Spinning Out of Control

Spinning Out of Control is a game as part of the GMTK Game Jam 2020, with the theme "Out of Control".

In SOoC, you attempt to control a spaceship without controlling the thrust direction: instead the thruster spins around your craft, and the spin speed changes every time you apply the thruster. To make things worse, there is no drag in space, so the spaceship will keep going until it hits something.

However, you might not want to rely on obstacles too much, because they exist under the same physics as your craft, and any momentum you lose will be transferred to the asteroids, but if you collide too hard, you might just break it.

Instructions:

Controls:

You can use mouse buttons or space to trigger the thrust.

R to restart the game.

Esc to quit.

Points:

You gain one point every time something breaks. 

You get 5 points when you break a super-dense, yet quite fragile rare asteroid, identifiable by its relative small size and distinctive markings. These respawn every time they break.

You even gain points if a runaway asteroid breaks something.

Health:

You start the game with two thrusters, and if you take a significant knock. you may lose one. If you lose that thruster, you explode. Sorry.

(Note: The thrusters are just health visualisations. They have no effect on the physics model)

Power-ups:

To help you along, we provide some "helpful" power-ups:

Multi Ship: You gain a whole new spaceship to help you gather points! You don't even have to return your old one, and they use exactly the same controls for convenience (and chaos).

Thruster Boost: We understand that your thrusters aren't nearly powerful enough, so let's just temporarily boost them by ten! Please note: improved reaction times not included.

Ring o' Probes: Navigating the cosmos is understandably tricky, so fire off a ring of mining probes the next time you fire off your thrusters. The probes will both break down rocks for points, but will also push the other rocks about, increasing the chance that they will break each other! (Warning: fast moving asteroids can prove bad for one's health).

More Asteroids: We have heard concerns that when one's purpose in life is collecting points, it can be difficult when you break too many point giving asteroids. That's why we will produce brand new asteroids for your point collection delectation.

Video

If you still don't understand, maybe a complete playthrough video might help. Try this one:

A note on physics bugs:

The fact that the physics are not 100% consistent is definitely a deliberate interpretation on the "Out of Control" theme, and not a result of physics being hard...