This is looking extremely cool. I love the screen grain effect. Is there any chance of a downloadable build? This is right up my alley and seems like the kind of game I could take my time with, so I'd love a version where I can save, quit, and return. I don't know how much content is actually here but it FEELS like a lot. If there is a save/quit function and I just didn't notice it, well, d'oh! e: I did play long enough to die. The way the darkness encroaches on you then swallows you up is fucking awesome.
I'm really happy you like my game so much! I have not done any downloadable builds yet since this is my third game lol.
But if you are interested I will 100% give it a shot when the rating for this jam ends. It also gives me a reason to fix all my bugs. I literally tested my game before submitting, found no bugs, watched the streamer play my game, and noticed 3 bugs... They are all based around the lights not working right when you close and open the rooms. Hopefully it does not affect my games placement too much haha.
There is also no save/quit option since my other games have not really needed it and it felt a bit complicated to learn lol. I was planning on learning it eventually so I guess I will learn it when I do the downloadable build.
If you also want to know how much content I have: I have created 12 unique minigames and hidden a secret somewhere that you might need a 3-digit code to open (might be hidden somewhere in the map) ...
For the lore of this, a lot of it is explained in the secret location so I won't spoil anything, but I thought it would be cool if I connected the lore of this game with the lore of my first game: Project Helix. I really like the idea of most of my games taking place in the same lore universe.
Thanks so much if you took the time to read all of this! And thank you so much again for playing! A downloadable build is coming up in the future :]
Hey again! Just wanted to give you an update — I finished the downloadable builds and added a full save‑and‑quit system. I also fixed the bugs I knew about, so everything should feel a lot smoother now.
I’ll be updating the page with the desktop files as soon as the jam ends. I’m planning to upload builds for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but out of curiosity, which one do you use?
Thanks again for the awesome feedback. Hope you’re having a great day!
The files are now up! If you try them out, I’d love to hear how it runs for you. Since this is my first time exporting to desktop, hopefully it should work without any issues.
Hey, so it ran fine on Windows, with the exception that Save & Quit doesn't actually save... it just quits. : (
I know a little about Godot (I've attempted to make a couple games in it), enough to find what you did with shaders, overlays, and lightning effects extremely impressive. It's also impressive that you programmed such a great variety of minigames for this in such a short time--typing one is my favorite, need more words--although some are a bit glitchy and there was one I think is impossible, the time the green sliders to hit the button in the red zone one: the red zone hitboxes are NOT what the screen indicates, and the final column is moving so fast I have no idea how you would actually time the butotn press exccept sheer luck. Speaking of luck, there are some passability issues with doors and especially the giant telescope in the observatory, someitmes you get stuck on the terrain at the worst possible time, and it really feels like you should be able to move behind the top half of the telescope.
The game is wonderfully tense as you try to avoid both the darkness and the static, managing light and door states. It was annoying that while navigating the darkness and locked doors felt strategic, there was absolutely nothing you could do to distract or divert the ????? (so as to not spoiler, I'm not entirely sure what the ????? is, but it sure looks uh, familiar!) and nothing to do except move in the opposite direction the static gets thicker in if you're in a corridor--even if that route is one you carefully planned out and lit up leading to a bunch of tasks, or hide in a corner and hope it doens't feel like moving in your direction in a room. I stopped playing in the end because every time you 'get got' by the ????? you lose several (three? half?) tasks completed. I know it's just the nature of videogames that when you lose/die you lose progress, but that's seldom felt as literal, punitive, or frustrating as here. I quit because it just felt like an uphill battle I'd never win (might have felt different if the save + quit actually saved, but I know from experience setting up game saving can be very finnicky in Godot). The game demands a bit more patience--hiding and hoping the ????? will move away from you and not towards you--than I'm capable of.
So your game is at tense from the atmosphere and a genuinely clever core loop that reminded me a little bit of Alien: Isolation. If you wanted to take it to "legitimately scary", all you need is a 2D protagonist that is in any way recognizably human (this very site is littered with sprites that would fit the game's style, many of them both high quality and free) and can be empathized with and is not a big round cartoon robot. If I was controlling a person, like pretty much any person, tense would graduate to scary for me--you can also, of course, inspire empathy for a robot, but doing so requires some very tricky writing. Adding world building, lore, or environment storytelling is just icing on the cake once you have this level of tension from the game's core loop and a protagonist that invokes empathy.
Alright sorry for the wall of text, all of this is obviously just like my opinion man, but tl;dr:
windows build works, but saving doesn't, I didn't beat it because of the severe progress loss of several completed tasks on each death, I think if you wanted you have the makings of likea really good, feature length horror game here, and I confirm my initial opinion that this is a very impressive game for a one week jam and looks slick as all hell.
You should not be sorry about this wall of text. I love hearing people's opinions of my game and stuff like this is so much more helpful than a "good game" or "nice visuals". I am really happy that you actually did come back again to try my game and I am so sorry that the save and quit doesn't work. What's weird is that I think it works for me because when I tested the continue button, I kept my tasks. I have a couple of guesses of why it might not be working but it honestly is a bit more complicated than I originally thought. As I am still kind of new to game dev, I am just very happy the game runs haha.
For the collisions I see what you mean with the telescope. The way I made my map was with multiple tilesets and used different layers for the floors, walls, and decoration. I got a bit hasty with making collisions for my decorations so they can definitely be a bit inaccurate. And for the slider minigame I think the hitboxes being inaccurate is just based on the speed of the arrows as in the inspector I have the hitbox be the exact size of the zone. I kind of noticed this when making the minigame but was running out of time by then so I just had to hope it was good enough. For this jam I wanted to practice focusing more on the visuals of my game and try and make all the pixel art by myself since I want more practice doing that. I originally wanted the main character to be a human but after trying for a while I could not make anything I was happy with. I eventually decided that I should try and pick something that would be easy to animate like flying or hovering to try and save time lol. So that's how I decided on a hovering robot. I had assets in my mind but still wanted to try and stick to my original goal of making stuff by myself.
The enemy was also going to be completely different too. I had ideas of systems to actually distract the enemy, hide from them, and even temporarily disable them but had to scrap those ideas due to time. I also wanted the enemy to spawn these dangerous tasks once you got grabbed where instead of losing tasks completed (3 to be exact), these unstable tasks would spawn on the map, and you would have to repair them before they fail and decrease your completed task count. I was going to have 3 of them spawn so that is where the number came from but I kind of agree that it is way too punishing. If I was able to go back in time, I would put the max tasks completed to somewhere around 10 ish and have the tasks lost be 1-2 for dying but this type of information is imposable to know when making your game.
If I ever want to try and make this a full game, I would probably start with making the character a person and the enemy something more monster-like. Having more time would also be helpful as I could add more features that I wanted to add and make the collision fit things well. I feel like a lot of my excuses were because of time, but I guess that is just what happens in a short game jam like this... Just so much content has to be scrapped because of time limits. Eventually I would like to make a commercial game to sell on Steam and stuff, but I would like to wait a while before that.
All of this feedback has been genuinely so helpful, and I have learned more from this game than the others I have made. I am so grateful for this comment, and I am genuinely sorry that the saving doesn't work and that the punishment was too frustrating. I have never played Alien: Isolation but have seen a bit of gameplay of it and it means a lot that my game makes you think of it. I tried to address all the issues you had and gave my thoughts on them but if there is literally anything else, please dont be afraid to ask! I am addicted to seeing that bell go red lol. Hope this comment helps explain my thought process a bit and that blaming time isn't too annoying. Thank you again for playing my game and thanks so much for this comment.
Woahhhh I LOVE me some space games, and you made so much lore in this it's a dang FULL GAME!! I cant wait to come back to this off stream and finish the issue events! Thanks for hanging with us in the livestream!! Well done, amazing art!
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This is looking extremely cool. I love the screen grain effect. Is there any chance of a downloadable build? This is right up my alley and seems like the kind of game I could take my time with, so I'd love a version where I can save, quit, and return. I don't know how much content is actually here but it FEELS like a lot. If there is a save/quit function and I just didn't notice it, well, d'oh!
e: I did play long enough to die. The way the darkness encroaches on you then swallows you up is fucking awesome.
I'm really happy you like my game so much! I have not done any downloadable builds yet since this is my third game lol.
But if you are interested I will 100% give it a shot when the rating for this jam ends. It also gives me a reason to fix all my bugs. I literally tested my game before submitting, found no bugs, watched the streamer play my game, and noticed 3 bugs... They are all based around the lights not working right when you close and open the rooms. Hopefully it does not affect my games placement too much haha.
There is also no save/quit option since my other games have not really needed it and it felt a bit complicated to learn lol. I was planning on learning it eventually so I guess I will learn it when I do the downloadable build.
If you also want to know how much content I have: I have created 12 unique minigames and hidden a secret somewhere that you might need a 3-digit code to open (might be hidden somewhere in the map) ...
For the lore of this, a lot of it is explained in the secret location so I won't spoil anything, but I thought it would be cool if I connected the lore of this game with the lore of my first game: Project Helix. I really like the idea of most of my games taking place in the same lore universe.
Thanks so much if you took the time to read all of this! And thank you so much again for playing! A downloadable build is coming up in the future :]
Hey again! Just wanted to give you an update — I finished the downloadable builds and added a full save‑and‑quit system. I also fixed the bugs I knew about, so everything should feel a lot smoother now.
I’ll be updating the page with the desktop files as soon as the jam ends. I’m planning to upload builds for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but out of curiosity, which one do you use?
Thanks again for the awesome feedback. Hope you’re having a great day!
The files are now up! If you try them out, I’d love to hear how it runs for you. Since this is my first time exporting to desktop, hopefully it should work without any issues.
Hey, so it ran fine on Windows, with the exception that Save & Quit doesn't actually save... it just quits. : (
I know a little about Godot (I've attempted to make a couple games in it), enough to find what you did with shaders, overlays, and lightning effects extremely impressive. It's also impressive that you programmed such a great variety of minigames for this in such a short time--typing one is my favorite, need more words--although some are a bit glitchy and there was one I think is impossible, the time the green sliders to hit the button in the red zone one: the red zone hitboxes are NOT what the screen indicates, and the final column is moving so fast I have no idea how you would actually time the butotn press exccept sheer luck. Speaking of luck, there are some passability issues with doors and especially the giant telescope in the observatory, someitmes you get stuck on the terrain at the worst possible time, and it really feels like you should be able to move behind the top half of the telescope.
The game is wonderfully tense as you try to avoid both the darkness and the static, managing light and door states. It was annoying that while navigating the darkness and locked doors felt strategic, there was absolutely nothing you could do to distract or divert the ????? (so as to not spoiler, I'm not entirely sure what the ????? is, but it sure looks uh, familiar!) and nothing to do except move in the opposite direction the static gets thicker in if you're in a corridor--even if that route is one you carefully planned out and lit up leading to a bunch of tasks, or hide in a corner and hope it doens't feel like moving in your direction in a room. I stopped playing in the end because every time you 'get got' by the ????? you lose several (three? half?) tasks completed. I know it's just the nature of videogames that when you lose/die you lose progress, but that's seldom felt as literal, punitive, or frustrating as here. I quit because it just felt like an uphill battle I'd never win (might have felt different if the save + quit actually saved, but I know from experience setting up game saving can be very finnicky in Godot). The game demands a bit more patience--hiding and hoping the ????? will move away from you and not towards you--than I'm capable of.
So your game is at tense from the atmosphere and a genuinely clever core loop that reminded me a little bit of Alien: Isolation. If you wanted to take it to "legitimately scary", all you need is a 2D protagonist that is in any way recognizably human (this very site is littered with sprites that would fit the game's style, many of them both high quality and free) and can be empathized with and is not a big round cartoon robot. If I was controlling a person, like pretty much any person, tense would graduate to scary for me--you can also, of course, inspire empathy for a robot, but doing so requires some very tricky writing. Adding world building, lore, or environment storytelling is just icing on the cake once you have this level of tension from the game's core loop and a protagonist that invokes empathy.
Alright sorry for the wall of text, all of this is obviously just like my opinion man, but tl;dr:
windows build works, but saving doesn't, I didn't beat it because of the severe progress loss of several completed tasks on each death, I think if you wanted you have the makings of likea really good, feature length horror game here, and I confirm my initial opinion that this is a very impressive game for a one week jam and looks slick as all hell.
You should not be sorry about this wall of text. I love hearing people's opinions of my game and stuff like this is so much more helpful than a "good game" or "nice visuals". I am really happy that you actually did come back again to try my game and I am so sorry that the save and quit doesn't work. What's weird is that I think it works for me because when I tested the continue button, I kept my tasks. I have a couple of guesses of why it might not be working but it honestly is a bit more complicated than I originally thought. As I am still kind of new to game dev, I am just very happy the game runs haha.
For the collisions I see what you mean with the telescope. The way I made my map was with multiple tilesets and used different layers for the floors, walls, and decoration. I got a bit hasty with making collisions for my decorations so they can definitely be a bit inaccurate. And for the slider minigame I think the hitboxes being inaccurate is just based on the speed of the arrows as in the inspector I have the hitbox be the exact size of the zone. I kind of noticed this when making the minigame but was running out of time by then so I just had to hope it was good enough.
For this jam I wanted to practice focusing more on the visuals of my game and try and make all the pixel art by myself since I want more practice doing that. I originally wanted the main character to be a human but after trying for a while I could not make anything I was happy with. I eventually decided that I should try and pick something that would be easy to animate like flying or hovering to try and save time lol. So that's how I decided on a hovering robot. I had assets in my mind but still wanted to try and stick to my original goal of making stuff by myself.
The enemy was also going to be completely different too. I had ideas of systems to actually distract the enemy, hide from them, and even temporarily disable them but had to scrap those ideas due to time. I also wanted the enemy to spawn these dangerous tasks once you got grabbed where instead of losing tasks completed (3 to be exact), these unstable tasks would spawn on the map, and you would have to repair them before they fail and decrease your completed task count. I was going to have 3 of them spawn so that is where the number came from but I kind of agree that it is way too punishing. If I was able to go back in time, I would put the max tasks completed to somewhere around 10 ish and have the tasks lost be 1-2 for dying but this type of information is imposable to know when making your game.
If I ever want to try and make this a full game, I would probably start with making the character a person and the enemy something more monster-like. Having more time would also be helpful as I could add more features that I wanted to add and make the collision fit things well. I feel like a lot of my excuses were because of time, but I guess that is just what happens in a short game jam like this... Just so much content has to be scrapped because of time limits. Eventually I would like to make a commercial game to sell on Steam and stuff, but I would like to wait a while before that.
All of this feedback has been genuinely so helpful, and I have learned more from this game than the others I have made. I am so grateful for this comment, and I am genuinely sorry that the saving doesn't work and that the punishment was too frustrating. I have never played Alien: Isolation but have seen a bit of gameplay of it and it means a lot that my game makes you think of it. I tried to address all the issues you had and gave my thoughts on them but if there is literally anything else, please dont be afraid to ask! I am addicted to seeing that bell go red lol. Hope this comment helps explain my thought process a bit and that blaming time isn't too annoying. Thank you again for playing my game and thanks so much for this comment.
Woahhhh I LOVE me some space games, and you made so much lore in this it's a dang FULL GAME!! I cant wait to come back to this off stream and finish the issue events! Thanks for hanging with us in the livestream!! Well done, amazing art!
It was awesome seeing my game on stream! Glad I got to stop by again. Thanks so much! Hope to be in another jams stream.