Very cool idea and well polished. Definitely feels like a lot of thought and work went into the game, though if I had a single criticism it would be that the upgrades are straightforward to a fault.
This has been a very cute and very fun game. Clarity is the only thing it really struggles with. With a bit more polish in the UI/UX department I could see this being a regular play for me.
It is a wonderfull game, i really enjoyed playing, but it would be nice to have a pause time feature as the team grows it's kinda hard to manage, so i think a time freeze feature would be nice for people that can't really handdle that much pressure
So, my roomie's virus scanner found a virus in the zip file for your game… Not sure if this is a false positive, or if it was infected after arriving. Just posting it here in case you want to double check on your end, or if it is a known false positive.
Hey there, thanks for the heads up. I believe this is a false positive. I'd never heard of Segurazo so I did a search and it appears that Segurazo is itself malware that does not function as advertised, and nearly every result is people seeking help in uninstalling it:
Segurazo PUP refers to a questionable anti-virus program that is classified as a potentially unwanted program (PUP) by many legitimate anti-virus programs. According to user reports, the program installs without explicit permission from users, and is difficult to remove.
if level one difficulty is this hard i cant even begin to imagine how hard the later levels are. When i first played this game i wondered why the average session length was 30 minutes, I later found thats its because after 2 levels of being thrown to the wolves the will to want to play goes down. I will still play this game because i like a challange but i would recommend rethinking what a level meter means in terms difficulty as first planet level 1 threat is not the same as 2nd planet level 1 threat level. I think you should start with three players rather than 2 as I would be able to try a strat then just placeing down a turret and leaving an engineer there and then use the other guy to go get ore
My first three games I thought it was pretty tough, I didn't like being dropped into a difficult new level, dying and being sent back to the start.
But on my fourth game, I completed it!
My strategy was to pick up more crew members from the distress beacons. When I was low on crew or on resources, I would go back and play an earlier level planet.
I surrounded my ship with strong turrets, and kept one character repairing them. My crew couldn't fight very well, so they just had to hide and sneak past enemy lines.
I LOVE the game man! I love how you can transform into different classes/types. I also love that there are many "planets" you can visit and gather resources. the artworks of the game is great and the controls are easy. oh, and it is also addictive to play!
Had a lot of fun in From Orbit honestly. It took me a little bit to get a hang of things but I've already recorded a second episode and we get much father! :)
Select the units using left-click, and order them to move somewhere with right-click. Alternatively you can cycle through the units using the Tab key, or LB/RB when using a controller.
Hey there, because the game is currently 100% off you can download for free, but this will not grant you a Steam key. However, purchasing for any amount ($1 or more) will grant a Steam key that you can claim.
Sometimes I launch and a crew member iis left behind despite being within the evacuation range :( it’s especially galling when it happens after going to all the effort of getting a new crew member only to have the game bug out and leave it behind anyway.
Other than that game ruining problem, it’s actually pretty fun to play.
Hi Tom, thanks for trying out the game and sorry for the frustration. Is this happening when you have 5 crew members active? There's actually a limit of 4 on the ship, but this isn't especially obvious in the UI. This will be addressed in a future update.
Oh wow, I had no idea, there aren’t any clues that there’s an upper limit on workers, I just assumed you could have as many as you wanted but that it would get harder to keep them and you had to put the effort in to find them and keep them alive :(
I’d make sure any place that mentions a crew count has /4 on the end, as well as any resource caps there might be
Overall I think this is an interesting game that, with some tweaks, could be wonderful. With no tutorial, it only took me one failed mission to understand everything about the game. (I will say, a tutorial level would probably make it more accessible to people who haven't played an RTS or MOBA before.) That speaks to a simplicity of design that I really appreciate. The enemy design is simply fantastic, and learning the strategies to kite or dodge enemy attack patterns is very fun. I also really like that your attacks are projectiles as well, meaning that they can be blocked if you aren't careful. The overall look of the game is gorgeous, though by the midpoint I was starting to feel like the procgen was showing its seams a little bit.
I think the game could really benefit from some anti-frustration mechanics. For instance, take the choice of whether to build an auto-harvester for an ore node with 29 ore in it. Since the extractor costs 25, this deeply cuts into the player's income. Thus, you have to spend a good amount of the game doing not much at all, since the harvester crew type is easily the least interactive.
I understand that the systems exist to urge players not to invest everything on one planet; you need to get in, and get out, not try and hold out forever against the enemies. But if that's the case, why have the engineer class at all? I have thus far not encountered a time where it felt like building a turret or harvester was the correct choice, which is sad, because they seem like such an interesting part of the game. (It's entirely possible that once I buy the upgrades for them, or if Ore starts being more plentiful, I'll find them more useful, we'll see.)
My first thought, and this is not playtested at all, is that I would allow engineers to "salvage" a building, returning ~80% of its cost. That way, putting down a building costs 5 ore as long as you can defend it until you scrap it, which makes them much more economical. So it's expensive to use turrets as a sacrificial piece, but if you can ensure they survive, they're worth it. This also has the added benefit of making extraction exciting; if most of your Ore is tied up in buildings, you need to hold out until you can liquidate your investment before you get offworld.
I'm curious about your thought process for some of the upgrades. While there are simple health and damage upgrades, other upgrades completely change how the classes are played. The medic upgrade turns them from a slow way to recover after a fight into a valid choice in the midst of battle, which was really interesting.
Overall, I think this is a neat game! Thanks for being a part of the racial equality bundle; excited to follow your other games in the future!
I agree with the lack of a tutorial, but about everything else, did you actually beat the game? A lot of this is addressed the further you go.
For instance, take the choice of whether to build an auto-harvester for an ore node with 29 ore in it. Since the extractor costs 25, this deeply cuts into the player's income.
Don't build extractors for any deposits <40, or maybe <50, ore. If you want to go for 100% clean planets with no losses, you eventually must rely on extractors, especially for deposits >80.
I have thus far not encountered a time where it felt like building a turret or harvester was the correct choice, which is sad, because they seem like such an interesting part of the game.
I think you definitely have not beaten the game yet. If you can leave every planet without turrets with zero losses + 0 deposits left, you're unbelievably good or got insanely far den spawns.
I'll revisit it! You're right that I didn't finish it. I got like halfway through and had 4 crew, but I wasn't getting every ore node on every planet, once it got to a high enough threat level that I couldn't defend the base and gotten enough for some new upgrades I went to the next planet.
Is there a guide somewhere? There is no tutorial, and stuff like the auto resource extractor is just a waste of resources, at least early on. I also wonder if it would be better if there was at least a small chance to get resources off of killed monsters? There is little reason to kill them ever.
There's no guide apart from reading comments here, probably.
The extractor is best deployed on deposits >100.
Enemies don't drop loot when dying; any resources you may have seen were already sitting loosely on the ground around them. It's up to you to gauge whether it's worth going after them.
All of the resources are optional and are only there to prepare your crew for the final level.
Good Game, but please add more content like more Upgrades for the Defense towers, balance a little bit the Mobs and let us destroy the Spawnpoints of the Aliens.(add some little Houses etc.)
This is not a $15 game. No tutorial or help, nothing is explained. Limited minimap, limited tech tree, no story. Random generation can put the enemy spawner right next to the ship and you can not destroy it.
Starcraft Remastered is $15. That game has 3 faction with their own units and tech trees, a story, and a lot more. If you are looking for a RTS buy that instead or some other game.
Dude, this is one developer putting in a lot of time and effort. While I agree the price isn't the best, you can't compare a billion dollar company to a indie developer. They can afford to price it relatively cheap.
Even compared to other indie / small developers this is low content. Thee are a ton of free web games that have more content: Epic Battle Fantasy series of games. GemCraft series of games. Cookie Clicker. Cursed Treasure series of games. Stellar Squad, Kingdom Rush series of games. Rebuild. Creeper World series. Also there are many small / indie developers who have made paid games with more content: Terraria. Stardew Valley. Night in the Woods. Oxenfree. FTL: Faster Than Light. The Binding of Isaac. Deeponia series of games. Celeste.
You can go down the list then: there are literally thousands of games out there that charge as much as or higher than From Orbit that don't even have half as much content. Go rail on them.
You should also only be referencing games that were made by one person. Deponia was made by a 90-employee company. Not all devs can be one-hit wonders like ConcernedApe behind Stardew Valley, nor should they be expected to.
That said, I agree that From Orbit is overpriced for its content. I thought the black hole at the end of the system map was just one segment of eight, but that was the end of the game. So, I'm glad I was able to play it at no cost, but I'm also not complaining.
This game is sort of a hybrid of tower defense + real-time strategy. Have you played any of these types of games?
You have four workers who can morph between different roles, whose descriptions show when you hover your mouse over them in the top-left. Type 1 is the Defender, the only one who can attack enemies, for example.
Use the workers to harvest as many resources as possible across the planet. Have them attack enemies, heal each other, and build turrets/repair the ship as needed. Don't lose your ship and try to not let anyone die. Build one turret next to your ship per (threat level - 1). Then at the system map, use the resources you gathered to upgrade your stuff.
The graphics and music are beautiful but it desperately needs a tutorial. You can't just throw players into the deep end and expect them to know what to do!
I love how movement commands are retained across role transformations!
I wish there was Shift-queuing of waypoints, like to harvest this and then harvest that and/or pick up multiple little minerals off of the ground. But I suppose part of the intensity of the game is the micromanagement; I'm not sure of whether this was done intentionally.
It's a bit weird how enemies keep moving in place once the rocket takes off (although this doesn't seem to happen if there is a lot of turrets pecking at them).
Some kind of indicator that tells us whether a robot is busy or idling would be helpful, as opposed to having to manually monitor each one.
A massive explosion graphic when the space ship is destroyed instead of just disappearing would be nice, which feels like a letdown. Same with the robots; I want to emotionally witness my failure spectacularly, haha!
Demolishing doesn't seem to do anything; I select a building, click it, and nothing happens.
Robots can get stuck running in place, especially in tight spots around the spaceship if turrets are built around it and it lands in an area surrounded by canyons. I also saw 3 area-patrolling enemies eternally trying to move into the same hex from three perfectly triangular angles, too, which was awkward to witness.
It'd be nice to be able to pick default roles that robots will land on planets as, as opposed to the current issue of having to remember to decide on them before leaving the previous planet.
Currently we are unable to press Escape to pause the game while the ship is landing on a planet.
There is no indicator to indicate to us already-explored planets without clicking on them; a border highlight would be nice.
Depending on the position of a harvester robot, the brightness of the mining laser itself can mask the mineral-count number. It would be nice if the number had a black outline.
Enemy graphics can perfectly overlap each other, sometimes. It's a bit weird to see an enemy suddenly split into two.
At first I didn't understand that the spaceship was self-armed as I couldn't differentiate the graphics well. It would be nice if there was a small laser cannon on its central black strip that spins around like the turrets' heads do, so it can be more easily noticed.
Absolutely. If a good game goes on a giveaway, and I still can't afford to tip, then a thorough review is the bare minimum with which I should reciprocate. Further thoughts now that I beat it:
Just a tiny thing: it would be interesting to see the new rescued robot be a random type instead of always a Defender.
I realized that that movement bug can be reproduced if you select multiple robots and try to run them into a wall, so this could help with debugging. Also, if you have an Engineer on one side of a mineral deposit, and have it construct an extractor on the exact opposite side, it will run forever into the mineral deposit instead of around it to get to working on the extractor (at least, it did that for me most recently).
Shift+clicking other robots to add to your current selection would be nice. Currently Shift does nothing in that regard. As for this, I think the Shift prerequisite to select units is the biggest issue that I had with FO's keyboard shortcuts, when it compares to other RTSs (I've played the gamut... StarCraft, TA, WC3, Homeworld, Red Alert): considering how the max amount of special abilities per class is only two anyways, those could be mapped out to, say, R and T (or, at best, be user-defined), and have unit selection be maintained in the classic numerical way of other games – without needing Shift.
I was a bit upset that defeating the boss instantly triggers the ship to leave, which made me get caught off-guard by the abrupt ending. I was upset because it felt like my valuable robots which fought so hard against the boss were simply left behind as meaningless tools; I wasn't given a chance to return them to the ship. Speaking of that stage: about the EMP effect on the ship, it would have been very interesting if its laser was disabled, to force the player to rely on turrets alone. It felt a bit too easy once I got into the groove of four turrets + one engineer for constant self-repair while the 3 others crawled across the map as one solid group.
Despite these little matters, it is a cool game and a very interesting take on the tower defense genre! The closest thing I can think of that I've also played is Infested Planet (in which the focus is to destroy those enemy spawn points outright, before they overwhelm you!).
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how to play?
I'm totally lost, too. I don't play many RTS games, so all I was able to figure out was how to move my units.
Thanks for checkout out the game! Since a few people have asked, I've put together a How To Play video. I hope it helps.
Very cool idea and well polished. Definitely feels like a lot of thought and work went into the game, though if I had a single criticism it would be that the upgrades are straightforward to a fault.
This has been a very cute and very fun game. Clarity is the only thing it really struggles with. With a bit more polish in the UI/UX department I could see this being a regular play for me.
It is a wonderfull game, i really enjoyed playing, but it would be nice to have a pause time feature as the team grows it's kinda hard to manage, so i think a time freeze feature would be nice for people that can't really handdle that much pressure
So far i like this game a lot, the only thing missing were control instructions
So, my roomie's virus scanner found a virus in the zip file for your game…
Not sure if this is a false positive, or if it was infected after arriving.
Just posting it here in case you want to double check on your end, or if it is a known false positive.
Hey there, thanks for the heads up. I believe this is a false positive. I'd never heard of Segurazo so I did a search and it appears that Segurazo is itself malware that does not function as advertised, and nearly every result is people seeking help in uninstalling it:
That's not good…
Thanks for letting me know, I'll tell my roomie.
if level one difficulty is this hard i cant even begin to imagine how hard the later levels are. When i first played this game i wondered why the average session length was 30 minutes, I later found thats its because after 2 levels of being thrown to the wolves the will to want to play goes down. I will still play this game because i like a challange but i would recommend rethinking what a level meter means in terms difficulty as first planet level 1 threat is not the same as 2nd planet level 1 threat level. I think you should start with three players rather than 2 as I would be able to try a strat then just placeing down a turret and leaving an engineer there and then use the other guy to go get ore
My first three games I thought it was pretty tough, I didn't like being dropped into a difficult new level, dying and being sent back to the start.
But on my fourth game, I completed it!
My strategy was to pick up more crew members from the distress beacons. When I was low on crew or on resources, I would go back and play an earlier level planet.
I surrounded my ship with strong turrets, and kept one character repairing them. My crew couldn't fight very well, so they just had to hide and sneak past enemy lines.
I LOVE the game man! I love how you can transform into different classes/types. I also love that there are many "planets" you can visit and gather resources. the artworks of the game is great and the controls are easy. oh, and it is also addictive to play!
p.s game starts at 10:01
really fun RTS-TD hybrid i have not gotten far into the game but its a fun-tough game, i love it.
or whatever they are
how do i move the people
Select the units using left-click, and order them to move somewhere with right-click. Alternatively you can cycle through the units using the Tab key, or LB/RB when using a controller.
oh yay!a 100*/. off sale!(i have not played it yet though.)
My Secruity system norton looks at this game as a risk why Is that.
I couldn't say, possibly due to Unity being upgraded to a recently released version which Norton is not yet familiar with.
This game shows up on https://itch.io/games/newest/on-sale/platform-windows/steam-key even though there isn't a Steam key? Or is there with minimum payment? I couldn't find anything...
I have the game for over 2 months now and I didn't have the chance to try it out. But the graphics look cool! Nice work!
Steam keys are not given if you don't pay full price for any products on itch.io.
Yeah I know but can I get one if I pay >=$14.99? I can't find a mention of this.
Oh, I believe you should, yeah! Maybe contact the dev somehow to confirm this.
Hey there, because the game is currently 100% off you can download for free, but this will not grant you a Steam key. However, purchasing for any amount ($1 or more) will grant a Steam key that you can claim.
Sometimes I launch and a crew member iis left behind despite being within the evacuation range :( it’s especially galling when it happens after going to all the effort of getting a new crew member only to have the game bug out and leave it behind anyway.
Other than that game ruining problem, it’s actually pretty fun to play.
Hi Tom, thanks for trying out the game and sorry for the frustration. Is this happening when you have 5 crew members active? There's actually a limit of 4 on the ship, but this isn't especially obvious in the UI. This will be addressed in a future update.
Oh wow, I had no idea, there aren’t any clues that there’s an upper limit on workers, I just assumed you could have as many as you wanted but that it would get harder to keep them and you had to put the effort in to find them and keep them alive :(
I’d make sure any place that mentions a crew count has /4 on the end, as well as any resource caps there might be
If you mouse over the ship launch buttons in the bottom-left during play, it warns that it can only take four crew members.
How to increase the crew?
Thanks, nice indie game.
I found one more crew lvl at planet lvl 2 with distress signal, you use engineer at a special place on the planet to find one extra.
Overall I think this is an interesting game that, with some tweaks, could be wonderful. With no tutorial, it only took me one failed mission to understand everything about the game. (I will say, a tutorial level would probably make it more accessible to people who haven't played an RTS or MOBA before.) That speaks to a simplicity of design that I really appreciate. The enemy design is simply fantastic, and learning the strategies to kite or dodge enemy attack patterns is very fun. I also really like that your attacks are projectiles as well, meaning that they can be blocked if you aren't careful. The overall look of the game is gorgeous, though by the midpoint I was starting to feel like the procgen was showing its seams a little bit.
I think the game could really benefit from some anti-frustration mechanics. For instance, take the choice of whether to build an auto-harvester for an ore node with 29 ore in it. Since the extractor costs 25, this deeply cuts into the player's income. Thus, you have to spend a good amount of the game doing not much at all, since the harvester crew type is easily the least interactive.
I understand that the systems exist to urge players not to invest everything on one planet; you need to get in, and get out, not try and hold out forever against the enemies. But if that's the case, why have the engineer class at all? I have thus far not encountered a time where it felt like building a turret or harvester was the correct choice, which is sad, because they seem like such an interesting part of the game. (It's entirely possible that once I buy the upgrades for them, or if Ore starts being more plentiful, I'll find them more useful, we'll see.)
My first thought, and this is not playtested at all, is that I would allow engineers to "salvage" a building, returning ~80% of its cost. That way, putting down a building costs 5 ore as long as you can defend it until you scrap it, which makes them much more economical. So it's expensive to use turrets as a sacrificial piece, but if you can ensure they survive, they're worth it. This also has the added benefit of making extraction exciting; if most of your Ore is tied up in buildings, you need to hold out until you can liquidate your investment before you get offworld.
I'm curious about your thought process for some of the upgrades. While there are simple health and damage upgrades, other upgrades completely change how the classes are played. The medic upgrade turns them from a slow way to recover after a fight into a valid choice in the midst of battle, which was really interesting.
Overall, I think this is a neat game! Thanks for being a part of the racial equality bundle; excited to follow your other games in the future!
Thanks for the feedback!
I agree with the lack of a tutorial, but about everything else, did you actually beat the game? A lot of this is addressed the further you go.
Don't build extractors for any deposits <40, or maybe <50, ore. If you want to go for 100% clean planets with no losses, you eventually must rely on extractors, especially for deposits >80.
I think you definitely have not beaten the game yet. If you can leave every planet without turrets with zero losses + 0 deposits left, you're unbelievably good or got insanely far den spawns.
I'll revisit it! You're right that I didn't finish it. I got like halfway through and had 4 crew, but I wasn't getting every ore node on every planet, once it got to a high enough threat level that I couldn't defend the base and gotten enough for some new upgrades I went to the next planet.
I love the concept, but it could be much much more better if it is polished.
Is there a guide somewhere? There is no tutorial, and stuff like the auto resource extractor is just a waste of resources, at least early on. I also wonder if it would be better if there was at least a small chance to get resources off of killed monsters? There is little reason to kill them ever.
There's no guide apart from reading comments here, probably.
The extractor is best deployed on deposits >100.
Enemies don't drop loot when dying; any resources you may have seen were already sitting loosely on the ground around them. It's up to you to gauge whether it's worth going after them.
All of the resources are optional and are only there to prepare your crew for the final level.
Good Game, but please add more content like more Upgrades for the Defense towers, balance a little bit the Mobs and let us destroy the Spawnpoints of the Aliens.(add some little Houses etc.)
This is not a $15 game. No tutorial or help, nothing is explained. Limited minimap, limited tech tree, no story. Random generation can put the enemy spawner right next to the ship and you can not destroy it.
Starcraft Remastered is $15. That game has 3 faction with their own units and tech trees, a story, and a lot more. If you are looking for a RTS buy that instead or some other game.
Dude its free
It's on sale now. The regular price is $15. There are games with far more content and polish for that price.
Dude, this is one developer putting in a lot of time and effort. While I agree the price isn't the best, you can't compare a billion dollar company to a indie developer. They can afford to price it relatively cheap.
Even compared to other indie / small developers this is low content. Thee are a ton of free web games that have more content: Epic Battle Fantasy series of games. GemCraft series of games. Cookie Clicker. Cursed Treasure series of games. Stellar Squad, Kingdom Rush series of games. Rebuild. Creeper World series. Also there are many small / indie developers who have made paid games with more content: Terraria. Stardew Valley. Night in the Woods. Oxenfree. FTL: Faster Than Light. The Binding of Isaac. Deeponia series of games. Celeste.
You can go down the list then: there are literally thousands of games out there that charge as much as or higher than From Orbit that don't even have half as much content. Go rail on them.
You should also only be referencing games that were made by one person. Deponia was made by a 90-employee company. Not all devs can be one-hit wonders like ConcernedApe behind Stardew Valley, nor should they be expected to.
That said, I agree that From Orbit is overpriced for its content. I thought the black hole at the end of the system map was just one segment of eight, but that was the end of the game. So, I'm glad I was able to play it at no cost, but I'm also not complaining.
Is there any tutorial? I feel completely lost.
This game is sort of a hybrid of tower defense + real-time strategy. Have you played any of these types of games?
You have four workers who can morph between different roles, whose descriptions show when you hover your mouse over them in the top-left. Type 1 is the Defender, the only one who can attack enemies, for example.
Use the workers to harvest as many resources as possible across the planet. Have them attack enemies, heal each other, and build turrets/repair the ship as needed. Don't lose your ship and try to not let anyone die. Build one turret next to your ship per (threat level - 1). Then at the system map, use the resources you gathered to upgrade your stuff.
I would prefer a sandbox mode but really good
Honestly a great RTS, Could use some polishing in my regard
The graphics and music are beautiful but it desperately needs a tutorial. You can't just throw players into the deep end and expect them to know what to do!
I completely agree, home some tutorial will help to get started
is it mp?
From Orbit is a single player game
A solid game that I've reviewed in my latest video!
Jump to 3:24 for the review!
Link:
Great game, love to see its made in unity. Kinda wish there was a tutorial level, but its not to hard to grasp
Incredibly fun!
Hey I bought the game on Steam sale but want a copy for my linux laptop. Hope you don't mind me not paying here. Love the art style.
I use linux too, but im having problem running the game, can you help?
May install the itch.io installer.
Nice game, great job ! Can you take off with more than 4 crew members ?
Nope. It's mentioned somewhere in the game that the spacecraft can only hold four (if you mouse over the bottom-left buttons while on a planet).
Thx !
Really like the look and feel of the game, but I can't seem to get any sound. Playing on Linux through the itch store.
this games looks realy cool but how do you play it and what are the controls
WASD, number keys, and the mouse. You should already be familiar with real-time strategy and tower defense games for the most optimal experience.
Muy buen juego. Very good Game. Lo amo. I Love From Orbit
Very cool FTL-like!
Thank you for the detailed feedback!
Absolutely. If a good game goes on a giveaway, and I still can't afford to tip, then a thorough review is the bare minimum with which I should reciprocate. Further thoughts now that I beat it:
Speaking of that stage: about the EMP effect on the ship, it would have been very interesting if its laser was disabled, to force the player to rely on turrets alone. It felt a bit too easy once I got into the groove of four turrets + one engineer for constant self-repair while the 3 others crawled across the map as one solid group.
Despite these little matters, it is a cool game and a very interesting take on the tower defense genre! The closest thing I can think of that I've also played is Infested Planet (in which the focus is to destroy those enemy spawn points outright, before they overwhelm you!).
Nice looking game ,thanks !
I don't know the game , but the shader is amazing
Very fun game. I highly recommend it. Here is my let's play of a prerelease version: