Dead Stars

candlebird 2022-04-05 03:04

A nice small game that's been polished very well! Still kind of confused as to what I was doing, or what the strategy was supposed to be though. I think the main issue I ran into was that there wasn't much instant feedback to tell me whether or not I made a good or bad choice. Some text to describe what the effects story-wise would have also increased the impact a lot. Otherwise this is a really cool idea! I could totally see this becoming a full-fledged game with a bit more work.

zeekza 2022-04-05 03:15

The game has a really nice theme, unfortunately I really don't know what's going on at all. Maybe some tooltips or a bit of background lore would help? Certainly a neat concept tho

embedder72 2022-04-05 03:28

I had no idea what's going on. I did love the feel of the audio.

immanentdeath 2022-04-05 03:37

Thanks! Don't worry I have also been trying to figure out how to play this game. It ended up getting kinda complicated, but the main goal is just to get the highest score you can.

raven42 2022-04-05 04:18

I like the games theme and sounds. Unfortunately I also didn't know what was going on? Based on the description the player is supposed to collect as much energy as possible to survive, but I couldn't figure out which of the two choices to make would be the best decision at each dead star?

nardandas 2022-04-05 22:48

I really like the interpretation of the theme. Mechanically I felt what was going on must be interesting, as evidenced in your post explaining it, but I felt a little more of it should be exposed to the player so we can feel more of what we're doing. I got 2005, probably not particularly good.

dobryn 2022-04-05 23:20

A very polished and well made game, I think a cool storyline would be a wonderful addition to the game. :high_brightness:

Some highscore list will be cool to have to compare my gameplay to others.

immanentdeath 2022-04-06 02:35

I just wanted to make sure players aren't overwhelmed with too much information. There's already a lot of numbers to make sense of.

rowlna 2022-04-07 07:49

It was pretty difficult to understand what options were best to go for, but maybe I'm a lot more simple minded. I am assuming the strategy was to pick the best option for the upcoming mass until the end.. The vibes were perfect though!

tristian-tee 2022-04-07 07:59

Very complicated and not overly well explained. I read the guide and still couldn't wrap my head around it. Admittedly it's been a long day and I am a little brain dead but looking at the comments, I'm not an outlier. Nothing wrong with a complicated game with a high skill ceiling but the gameplay generally needs to be more rewarding as a trade off. Unfortunately this doesn't quite get away with it. Comes close though.

Very good atmosphere. The feel of the music combined with the dark foreboding aesthetic worked a treat.

Hit the theme on the head. Even the growing numbers, so bleakly and unsympathetically indicating the lack of hope.

All in all a decent entry. Well done.

neohermes 2022-04-07 07:59

I didn't understood what i have to do :'( I did love the feel of the audio.

longsilvr 2022-04-08 22:50

Hey! In terms of presentation, visuals, theme, audio it was really cool, a throwback to DOS games! Nice! Somber, powerful atmosphere. However I'll be honest with you, I had no idea what I was doing. I believe a game these days should be intuitive in terms of mechanics and gameplay, or at least give you a hint in the right direction with some small guidance to begin with until you get your brain in the right place for the gameplay.

sirred 2022-04-16 04:04

The presentation was great, but a bit confusing on how to get higher scores.

piscythe 2022-04-16 04:55

I read the guide before playing. It helped. A bit. I don't think the game gives me enough information/feedback to make effective decisions - it could at least tell me what my decisions even did. The atmosphere is great though.

ldjq 2022-04-19 07:01

A little confusing, but the mood easily makes up for that. A unique and interesting entry.

m-dam 2022-04-20 19:24

Atmospheric and unique but a bit boring. Could use more complexity and faster pacing.

damonwakes 2022-04-20 21:02

I scored 5888 on my first try and now I can't beat it. :smiley:

Your guide seems more or less essential to grasp what's going on here, which I think is okay - I'm not sure how you could get it across within the game itself. Having turned to that pretty quickly, I feel as though you've really got the theme down here. I love the graphics too - the way the portion of the ship you can see drifting by looks like a big toothy mouth. It does a lot with very little, and the soundtrack fits too.

The main thing I reckon could be tweaked a bit is the ending: the game just sort of stops, when presumably what's actually happening is that there's no more energy available in the universe and what supplies have been gathered just sort of dwindle away. I'd like to see that play out on screen rather than immediately be given a score. Or rather, I think thee score should maybe be "time survived" with the final sequence of the game showing that time tick up as stored mass/energy is used up. It could also perhaps be a little clearer that the object "identified" after choosing to farm radiation is the same one you were already at (if I'm correct in thinking that it is).

Definitely one of the highlights of the event for me, though! Of all the things I've seen so far, I think this one best matches the theme (despite there being no shortage of other contenders).

flogames 2022-04-20 21:46

I really liked the brooding atmosphere created by the fitting dark scifi soundtrack and the bleak monochrome graphics. Gameplay-wise it didn't do much for me, even with the guide. An in-game tutorial and some in-game help (like an explanation if you made a good decision or not) would have helped a lot. Sorry, but this went a bit over my head.