Space Bum For Hire

The Story

Captain Jenny and the crew of the research vessel known as Starship Senturi are in a bit of a pickle. They've been sent to the planet OS9 to study a rare crystal, however they were given no warning there would be hostile life present. Without the means to defend themselves, a damaged ship, and limited comm capabilities who are they going to turn to...?

Enter the Space Bum.

You are the space-venturing, quiet-spoken soldier of fortune known throughout the universe as: Space Bum. Equipped with his trusty sidearms and personal teleportation device, the Space Bum is down for any mission just as long as payment is received for services rendered.

Pay for his time, and you'll be just fine.

It is said that a patron once hired the Space Bum to clean out his Spaceship Timeshare having been overrun by space pirates due to a long vacancy. Of course, the Space Bum completed the job in a timely manner; however the client had disappeared afterwards. The Space Bum spent a full year tracking down the client to complete the transaction (in a manner of speaking...).

Gameplay

Space Bum For Hire plays as a platformer, built on the Love2D game framework using the physic module. So yes, it is a platformer running on Box2D (be sure to visit the parkour course on the Spaceship).

The Space Bum comes equipped with two weapons:

NameQualitiesPistolLonger Range. More ammo available.ShotgunPowerful blast. More effective up close.

Also, The Space Bum carries a PET (Personal Electronic Transporter).  To use hit [TAB] to teleport to and from the Spaceship and OS9. 

Controls Keyboard [ W, S, A, D ]Move/Aim[ S ]Crouch[ SPACE ]Jump / (Skip Cutscene)[ K ]Shoot Weapon[ L ]Hold for Lock[ TAB ]Teleport to and from Spaceship[ P ]Pause/Unpause Gamepad [ D-Pad ]Move/Aim[ Down ]Crouch[ B ]Jump[ A ]Shoot Weapon[ L-Trigger ]Hold for Lock[ R-Trigger ]Swap Weapons[ Select ]Teleport to and from Spaceship[ Start ]Pause/Unpause Credits

Holy smokes! Where do I start!? I felt like an orchestrator tracking down all the assets and letting them work nicely with each other. In fact, I was amazed at how well they worked together!

Audio Department

Sound FX by OGSoundFX (e.g. weapons, enemies, pickups)
Sound FXs also found on SoundBible (e.g. beam, weapons)

Music by DOS-88:

• Billy's Sacrifice
• Checking Manifest
• Crash Landing

Graphics Department

• KenneyNL Assets (UI elements)
• Eeve Somepx (Marksman & Improbable fonts)
• RualDiaz for the AMAZING character sprites!
• rvros for the Monster Pack 3.25. Incredible artwork!
• Stealthix for the fantastic weapon/environment effects!
• juicy.games for the items, pickups, weapon graphics.
• Szadi art. for the beautiful Strange Mountains tileset.
• unTied for the SpaceShip artwork.

Software & More...

H.U.M.P. - (timer, gamestates, camera)
Simple Tiled Implementation and Tiled Map Editor.
Love2D - a framework for making 2D games.

Thank you!!! Personal Notes:

The game has a short, charming story with a splash of humor. With about 6 cutscenes, it's not a long game. I wanted to add some reason to progress rather than just run-n-gun, even though the gameplay presents a pleasant challenge sometimes. Some secrets lie within the levels...

I really had fun working with the NPCs, bending them to my will by creating a bunch of behaviors, swapping them out in sequence to create the cutscenes (lotta thanks to H.U.M.P. Timer).

During any point in the game (except for cutscenes) you can press [TAB] to be teleported to and from the Spaceship. The Spaceship acts as a safe-zone/menu, albeit there isn't really any menus in the game. It was more of an experiment, or possibly consideration for the future for including: RPG elements and you could manage your inventory, maintain stats, or purchase gear. Due to the limited time spent on the game (not-moe-jam-9) I didn't have time to... finish the thought, so it became a place to chill and test your parkour skills. Consider it an "interactive pause screen".