Dead Stars was made for Ludum Dare 50 and its theme “Delay the Inevitable.” It's a strategy game inspired by several ideas about how the universe will end, where you must survive to that end by accumulating as much energy as possible.
Thanks to jazz_horse for helping me test the game.
You command a spaceship that automatically finds and travels to the nearest celestial object, either a neutron star or a black hole. When you arrive, stats display information about how much time passed, how much the universe has expanded, and what objects have decayed away.
The ship can either siphon all of a star's mass and convert it to energy, or farm its radiation for a portion of the star's lifespan, gaining more energy at the cost of spending precious time doing so.
Along your journey, you might find black dwarf stars that emit no radiation, so the ship automatically siphons their mass and moves on.
The game ends when you either run out of energy, or you make it to the end of the universe when all stars have decayed. Your score is your current energy at that time.
April 5, 2022
I did the Ludum Dare, and it was very fun and neat. But the game I made turned out to be quite confusing; even I have been trying to figure out the best way to get a high score. So in this post I’ll do my best to explain what the mechanics are and how everything works (in theory at least), and if you have any questions, feel free to ask...
Fixed a bug where the game would end at a random time after 500 instead of 500 exactly, subtracting more energy from the final score
Fixed a bug where, if the ship travelled before the game ends, energy lost over that travel time was doubled
Fixed a bug where the page scrolls when pressing the up or down arrow keys
Ambient beeps to relax/siphon stars to.
