Red Tether

Made in 48h for GMTKJam 2021. Keeping with the "Joined Together" theme I tried to make a combat system that focuses on linking yourself with opponents or them with each other. The result turned out pretty juicy but ultimately I had too little time to really explore the mechanics. There was ton of stuff I still wanted to do and the game turned out a bit bare-bone overall. Lots of small tweaks needed, also there is barely any narrative context on this one.

Maybe I put together a one-week redux version again, lets see,

How to play

Your ship fires tether harpoons in pairs. Hit with 1 and you attach yourself to enemies. Hit with the second and you connect two enemies, which will cause the tether to contract and pull them into another for big damage. Enemies have mass and some are easier to move than others.

You can only deploy four tethers and the last one will only allow you to swing. Tethers can be recalled on command and you also get them back automatically when enemies collide or detonate.

While attached you can also pull yourself in. The direction you point your ship in affects your pull direction, once you get used to that you can swing around objects   and build additional momentum. Swinging and reeling in is much faster than moving with your engines and can get you out of danger in no time. You can also deal damage by colliding through enemies at high speeds, which you can pretty much only reach with swings.

Controls

(w): boost

(a)/(d): turn

(LMouse): Fire tether

(RMouse): Pull yourself in

(c): Cuts tether (either yours if you are swinging, or all others if you are not attached)

Cool stuff that is missing, but might happen.

-Multiple tethers should obviously increase speeds at which actors are pulled. Right now that weirdly enough doesn't work. 

-The teethy large ship doesn't do anything as you might notice. Those where meant as short range fleet screeners with nasty point defense weapons.

-Speaking of weapons, I wanted you to be able to rip them off enemies if you tether them specifically.

-Overall I want fights to take longer with your slowly taking enemies appart that way.

-Destroying enemies is weirdly punishing since your loose damage sources that way. Enemies should leave debris and ordinance after death that you can then tether into other enemies.

-Obviously you should be able to shoot tethers at mid-air missile and then jank those into other badies. That would require a lock on system that I that would also make general combat more streamlined.

-I wanted your craft to be able to "stabilize" itself in place with additional thrusters, essentially enabling you to pull objects towards you, at faster speeds even than tethers do by themselves, but at the cost of becoming an easy target.

So yeah, maybe one day. In any case, thank you for playing/ reading. Also ratings would be much appreciated. <3 <3 <3

Cheers and stay tethered!