snowdrama 2021-04-27 09:48
Looks like the Windows and Linux versions are not visible. I only see the Mac version on itch.io
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → loading...
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 748 | 3.61 | 33 | |
| Fun | 1618 | 2.79 | 33 | |
| Innovation | 553 | 3.53 | 33 | |
| Theme | 1060 | 3.53 | 33 | |
| Graphics | 495 | 4.03 | 33 | |
| Audio | 113 | 4.12 | 33 | |
| Humor | 956 | 2.61 | 24 | |
| Mood | 49 | 4.45 | 32 |
Looks like the Windows and Linux versions are not visible. I only see the Mac version on itch.io
I second @snowdrama , Only the apple version is currently displayed on itch.io :( so couldn't test it for now.
I did manage to get it working... couldn't stop spinning, though! Seemed like nothing I did could change the angular velocity numbers (I assume that's what "AV" stands for). When I saw Saturn that big, basically right next to me, I thought: *I am really fucked.* But then I could also see the ISS — unconventional scaling to say the least! Always cool to see a LD game with voice, and commendably acted at that. Could maybe use a little more instruction.
Looks good, but I lost patience with it pretty quickly. I get that it's meant to be an enigmatic slow burn, or maybe intentionally an exercise in futility, and that's pretty cool, but I never got on its wavelength.
I would love to hear more about the intention of the game and the development of its concept, because I legitimately am interested in what you were going for with it.
@snowdrama There is a Windows build and a MacOS build now properly uploaded. I appreciate your patience; I was having issues exporting from my M1 Macbook related to IL2CPP.
@vincent-abel-grimalt It's up now- check it out and let us know what you think?
@caeonosphere There were a few launch bugs with the version you downloaded. I have fixed the rotation issues now- maybe these fixes will resolve your problems! As for scaling... well... we chose to have a bit of creative precedence over exact scale because it just feels better. :)
Thanks for the note on the voice acting! We both (me and @atmctype) voice acted in this game- I took the lead voice acting role of Col Roy Buchanan.
We chose to not include instruction so as to follow the nature and purpose of the game. We will expand the LDJam and Itch page in the next day- just with leaving the jam we both had to get caught up on family stuff!
Thanks for playing!
@noble-robot I very much understand that you lost patience. We struggled with wanting to release the game this way because we knew it would be very trying for a lot of players... but ultimately chose to stay with our vision. I will say this, regarding futility... there are many 'solutions' or 'endings' and it's possible for you to get to them all. However... it's not likely you'll quite get through our story completely.
We intend to do a deep-dive (no ldjam-pun-intended!) in the next week or two, after we have had a chance to watch a few people play it and get some feedback.
Thanks for checking it out!
@popdaddygames So, i got the windows version. and seems i got the bugged out version before you reupload, i will try again later ;) the version i got let me use wasd, with a sound, but that only deplete my oxygen. anyway, Nice graphics, nice voice acting, nice mood, i will try again in the afternoon
I really want to finish this game. I have no idea what was doing wrong. I got really close to the space station and got a tiny bit turned around. When I turned to face it again it was very very far away again. I'm not sure what I need to do to finish/win but... I'm interested in trying again.
Yeah either way i go, it seems the ISS stay at the same distance XD the oxygen thing is tricky cause it kicks before fully depleted (may be that should swap to red when very low ?)
@popdaddygames You will want to check the pause menu, it seems like if you just pause, and unpause whitout touching anything in, the input are stil in pause when you get out of it.
damn the blinded by a rock part is so cool, and so frustrating XD
So, Nice graphics, nice voice acting, nice mood, very fun and calm, and contemplating game :)
Thanks for sharing your game on stream! I'll come back and update with a highlight link when it's available.
I was thinking about my commentary further, and I've reconsidered something: I was trying to play the game on its own terms and engage with the "figure out which controls do what puzzle" I was presented with, but that doesn't make any sense in the context of the story of an astronaut who presumably is trained in the use of their thrusters. I now believe pretty strongly that the lack of documentation of which key applies thrust in which direction is a design flaw. Ideally, probably, a little model of a space-suit with labelled vectors for the visual learners, but identifying the axes would help.
That's an amazing experience. Everything is so well done. The sound and especially the voice acting are the best. The game very well sets the mood of the loneliness in space. The only thing to complain about are the controls. They are terrible and terribly unexplained. I spent full 10 minutes trying to figure out what's happening before even see the Earth. Next, I was amazed by the beauty of the space and the atmospheric sound. But when the blind part started I just gave up. I want to see the ending, but I just can't stand said controls, and the game doesn't give a single hint about where to thrust. Overall the game is great, it's deep and emotional. Too pity not everyone can enjoy it till the ending.
This game is amazing, I got up to the point where you get blinded, managed to regain control and come to a quick stop, but for some reason could never find the station again, I'm guessing the light in the middle of the hud is supposed to be an indicator you're facing the right direction but I tried basically every single one and couldn't find it, it felt at that point I was basically just relying on luck since I didn't have coordinates of where the station is at to reference. (though from where I was, and the way I was headed, I should have literally been right outside their front door as far as i could tell). I loved it and all I really could have used is a slightly less strict "hot/cold" indicator on the rotation in that last part.
@raptor851 Thank you very much for playing!
I am very glad to hear that your overall experience was positive.
We have reviewed some footage of people playing and have found a common point of issue is (at the moment youre talking about in the game) people tend to have a dead spot they don't check that is the right direction for the ISS. This being said: we have just now pushed a build (v1.2) with some super minor tweaks to our coordinate system, as well as our pointers, that should hopefully help create a better and more cohesive experience.
If you're able to check out that build; maybe it will make better sense and you can combat that problem!
Notes:
The light does point you in the direction of that particular destination- with a range of vibrancy and intensity to help pinpoint the positioning.
The position coordinate system has been tweaked to make better sense (on the bottom left)
@mrtroy After reviewing gameplay footage from a few streamers- we have made a tiny tweak to the way some of our coordinate calculations and may have addressed your problem during this change.
if you're able to check it out: there is an updated version (1.2) available now that has these minor tweaks.
@bereg Thank you very much for giving our game a go! You can thank @atmctype for the wonderful sound design- that is entirely his work and experience giving su such an authentic and warm sound stage!
Im glad the mood is appropriately set- that was the hardest thing to get right.
On your note about controls: we have reviewed much footage of people playing and spent a great amount of time debating this topic... we have since updated the GUI to provide a bit more clarity on the nature of the rotation controls to hopefully better point the player (no pun intended) in the right direction. However- we do not believe that changing the controls supports our vision of the game and the experience-- at least based on the playthroughs we have currently seen. There is a certain level of challenge, struggle, and accomplishment that we really wanted to achieve and we believe it currently lands right where we want it.
This being said- I think it's fair to point out some of our decision variables behind this.
The theme of this jam is "Deeper & Deeper". Many players will end up floating deeper & deeper into space- not making it to one of our end-game destinations / cutscenes / etc. Though it is punishing... we really feel that a lot of what shines through in this particular entry is the nature of its near-performative-art state-- the place of crafting and curating a particular experience centered around an intimate connection with a very negative set of human emotions that are extremely relatable- mainly loneliness (hence the name; Solus).
Also: we love difficult games. We are not necessarily "everything must be dark souls" type gamers, but we love really good challenges and we love the satisfaction of overcoming a challenge after a bit of trial & error and exerted effort. Through it took us many hours of play testing to tweak the variables to where they are now- to find the gameplay sweetspots- we really did get it at a point that's at the edge of the difficulty curve where we wanted to land, but also is still entirely feasible with the right amount of applied effort.
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You say that the controls are "terrible", and that they are "terribly explained". This is a tough thing to respond to because it is such a subjective analysis of that portion of the game, and one where we agree with parts of what you mean, and disagree with others.
We believe the controls are near perfect. They work very intuitively when you approach them for what they are, but also are set in a game environment (a solo astronaut without any equipment- only his suit) dead-floating in space with no specific orientation or knowledge of how to make it to safety. The controls themselves do exactly what you expect them to do- and what they should do- its just that we have severely limited the impact of player input into the game world to enhance the emotional state we wanted to craft. This places us in a tough spot because people will feel the way you feel- and we aren't sure how to address that without compromising our vision. If you have advice here: we are open to hearing it and implementing changes.
As for the presentation of what the controls are: we have provided an update with a better visual representation of which controls do what-- hopefully this change will better assist all players in understanding our system.
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We appreciate your enjoyment of the beauty of our spartan scene. Thank you.
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I am sorry that the -event- caused you too much frustration. I hope that you are able to pick up the game again and push through that stage- I think you'll feel very satisfied with the end result if you do.
As for that ending: the latest build (1.2) has some ultra minor tweaks set with the intention of smoothing out some of the rough edges on the difficulty curve that we could have initially made better. If you get the chance; please let us know how you feel after these changes.
@vincent-abel-grimalt I have pushed a build (v1.2) that resolves the oxygen bar issue you pointed out: thank you for catching that.
I think I fixed the issue with the user input not working after some pauses... but there may still be some edge cases. For the most part this should now be resolved.
Thank you for the rest of the comments and thank you for playing our game!
Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for playtesting! If you’d like to revisit the play and commentary you can view the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1007522810
I'm not sure if you just spent too much time on the graphics and cinematic voice lines but the gameplay was extremely frustrating and after many tries I haven't even managed to stabilize my rotation nor start to move in a general direction. If you've intended this to work like this and tell a story you should have made the gameplay a bit more engaging and the death fade outs not so painfully slow.
The stutter of the whole suit is a bit too much and seems more like a bug than intended. The mesh resolution could also be a bit higher because it kinda ruins the experience if you start to look around the suit. The picture is a nice touch.
On the other hand, the game looks great and the beginning feels like firewatch in space which is positive :D
The audio and mood are beautifully and masterfully put together. The game also really captures the feeling of loneliness being out in space. The graphics and narration reinforce everything beautifully. My only issue is I was missing having some feedback about what I'm doing and if I'm on the right track for long stretches of time. I don't know if it's possible to fix this without compromising the atmosphere (or maybe it was the point), but it did impede my enjoyment of the game somewhat!
Overall great entry!
Had a great time up until I wasn't paying attention and ran out of oxygen, took me about 15 minutes to get a reasonable distance from the ISS, which lent itself to how this would actually feel (I think lol) but definitely left me wanting. Loved the dialogue too, the lone astronaut recounting all their experience and making logs was a nice touch, but the audio was wayyyyy loud (I'd imagine from the distortion used to create the radio style sound?). Would highly recommend using a compressor/limiter to bring the level down. Overall good entry!
This game is a beauty to look at and to listen to. The controls are, as people mentioned improvable. I was fortunate enough to catch a livestream of someone finishing it, I probably wouldn't have had the patience. This is a true storytelling masterpiece and I love it. If you don't win for Audio, I don't know who will... Really astonishing work!
Really nice atmosphere, I liked the voice acting.
It looks amazing and it is very immersive. I was feeling as if I was lost in space myself, trying to reconnect with my station. The voice acting was also very good. The story is interesting and the physics are on point. The only thing I would suggest is to put a tutorial section for the game, I was quite lost at the beginning but tried every button in my keyboard and then things started to work. Great game!
@dobrila I apologize that you have had struggles with overcoming the challenge of the control scheme / thruster orientation / primary gameplay mechanic- I wish that we could have done a better job accommodating you in that pursuit.
I believe, without having seen you play but interpreting your play experience from reading what you wrote, that you probably did not pay enough attention to the information provided to you in the helmet hud overlays.
Most people that play do not ever once even get to see the oxygen-loss fade out, to my displeasure, because I spent a lot of time making those look and sound really good!
I appreciate that you gave this game a go- and hope if you play it again that you find a way to vibe with the gameplay that we designed! :)
The mesh resolution is rather high in the base game- so maybe you had an issue with the game reducing your mesh quality due to system constraints? I am not quite sure what you saw; if you send me some screenshots or video I could take a look and see if there was something wrong that we can fix.
The stutter of the suit... I don't know if maybe you might have a bugged version of the game- I really would like to see what you saw so I can better analyze what to change.
Thanks for playing and providing feedback- I sincerely appreciate it!
@aditya-kumar Thank you very much for such fine accolades! It truly means a lot to us that you resonated so well with the experience we tried to cultivate- and appreciate your recognition for the challenges we faced in trying to accomplish that goal.
We definitely struggled with the 'feedback to the player' part because we wanted to walk that line of 'giving them all the information they need, but none of the information they want.'
Thanks again for playing!
@conduit We appreciate you playing and will make some tweaks to our audio levels in accordance with your observations!
@andidebob Thank you very much for the positive expression- we sincerely appreciate that, and you playing!
Out of curiosity: do you have advice on how we could improve the controls? We fought tooth and nail against (and with) our design philosophy for the game, in regards to the controls / user input / player movement + rotation, and haven't been able to solve some of the more esoteric decisions.
Thanks again!
@leandro4002 Thank you very much!
@villanelle Thank you very much for playing- and also thank you for the accolades!
We will look into what a tutorial could look like in this experience and see if we can get something we feel fits in line with our philosophic vision for the experience- thank you for letting us know this would be a positive addition to the game.
Congratulations your game, the idea is very interesting and a very bold bet for a jam, as it reminds me more of a virtual reality game, the feeling of being lost and loneliness has been achieved, maybe in the future add subtitles to add a larger audience, in my opinion there is no game well done or not, what exists is the right game for the right audience, so it can often not be interpreted so well for most, a big hug to the team! , and I await your feedback regarding my game.
I just spent like an hour writing a comprehensive review and I accidentally clicked something and went to a different page and lost everything I wrote D: so here's the quick version until I can rewrite everything properly again. :P
amazing all around, immersive experience. definitely not for everyone, requires a lot of patience
controls: you are all wrong, controls are perfect. Especially in the second part, the thrusters need to be subtle so the player can be precise. What's missing is visual feedback for controls
visual feedback (I talked about this in my stream so he knows what I mean haha) -hud dude thrusters -ballerina silhouette illusion hud guy rotation -sun is blinding, but honestly why are you looking at the sun anyway, guy? that's how you lose your retinas -pause menu control UI: 3 of them need to have the arrows flipped
I've said in a couple other entries that there's no reason to blind the player because it's usually unfair, but this is one of the exceptions. There's so much info available to the player, that they are never really blind. I think this is one of the few games that could ever pull this off so well
-proud Champion of Solus
Nice experience, I managed to come back to the space station but it tooks so looong :-) after all I was lost in space! I would have started the game nearer to the space station since the first half of the trip is easier (you have a visual feedback). The second part was interesting... I've emptied all the oxigen a couple of times because I was so focussed on the controls and forgot to stop using them XD Overall a nice and well implemented idea.
This was quite interesting. Right off the bat I was amazed by the beautiful visuals that you achieved. one of the better looking space games I've seen. That said the jittery effect that you overlay that is very prevalent on the helmet geo an UI was a bit much and a touch annoying at times. It took me a while to figure out the controls. Partly my fault because I skipped over that section of text and also I never tried pausing the game til I was quite a ways into it. After I discover the IJKL and UO controls it got easier, though not entirely. It took me a good while to understand if controls like "J: were turning me IN that direction or AWAY from that direction. Like others have said, some sort of visual feedback on that would be extremely helpful. I know that there is the little spinning hologram but it was hard to tell where that was oriented. Off the top of my head maybe some sort of overlay on the helmet screen with up and down and side to side degrees oriented to the orbital plane might help.
After getting situated I finally started my journey towards the station. Or at least I was pretty sure that was where I was supposed to go. Because you have other planets so large in the sky I was starting to go towards one of those before I saw the station and if I had continued would have missed the entire game. The audio clips were a very nice touch though the voice lines were a touch loud I think. The station indicator I was confused by. It only ever lit up the third light so I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of it was. As I progressed to the station I slowly figured out what each number on my HUD meant. Although at this point it was very slow going. Speeding up a bit, waiting for O2 to refill, speeding up, waiting. I think you could have decreased the scale of the solar system by 50-75% and you would get a similar experience. It just started to drag on too much. And then when I was finally nearing the station I hit the blind part. I still hadnt really mastered the controls so being blind and not entirely understand which controls manipulated which vectors in which direction was just too confusing so unfortunately I gave up here after fumbling around for about 5 minutes.
Also with regards to the theme. I know we don't always have to follow the theme specifically and it can be interpreted so I don't judge too harshly for that. I saw you said something about how most of the players will just float deeper and deeper into space and not experience one of the endings, and I would just like to provide a bit of criticism that that may not be the best play, especially in an event like this. You have maybe 5 minutes to capture someone's attention and then another 10-15 to have them experience you're game. having "most" players just drift off and experience nothing for 10-20 minutes feels a bit bad when we have so many other games to play and rate. Just my personal feeling on that.
I write all this though because it was overall a good experience and with a bit more polish and clarity could be really fun to master this type of space movement and gameplay. Good job! (and sorry for the wall of text lol)
Well, this was pretty amazing... You most certainly get top marks for mood and audio! I found the controls extremely difficult - but I think that's probably the point. I suspect it's quite realistic and having had no training, I found it tough to get my head around this kind of manoeuvrability. I do agree with a previous commenter that the main character in the scenario would have extensive training, so it would make sense to have some kind of documentation for us as players that in some way provides the information that an astronaut would have received. Trial and error makes for realistic gameplay if _I'd_ found myself in that situation though!
So, I really wanted to persevere and make it back to the station to see the ending... It took me about 2 hours to finally get there! I'm not sure what kind of average you'd expect. I'd spent the first part of the game orienting myself with the station dead ahead, and then firing my thruster to move toward it. Once I became blinded I found that heading toward the station (i.e. with the light indiciating I was facing the right way) wasn't as useful as just paying attention to how the stats changed as I used the thrusters. I'm pretty sure that I came in backwards and upside-down. ;)
I have to say, I was a little disappointed that there didn't seem to be much to my ending... A beautiful shot of the ISS to be sure, but given all of the audio clips and the picture I'd built up of the main character's life and relationships - and given the amount of effort that must have gone into all that - I was surprised there wasn't any payoff and continuation of the story as it were.
You've mentioned different endings... I'm not sure what others there may be. Though I did note down a code that I found no use for. I couldn't see how the code translated to co-ordinates and I'm not sure what else it could be.
Anyway... an impressive and undeniably immersive experience. I'd love to see it in VR. I'm not sure how you could expand on it beyond the jam version, but it could certainly be a part of a bigger narrative game. Great entry. Very well done.
[Thanks for submitting your game to the stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1015053228?t=02h21m46s)
Y'all really have a talent for crafting an atmosphere and mood. I reeeeeaaaallly enjoyed this one, for sure. I was DEEPLY uncomfortable when I futilely attempted to navigate the vastness of space after my vision was taken away. It's one of my biggest irrational nightmares, and y'all captured the helplessness of that so well.
Very impressive job here. I always have a soft spot for entries that are more "experiences" than games, and I feel like y'all absolutely nailed this one. Excellent work. :thumbsup:
This one is particularly well crafted. The visuals are beautiful, voice acting impactful, and the mechanics are in total servitude to the story and mood of everything. Stunning work.
The one real gripe I have regarding this game mostly stems from the fact that I'm an Ebenezer Scrooge. For game jams in particular, I expect experiences that won't take much longer than 10 minutes to complete. This game, however, uses the deepness of space and tough controls to drive the emotion of hopelessness, which while done very very well, made the experience drag on for nearly an hour.
Here's where we played it on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1018587431 starting at about 00:59:00ish.
Super well done, guys.
I really like everything about this game. Fantastic job with the audio and the visuals.
Did you guys have a plan to make it a HTML5 version? I wanted to have other people play it.
Hey this is Nate from "We Have to Go Deeper!" team. Thank you for playing our game on your stream. You were very kind and I enjoyed watching the stream until the end.
Anyway, I played your game today and was super impressed with the quality. Your game had incredible mood (audio experience, graphics, VO, narrative design). All those aspects were so high quality!
Looks like you have gotten plenty of comments about the controls having confusing elements. I would tend to agree as I found myself spinning out of control not knowing how to make it stop or which direction to go. Even after pausing and reviewing the controls I could not seem to get my self to stop spinning (if that is something you can do) I can see the choice to make the controls feel realistic was very intentional but perhaps there are some simplifications that could be made and still achieve the same game feel you were aiming for?
Anyway looking forward to seeing more from you guys!