Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Space Station Alpha
By kjscott
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 477 | 3.47 | 99 | |
| Fun | 661 | 3.12 | 100 | |
| Innovation | 414 | 3.42 | 99 | |
| Theme | 757 | 3.39 | 99 | |
| Graphics | 324 | 3.71 | 100 | |
| Audio | 451 | 3.17 | 99 | |
| Mood | 288 | 3.52 | 96 |
I really liked the graphics and the overall feel of the game, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to actually play it. Still enjoyed my experience with it though, trying to figure it out and taking in the nice audio design and graphics.
I like this game
Fun! I died a lot in quick succession. The resource constraints really bit hard, which is what you want out of a PvE survival game.
Looks and sounds great. I like the concept for sure. I just had trouble figuring out how to play it. I think I only had 1 bullet? I think maybe I need to understand the o2 purging mechanics.
Either way I really like the art and sound. I'm a space guy and a survival guy so I'd love to see this fleshed out more.
Great atmosphere!
The space setting was executed very well and fits the theme good!
The aliens are dangerous and fun to avoid.
👍enjoyed it very much!
@magnusfurcifer, @sirsnowy7: I've updated the description a bit to try and explain what I didn't have time to do in the game, hopefully it'll make the game a little easier to play.
Gorgeous and a nice challenge
Just oozing with flavor, even the instructions. It takes some work to decipher but somehow that adds to the horror/survival feel.
Really great work;
You really managed to transcript that space station ambience with so few pixels, it is great ! I did not manage to finish the game, it is hard. (but expected for a survival horror game)
Reminds me of Dead Space :)
Good Job !
Nice graphics. I enjoyed playing it! Looks like some kind of puzzle game in disguise and I like that.
The only problem is that I don't know what I'm supposed to do. The weird thing is that, somehow, it feel good playing it.
@nicolas-diniz, I added a visual guide to what things do what. Hope that helps a bit!
@kjscott replayed it, and yeah it help a lot ! I still can't beat it, but I will return to it later that's for sure
Very ambitious, especially to make it fit in a pico-8 screen. I admit there's times where I don't know what I'm doing, but the heartbeat gives a very tense atmosphere that entices me to keep playing.
As feedback, I think this game would benefit from a checkpoint system, i.e. save when you get the suit. It's short, but it's a bit frustrating to go back to the menu to try again.
I am extremely into this game. Huge in scope, excellent exploration features, loved the set pieces whenever I ran into them. Once I got the hang of the controls and what all the tiles meant, I was totally hooked.
Good concept, but the music is very repetitive. I like the style of the game so minimalist.
I just love it, and its pico presentation is just perfect for these kind of spaceships! Congrats!
@darkfire92, I had planned to change the heartbeat under certain scenarios and/or add more music but ran out of time for that.
I liked it but had trouble figuring out some of the gameplay. I died a lot. You did a good job with the art. Pico art isn't easy. Good job
The game is very ambitious and does a lot. I like it. I like the whole game in general!
* Like what IronyGames had said. A checkpoint system will help a lot. * Some of the stuff I want to fix are behind objects and looks impossible to fix... If those help with o2, that's a problem. * I thought the same blowtorch can be used continuously since it's an item that appears alongside the suit and such. Apparently not... or rather it feels it's not. * At some point I thought I could sacrifice some energy and o2 in place of the lack of ammo. Definitely not the case. * The moving UI was actually pretty jarring, in my honest opinion.
I want to see this as a full game honestly! Great job~!
great job! i like pico8 , is a good game ,Congratulations !!
Little bit feedback - rooms that separated by screens are bit confusing! Would be better if doors or 1 wide corridors are ones that changes screens. But overall - very fun!
@runuchok, I had planned about half way through development to scroll the screen along with the player as they moved but things were too deeply coded in to change how I did it so I had to back out of that update. Definitely something I wanted myself but lack of time prevented that.
@fiakaiera, I agree with you about the UI. The UI moving was partially tied in to how the camera would pan when moving from screen to screen. At the same time I was going to have the camera pan with the players movement I was going to make the UI stay static but it was not feasible to rework the code in the time I had left so I left it as is.
I felt like there was little point in energy towards the end of development, oooooh... Now that I think about it, I could have coded it so that if the alien gets to you but you still have energy that's drained first...! doh! That would have given it more use and a kinda last stand backup. Will definitely see about that post-ludum.
The things that need fixing behind objects should be fixable by pressing X, as it will scan all 8 tiles around the player and try to fix things nearby. However in the rush I may have missed the placement of some objects and rendered some tiles unfixable.
@ironygames, I had thought about a save state but that would have been too much to do with Pico-8 and the time I had given what I was doing. So you were looking for something to revert back to just skip the intro part it might be doable.
Props for making so much gameplay with such polish all during 48 hrs. Impressive!
Pretty hard, a lot of polish. The instructions menu was an added bonus. Good job!
Impressed at how much detail there is in this for a Pico-8 game. I didn't get very far but enjoyed what gameplay I saw. The ambience was excellent especially the slow reveal of the map. Glad that alien monsters can't go through doors!
This is a weird one :) I want to like it but it feels so confusing! I love the look and also when I survive more than 3 rooms. But it seems you run out of bullets at once (one bullet at the start?), also repair parts are hard to come by.
Obviously balancing takes time, so for 48 hours this is really great!
Great game, I am shocked how much you were able to implement for only two days of developing. Awesome graphics for example. However the game was somewhat confusing so thank you for the little guide. Gj!
I am a little bit confused. Couldnt find an end.
@cptn-b, @m8rix, @endurion, I've updated the guide again to explain a bit better what everything does. I'm hoping that it explains the purpose of what everything in the game is and what it does.
@endurion I added the two objects you need to find to win the game into the guide to make it a bit easier to understand and figure out what to look for.
I really liked the game, the guide helped out at the bottom to understand. I like the rougelike aspects to it which gave each run a bit more mixed feel. Super hard game but kept trying one more time to beat it, unfortunately i couldn't but will probably try in again. The graphics really worked and sound effects really helped bring the space station alive. I would be interested to see how this game would progress. Great job!
Ohhh I like this one!
The concept idea is amazing! The game looks nice, and plays nicely, and the athmosphere really feels tense!
Well done!
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Liked this game a lot!! Idea is amazing! Graphics are excellent and the atmosphere feels really nice and spooky!! Thrice I died going to the oxygen place(Whatever it is) but then finally figured it out.
Nicely done, great mechanics, it feels good to find the way when move.
I don't recall playing this type of game before, so as a first experience i really enjoyed the concept and simple art! I didn't understand some of the icon/tools but I plan to play this one again!
Great achievement for a compo! Very well done!
Very fun idea for a a game. There is quite a lot to take in, so at first I was a bit confused, but I quickly started finding out how things worked. The amount of effort you must have taken is noticeable, since the game feels very well thought out and polished. Great concept for the theme as well, so well done!
@louiejams and @hare-software, yeah I've tried to do a lot of work to improve the documentation on this page to help out players. Unfortunately due to the rules I'm not really supposed to add new features in, and having an in-game page to try and give a better explanation is therefore off the cards. But if there are areas you think needs more explanation I will happily write something up and add it to the page. Anything to help as I know that's the number 1 feedback, confusing! XD
My experience:
I played for like 10 minutes first, and after 3 minutes of exploring and dying, I found the manual for the icons, which was much needed help indeed. For the remaining 7 minutes, I repeatedly scrolled down when I saw an object whose icon I do not recognized. After a while I started to get the logic behind the game, but some I still didn't get, which made me frustrated, and stopped playing it :\
After 2 minutes of started writing this, I started playing again. This is the moment I realised that I don't have to repair i.e. the radio or the terminal module, I just have to find the working ones. This changed my approach a lot. With every death, I'm a bit better, and know the mechanics a bit more. But maybe I still not understand a few rules. Maybe I do have to repair a launch module. But how?
Hmm, now I released that in the menu there is an intruction panel, which I couldn't open at first play because I didn't know what key would open it. And after that my eye just ignored it. Now that I managed to open it, it's clearer that I have to find a beacon and then wait. So I will definitely try again with this info :laughing:
The atmosphere is great, when I first stepped to a room which was literally open to space, I got scared. Which is amazing, because the graphics is soo minimal, but it still got me convinced that I'm in outer space.
I like explore games, but maybe nowadays I'm too used to "hyper-feedback" games. Nowadays I give up much sooner, and learn slower in non-straightforward games.
But sure it is enjoyable. How I stepped into the game for the first 3-4 times, and how I step in now, is much different. Maybe after a while I will try again, and maybe even escape :smiley:
I think what causing the issue with my sessions is that it's a deep dive. I see so many thing I don't understand. Anyway nice entry, I've already written too much :)
Will check out again later for sure!
It was somewhat confusing at first as I tried to play without looking at the quick guide (you know, beware of spoilers and stuff). But I discovered that I often have no idea what exaclty I'm picking up (some icons are clear but most aren't really telling me much about what they are ;)). So, after I read the icon's manual, I had a much better time!
The experience was smooth and polished. Well done!
@fabula-rasa I updated the text just above the links to try and give a helpful "warning" for people to read the description, you weren't the first person to do that XD
Nice concept. It would be nice if you make a playable tutorial for all the things you can do in the game. How you managed to get in very few pixels, also more colors for the different things would be nice. I'm looking to see this game later
I like pico-8 games.
I liked this a lot! You do really have to read through the Icons and Tool tips on this page to get it. It's very atmospheric and does sell the setting very well, especially with the great little spaceship bleeps.
I think I beat it but I'm not sure if I did it right. The radar and signal were already repaired when I go there which didn't quite seem right.
Also, when I moved my person too fast the audio seemed to get garbled a bit, but maybe that's just my computer.
Nice job, it was fun.
I read all of the instructions and I still got confused. I may have to take another day to understand what's going on.
Also a lot of the times I'm not sure why things happened... like why I am trying to pick up an ammo, and it got fire immediately, but not sure which direction.
A lot of items look confusing and I never understand why I needed it other than plug holes. Discharging oxygen is never useful since you can't ever plug the walls and doors stay open most of the time. Random spawning monsters makes the game even more complicated.
That being said, it's probably very well done and has lots of stuff. And I am liking it a lot.
@naali, there is a final popup that is triggered if you either launch the lifeboat or trigger the radio and survive 100 - 200 turns. If you see that message pop up, you know you survived
@g12345, you probably fired the ammo as you were likely standing on a grate when the alien appeared. I should probably alter that for future iterations.
If you can trigger the radio, having a small room where the O2 isn't used up as you move around can mean you don't suffocate to death at the end. It's utility is not helpful in most cases but sometimes it is.
I'm thinking I should update the icons some more to explain a few other bits of the game. Thank you for the feedback, gives me a place to look at updating things tomorrow.
It looks realy interesting but i found reading all the UI was complicated and I did not understand very well.
Nice old-school-looking game ! I join the comments above, I don't understand clearly what I have to do in the ship. Maybe the Ui isn't clear enough ? Or maybe some in-game popup information would have been nice to have to understand what object we have found / how it works ?
I love the aesthetics, takes me back to the gameboy era. Great choice to have such a low key heartbeat as soundtrack, sets the mood perfectly. Overall great implementation, well done! Kepp it up
whoa.. small game with wide elements inside and really love the classic style looking. great entry :thumbsup:
Good job! Love the exploring mechanic and art style! The game reminds me of a arcade kind of games. The games sounds were pretty good! The game is a nice strong compo entry! Keep it up! Good job and keep it up!
I'm telling you, when a spider spawned freaked me out for the sound it made. Enjoyed the game very much, died a couple of time figuring out how to play. Overall the game is well made, good job!
@sirsnowy7, @misterkeefe, @magnusfurcifer, @nicolas-diniz, @ironygames, @psychic-ash, @fiakaiera, @runuchok, @endurion, @cptn-b, @louiejams, @tudvari, @fabula-rasa, @morcado, @g12345, @polarcube, I've made a few bug fixes to the game:
1. Fixed bug of players dying really quickly (gave everyone the spacesuit to start off with) 1. Fixed bug of players being killed by unseen alien (prevented alien from coming through grill while player is on it - hopefully) 1. Fixed bug of players not having feedback of what things do (provided in-game description of icons in icon form... closest I could do within the games existing functionality) 1. Fixed bug of players not being able to move for one turn after trying to pick up scrap when already at max capacity
While this might not fix all of your individual issues I hope this might go some way to resolve some of them so you can get a little bit more out of the game and experience some of the later areas and survive to explore for longer.
Any additional feedback I'll see if I can incorporate into potential bug fixes.
Very nice entry, the only issue I have is that the graphics are not really understandable on their own and I've had a lot of trouble understanding what's what.
But it shows that a lot of effort went into this and for that I applaud you :smile:
I like the concept and mood of the game. Art style is really nice aswell. Great job!
Holy moly, what a game to have made with only a week of learning PICO-8! I love the randomness, the art-style and all the different things you have to manage at once. A really solid entry and crazy that you managed to do it all on PICO-8.
Congrats, I really love the sound, graphics, and level design of this. It feels super claustrophobic with the small hallways and random generation. I played a couple rounds of it, and I still can't really figure out what I was supposed to do though. Maybe some more detailed instructions are in order, or maybe I missed something. Super impressive though considering your limited use of Pico-8 in the past though. Well done!
Wow, this is very detailed and in depth for a compo game, and now I've just lost 30 minutes reading up on and watching stuff on Pico-8. Can't believe this was all done in a 128x128 window. Very impressive!
I couldn't get very far but if you are able to fix some of the things you weren't able to during the compo, this could be a very solid game.
I really like pico 8 games. Always fun to see how people manage to make games with such a low resolution
This felt very high quality but I couldn't get into it. I don't know why though. I feel like it deserves more
@fengol, I quite agree. That's why I've been working on a post-ludum version which will have a proper tutorial level and much better exploration and opportunity to explore the mechanics in game before you get to try out the game proper. Alas that is not something I can release for the compo due to the rules.
Awesome game! Rated well
I kinda liked this, but it was really hard for me to get into. The graphics were neat and really well made and the sound effects fit perfectly. Really cool retro vibe. The game play and it's controls were very complicated though and didn't feel very user friendly and easily digested. A lot of keys do something and sometimes even have multiple actions assigned to themselves and it was very hard to really understand what did what and why. Shooting didn't really do anything other than turning a "1" to a "0" in the user interface. I didn't see a projectile or did it kill the enemy that was standing right in front of me. It felt very frustrating pressing buttons, hearing a sound and then not knowing what effect it had on the game or the player. I wasn't able to have fun with the game in response. I tried two runs and both ended in frustration, even though I really wanted this to be fun :) Maybe this is how this is supposed to feel? I haven't really played a lot of those old dungeon crawlers. That's at least what this reminds me of a bit. Bit a bit too cryptic for my taste.
Nice looking and sounding entry though. I hope other people can have more fun with it than I could
@duke, I completely agree with your assessment of the controls. I've spent the last couple of weeks creating a post-jam version which hopefully eliminate most of the control issues and explain a lot more about what's going on in the interface. I was thinking of implementing a kind of menu system to decide more complex actions and provide visual feedback of where you are targetting.
This is so good, feels mysterious. Reminds me of Environmental Station Alpha and smestorp games, such as Corrypt.
Great game! I love well-done pico-8 games, and this is definitely one of them. ;)
The game is pretty hard to understand at first, even with the instructions. As you play, however, you slowly learn and remember what each thing does, it gets a little bit easier every time.
I have one question about the gun - does it let you kill the enemies? I've shot one with all my bullets, but all it did was move it one space back.
All it all, it's a really fun game to play! I enjoyed it very much. ;)
@lcstark, the gun is only meant to drive away the creature for a short while rather than kill them. It gives you a few turns where it will keep away as much as possible.
A new version is slowly being worked on, it has an interactive tutorial level which you can explore and get a bit more first hand understanding of how everything works and eventually randomised 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5 layouts you can choose from to play.
cool litle game made with pico-8, but I don't understand how to kill enemies
@akitl, you're unable to kill the enemy, only drive it off.
The post-jam version will make this a bit clearer (i hope) with a more extensive tutorial level and expanded description.
A good use of PICO-8. It was fun exploring the space station. I only wish I had more bullets, and a way to kill the beasts. I headed south as suggested, but encountered rooms that were full of a yellow item that I could not pick up. I kept dying from lack of oxygen, but I was able to make progress with practice.
I think this game would be more playable with a smaller set of objects. It was hard for me to keep track of what's what. In any case, there is a lot going for this game, and the graphics and sound combine to create the right mood.
Well, I ran out of time, so I wasn't able to explore the game fully, but what I did see was pretty nice. It looks like a complete game, not half-baked like mine end up being so often.
Hard fun game, nice polishment you did there! Good work!
Maybe it's because it's late here, and I've been playing LD games for hours now and my concentration is a bit lower, but... this was really hard to get into. I think if your game needs a long description to be read, complete with iconography and an item combination chart to be learnt, it might be a bit too complicated or unclear on its own? (Also... do you mean "head north"?)
I don't think I could really enjoy getting into the gameplay. Which is a shame, because it seems like it should be right up my alley. The art and sound is great, in all its minimalistic glory. And I really liked the exploration aspect when you don't yet know where things are.
@tobiasw, very common response and something I am going to try and address in a post-jam version which I hope to flesh out a tutorial level which walks you through all the different bits.
The whole description and iconography was thrown in to minimise the lack of time to have a proper tutorial through everything and try to keep within the rules of the competition.
Thank you for taking the time out to try th game and provide feedback, I am certainly working to try and address those issues.