maris pipers
August 10, 2016 5:03 AM   Subscribe

Spaceplan A new incremental/idle browser space-based potato-powered web game thingy by Jake Hollands.
posted by fight or flight (46 comments total) 38 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh no.
posted by ambilevous at 5:16 AM on August 10, 2016 [13 favorites]


There are varieties of potato, I have just learned, called the Cosmos and the Galactica, which would seem apt for this scenario.
posted by misteraitch at 5:19 AM on August 10, 2016


My probetato crashed into the planet and now I'm hooked.

Oh, well...
posted by Harald74 at 5:24 AM on August 10, 2016


I thought I was totally over idle games... but this one is just so stylish and snazzy that I can't resist! I really hope I get to terraform Mars into a giant potato.
posted by mayonnaises at 5:36 AM on August 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yeah, the presentation is excellent. Little points of light in orbit, and the shadows cast by the planet.
posted by Harald74 at 5:39 AM on August 10, 2016


The headings are all in the style of Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer as well.
posted by Harald74 at 5:54 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was wondering if after a while you could zoom out from the map and see other parts of the system.
posted by carter at 5:56 AM on August 10, 2016


God I love these games. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE clicker games. You know how they have fiddle jewelry for people who need to be doing something with their hands all the time? These games are like that for me.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 6:17 AM on August 10, 2016 [4 favorites]


Ship Status: lonely

:c
posted by fight or flight at 6:26 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


not fair, i was about to go outside...
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:44 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was wondering if after a while you could zoom out from the map and see other parts of the system.
posted by carter


Yep! You unlock the "System Peeker" later.
posted by jeribus at 6:50 AM on August 10, 2016


A minor quibble, there's no reason this couldn't be all-ages appropriate, but then later on a fair bit of profanity starts showing up in the Word Outputter. Not the end of the world, but takes it off the "share this with younger people in my life" list.
posted by tocts at 6:55 AM on August 10, 2016


neustile How do you cheat? Editing the cookies with the save information?
posted by metaBugs at 7:33 AM on August 10, 2016


It's been a little while since I did much in the way of incremental games. What would someone more familiar with the genre currently suggest as a good one to use to dive back in to them? As a reference, I like something which is graphically light and has some decisions to make, especially if it has interestingly divergent technology trees, as well as focusing more on strategic play rather than active clicking. Most of the flash ones on congregate make me go 'bleh'. I like A Dark Room, I spent more time than I case to admit with Swarm Simulator, and AdCap kept me entertained for a while even if its the simplest of the bunch and contradicts some of what I just said. It's just so shiny and happy and makes watching the numbers roll over fun. Clicker Heroes and its kin leave me totally cold.
posted by jammer at 7:35 AM on August 10, 2016


I like the graphics and writing. But it seems like every other idle game in that there are no interesting choices to make. The right way to play boils down to "buy all the upgrades" and "buy ~10 of each producer". Is there more to it?

The only idle game I've seen with choices is FactoryIdle. I don't mean just the factory layout part, that's like a whole other game system. But also the choice of investing in money vs research production.
posted by Nelson at 7:43 AM on August 10, 2016


@jammer

Incremental Games Plaza

Incremental Games Subreddit

are both excellent sources for more games. (for instance, this one got posted on the subreddit before showing up here, and the designer chirped in in the discussion thread).
posted by jeribus at 7:43 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Welp there goes my day. Also i've only been playing for ten minutes, but stylistically this is GORGEOUS.
posted by radiosilents at 8:28 AM on August 10, 2016


All I can say is, those are some hardcore taters.
posted by adamrice at 8:47 AM on August 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


Very well done. 👏🏻
posted by jeffamaphone at 8:53 AM on August 10, 2016


хороший один товарищ → nice one mate
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:20 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


If your first thought when you saw the subject was of Hanna-Maria, raise your hand.
posted by at by at 9:49 AM on August 10, 2016


is there a way to create a login? My boss turns my computer off every night and I don't want to lose my progress.
posted by Lucinda at 10:12 AM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


I appear to have become addicted to this, despite the engineering graduate part of me wanting to scream at "watts per second".
posted by Major Clanger at 10:59 AM on August 10, 2016 [5 favorites]


Wow, this will grab me exactly like cookie clicker did...
posted by Hadrian at 11:40 AM on August 10, 2016


Well, that was fun. Thanks for sharing that, flight or fight.
posted by NoMich at 11:52 AM on August 10, 2016


I hope the game has special handling for accidentally dropping a tater tower on yourself.
posted by ckape at 1:03 PM on August 10, 2016


SPOILER: It has an ending, so it won't consume your life like other clicker games.

It's also very, very good. A stand-out in an increasingly-cliched genre.
posted by schmod at 1:23 PM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh no.

Oh yeah!
posted by Going To Maine at 1:24 PM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Now that's how you do a clicker game.
posted by lucidium at 2:03 PM on August 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


Ok, just finished it in time to head home from work. Um, trying not to spoil things, but am I supposed to be one of the beings that you meet in the final video? Or is that just because of other stuff?
posted by Hactar at 2:13 PM on August 10, 2016


That was quite funny. Long live the potato!
posted by pharm at 2:44 PM on August 10, 2016


Space-taters have really come into their own ever since The Martian.
posted by cardioid at 2:48 PM on August 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


jammer, Kittens game is the most addictive incremental game, graphically light and with tons of decisions.
I'm not going to link to it or go near it though because it's like crack to me and will break my life again.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:58 PM on August 10, 2016


Game mechanics were pretty great, but I feel like the story was weak. I mean, it was a good gag, I guess. Replay value, pretty much zero, but that's the story with incremental games, no?
posted by BrunoLatourFanclub at 3:17 PM on August 10, 2016


I like the Culture-drone-narrative vibe of this game a lot. But dammit, it should be watt-hours, not watts!
posted by runehog at 5:28 PM on August 10, 2016


(lovely sounds too)
posted by runehog at 5:29 PM on August 10, 2016


I just started playing, so no spoilers – but I suspect this game is going to be relevant to me.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:44 PM on August 10, 2016 [10 favorites]


Yeah it really didn't need to have the profanity.

Lovely to the end, but totally linear, and unnecessarily CPU-intensive.
posted by rlk at 5:49 PM on August 10, 2016


As a Kittens veteran (survivor?) I found this delightful and short. Renaming my ship to the GSV Kakistocrat made the sidebar announcements extra-Culturey

Metafilter: Lovely to the end, but totally linear, and unnecessarily CPU-intensive.
posted by Molesome at 1:57 AM on August 11, 2016


Unfortunately, the autosave appears to be broken, at least in Safari. Just fired up the game i started yesterday and, while I'm generating plenty of power and am landed on the planet, none of my Things appear to be out there and the computer is trying to act as if the game just started. Oh, well.
posted by hanov3r at 8:40 AM on August 11, 2016


Yeah it really didn't need to have the profanity.

It didn't need to use periods or the word "the", either, and yet there they are.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 10:28 AM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


I really enjoyed this, and I usually don't go for games like this (although, give me a space angle and I'm in).

I agree with tocts that the brief profanity does scuttle any chance of it being shared more widely. They could easily modify those few parts to be more subtle about it, e.g. use the cockney code or whatever. If the authors are reading this, and they do modify it, please let us know here so that future visitors know it's kid-safe now.
posted by intermod at 4:59 PM on August 11, 2016


This is really good. As someone who has spent an unfortunate amount of time with various idle games on my phone, this one having an ending is appreciated.
posted by Gary at 5:20 PM on August 11, 2016 [1 favorite]


This looks beautiful and dangerous.
posted by avoision at 6:24 PM on August 11, 2016


TRIGGER WARNING if you're GLaDOS.
posted by schmod at 6:43 AM on August 12, 2016 [1 favorite]


FYI, if you want to manually save a game, and restore it on another computer:
  1. While the game is open, open your browser's developer console from the same window/tab as the game.
  2. Type JSON.stringify(window.localStorage); and press enter.
  3. Give it a second, and copy the result of that command to your clipboard. If the result begins and ends with a quotation mark, omit them. This is your saved game.
  4. Open the devtools in the browser where you'd like to restore your game, type Object.assign(window.localStorage, PASTE SAVED GAME HERE);window.location.reload(); and press enter.
  5. Your game should now be restored!
posted by schmod at 6:50 AM on August 12, 2016 [2 favorites]


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