Left click the drill to turn it on or off. Right click to adjust it's speed.
The drill's power consumption is dependent on the speed setting. Be careful
about increasing this without adjusting the speed of your coolant pump.
If not, you will experience greater fluctuations in power consumption and
may overload your reactor.
This is your coolant system. This prevents the mining drill from overloading the reactor.
Left click the coolant pump to turn it on or off. Right click the pump to adjust it's speed.
The coolant system's power consumption is dependent on the pump speed.
The speed setting should be set with reference to the drill's speed setting.
The formula used to calculate the pump's effect on the drill is below.
resistance = math.random(drill_speed * 2, drill_speed * 3) --the resistance
digging = drill_speed + resistance --the amount of ore mined
cooling = pump_is_on * pump_speed * 3 --cooling provided
if cooling > resistance * 0.9 then cooling = resistance * 0.9 end --cooling limit
drill_power = digging - cooling --the power consumption of the drill
money = money + digging --the amount of money earned from the ore
This is your space food vending machine. Without it, you cannot survive.
Restocking fees are a part of your regular expenses. Left click to buy food.
Left click with the food in your hand to eat it. Space food replenishes your
hunger if you are hungry and heals you if you are full.
These are your sleeping quarters. Without sleep, you will eventually die.
Keep an eye on your energy level and when you need to sleep, left click the
middle of the bottom bunk on one of the bunk beds. You will sleep until your
energy is full then you will be moved to the lobby of the space habitat.
This is your research station. Here, you can conduct research on organic matter
'harvested' on the moon's surface. Organic matter is worth $10 each early in the game.
This value increase each time you process research data. The limit is $50.
To conduct research, left click the research station while holding the organic matter.
Has potential
After playing it a few times I can see where it can become quite overwhelming.
While there isn't any tutorial one could after some time figure out that while the reactor isn't overloaded increase your drills speed so you keep making profit while the game keeps increasing expenses.
I have found a few issues which might cause critical issues in-game:
Now for the positives or things that could be added in the future:
Interesting concept
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written by a PARTICIPANT of the Game Jam.
The game seems complex at first but as soon you figure out how each of the machine actually works, it actually turns out to be mostly a "numbers managing game", and you just have to find the best values for each machine and then a strategy on how you manage repairs. What makes this game tricky to win is that your expenses constantly go up and there is no way to stop it. So if you take too long before making a serious profit, you are doomed to lose. The GUI has a few bugs for me, the text is "overbleeding" for some reason, and I use default fonts. But fonts are kind of a mess in Minetest anyway, unfortunately. Until Minetest has better font handling, I don't punish the game rating for it. I appreciate the in-game help, although those highly technical formulas ... ooff! Considering this is a game jam submission and the game jam theme is "small game", I therefore give a thumbs up.
For those who are interested, here is my winning strategy: Immediately buy 50 food (should be enough for the whole game), set HVAC and heating to 15, set cooler to 300, set drill to 300, keep airlock closed, then go to gravity generator and WAIT. When energy is lower than 50 and nothing needs to be fixed, sleep. If the gravity generator breaks, you can instantly fix it because you're already standing there (the gravity generator is very important, if it breaks, other machines will soon follow). If the cooler breaks, RUN and fix it asap to prevent a full breakdown. For other machine breakdowns, you can just walk. If you don't have anything else to do, wait in front of the gravity machine to insta-fix it in case of breakdown. This setup seems to be most stable.
Overall: Good
I have yet to beat this, even when I abandon oxygen and HVAC I can't get enough moeny before things start going downhill. A little balancing is probably needed.
The models are very detailed, did you do them yourself?
Great work! I didn't test multiplayer but that would be an interesting direction to take this in
Improvements needed and my rating for this game
The rating is not final! The idea i found the best of all submissions and the similarst to a game jam game concept from me but I would give a bad rating because: * As i spawned first i fell trough the nodes and i wasn't at space station. If i used /teleport 0 0 0 * As i spawned secound i lost without reasson hearts * As i spawned third i was attacked by mobs
But then i created a secound world and: * I had only 13 fps :( * Only the power generator failed not if it was on * I had under 50 oxygen, hunger and temperature and i begin to dying
The textures had high resolution but was the really from you? Normal i play minetest without sound so that i can't sayif the sounds are good.
Summary: I would glady give it a good rating but it must first improved. If i would have 6% of the rating i would give the poits like this: * Idea 1/1 --The best i dea in Jam * Media 1.5/2 --high resolution and for the models much effort but some things did not fit together * Play 0.5/3 --catastrophic but a half point that you have it implemented * Total 3/6 so it is hard to say if i would it recommend. But the play and idea are the most important and there you had not egnough points for a good rating. But for game Jame this rating is neutral
Edit: This is the game that has had the most effort put into it (of all the ones I've seen so far), so it should really get a good rating. I will test the game again next week and re-evaluate it. By then I should have a better computer so the rating is not final!
Tutorial reset my progress
The game is not very easy to follow, and not in a good (nodecore) way.
I went into the tutorial and there was no clear way to bring back the tutorial screen, so i had no idea what to do most of the time.
Eventually, i figured it out and get a nice base going. I was mining rare metals and getting ready to terraform. I set up reactor power-ups and then i increased the coolant speed to get drills going faster, which advanced me in the tutorial. I did the next step and then completed the tutorial.
And just like that, all my progress was gone! The map was cleared, and there went my auto-restarters, my reactor power-ups, my research machines, my power generatiors, my rockets, my stuff!
This game should be improved; the tutorials could be made easier to follow and you should be able to bring back the help screen. And why do you clear my progress after the tutorial? It just seems malicous! No other popular game does this!
And i don't care about how great the game mechanics, the machinery, the progress, and all the other good stuf if i can't even keep what i earn, so that's why i am giving a negative review.
Good game
This sort of speculative fiction is interesting to think about as NASA plans to return to our own Moon soon. On other notes, the sound effects are good, and the gameplay gives a nice challenge.
nice survival game
It takes a little time to figure stuff and is challenging to not die. I wish it had a nice sky and moon landscape.
Challenging Game
The first time my brother and I played this game, we spawned in the outside area and was getting attacked by aliens. I had no idea what to do and died fairly quickly, respawning inside the base this time. Despite working as a team of 2, we lost several games, and we couldn’t really figure out what the strategy is? We eventually gave up, but we might play again later (especially if there was a public server so we could have larger teams).
I would recommend this game if you like a challenge. Maybe you can succeed where we failed.
Complex game with no instructions
The game experience had started quite nice with a custom main menu and a BGM, but I then found myself lost into too many inputs with no instructions whatsoever. It feels very "developer"-oriented, with a lot of written parameters on the screen (some of them can be easily converted into icons, like the hunger, maybe placed near the health). I know there are instructions here on CDB, but players are not expected to check out a manual before playing: the game should be able to explain itself to them, whether it is via tutorials, hints etc.
Also, the very first launch didn't work, I had to make another world, and I'm personally not a fan of round objects in voxel worlds. Having cuboids for most of the objects would make the game way more lightweight (it took a lot to download compared to other games) and possibly nicer
Incompatible and broken
This game is just insane to be downloaded but, good for playing.But why broken?? Then listen when you download it on your device and play it if it is not high functioning. The game will load only once and and soon the loading page will turn black and if you play the default minetest the time will be always set to day.Then it also affects the background and gameplay of other games,