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ESCAPE_OS
ESCAPE_OS
By sylvic
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 99 | 3.62 | 30 | |
| Fun | 120 | 3.44 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 57 | 3.80 | 30 | |
| Theme | 128 | 3.80 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 172 | 3.35 | 30 | |
| Audio | 142 | 3.28 | 30 | |
| Humor | 48 | 3.46 | 30 | |
| Mood | 147 | 3.46 | 30 | |
Comments
Wow, first off, nice seeing a fellow godot user, lol. Also very cool idea, extremely difficult, even on easy, my biggest issue was forgetting to activate comms before clicking a room, felt unnecessary and made me lose a lot of people. Also because of the pixel effect over the screen, it was really hard to read some of the text that was on the ground level. But, that aside, I love the idea, especially for the player being a computer trying to protect the important people of a company, feels perfectly corporate greedy. Anyways, glad I got to play it, for as difficult as it was. Keep up the good work :D
Cool idea for sure! Definitely hard took me a bit to figure out, but appreciate the explanations!
Very hard! I think before looking at balance, look at the controls because it's pretty tricky to a) be cycling through four commands (constantly having to look at which one is selected) and b) press E every time I want to issue a command. Ideally there would just be four keys, maybe 1, 2, 3, 4 which instantly issue an order to the mouse cursor when pressed.
I like the airlock feature but I couldn't ever get aliens to be sucked out.
It's way too hard to identify individual crew for SHV - they probably should be more distinctive.
Lastly please add a fullscreen button - it was very hard to play this in a small box in a web browser.
sinemual
2026-04-20 04:20
At first, I thought I wouldn't be able to figure it out because there was so much information, but it turned out not to be that hard to understand. What a cool game idea! Although I felt the signal mechanics weren't implemented very intuitively. If you were to expand the systems and add a storyline, I could totally see this as a game on Steam. Great work!
nathmate
2026-04-20 04:25
2026-04-20-141946_957x547_scrot.png Agreed with Mr Flower on the difficulty, mostly I think the game just proceeded too fast to be able to take in the game state and react in time. Managing to space the aliens was really satisfying. The setting was cool, reminds me of Space Station 13 and Duskers. Well done getting a relatively complex simulation done for a compo.
sylvic
2026-04-20 12:19
Thanks everyone for the feedback!
I'm aware of the issue with the intuitiveness of controls for the signals but given the scope of the game I just couldn't handle improving that. I had considered perhaps tying the signal change to the mouse wheel but on paper it looked even less intuitive.
Funnily, I got stuck on Sunday afternoon fixing the NPCs AI that kept panicking and hiding even if there was a perfectly empty escape pod besides them and that took me half a day to fix their state machine. About 4 hours that would have given me time to do more balance but oh well.
As for the difficulty, yeah it's absurdly difficult and it's almost impossible to ensure that the high value targets are saved, it would have taken another full day at least to fix that but in the end, it's kinda realistic for this kind of situation that you won't be able to separate the CEO's nephew from the Janitor 😂 so I thought it would be fine to leave it like that for the Compo.
@matt-giuca I'm not sure how to do full screen here on LD but you can do it on Itch, I added a link on the top. The idea of tying the signals to the buttons and have them execute on mouse location is a good one!
@sinemual Thanks! I actually started making the game with a storyline in mind and not the arcade it is right now, but that was obviously WAY out of scope lol. I'm not really planning on continue working on this as I already have my own personal project but depending on people's response I might think about it.
@sylvic FYI to do full screen on LD you have to trigger it from a button inside the game. In Godot it is [DisplayServer.window_set_mode](https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/classes/class_displayserver.html#class-displayserver-method-window-set-mode)(WINDOW_MODE_FULLSCREEN). On web builds this won't work on startup, it has to be in response to a button press.
sylvic
2026-04-20 13:19
@matt-giuca Thank you! I'll see if I add the button to the main menu
Wow impressive what a complex game you've created in the short time! Gives me some lemmings vibes haha
nkvz
2026-04-21 15:06
so nice for compo!
chomby
2026-04-21 15:31
Once I accepted casualties are inevitable, I started enjoying the game & the chaotic atmosphere. Opening and closing doors is a fun puzzle, I like you can eliminate enemies with the open airlock. I think the humor's good too.
jcomcl
2026-04-21 15:36
Impressive what you managed to get done. Kinda of a clusterfuck, but perhaps that's the point. I could see this being the sort of game you could master with enough time.
sylvic
2026-04-21 16:38
Thanks @zwi-zausch @nkvz !
@chomby Glad to hear that! Thank you
@jcomcl Thank you! Yes, that's indeed the intention, to have a massively chaotic gameplay. I tested with different amounts of crew and lower number made the game too easy, like you could save almost all of the crew but it was not as enjoyable, just another puzzle game.
dammit humans, stop getting eaten
Quite a lot done for a 48hr project, excellent work! Interesting idea too, it would of been cool to be able to squash the monsters in the doors but it would of probably made it too easy :smile:
This was a 48 hour solo entry? Damn! Whatever they pay you at the Indie Game Academy, they should raise it.
helagos
2026-04-22 12:52
It's difficult and i did not manage to go far but what i saw is really nice and well done. It could be really nice just with a "run" mechanic but you managed to add multiple signal "types" so the mechanics are complex but not hard to understand. A solid game for compo indeed, well done !
mcramon
2026-04-22 13:07
Agree with people above me, a bit too difficult, which is understandable considering the conditions of the jam. Overall really impressive game, my only real critique would be the graphics, everything looks kinda blurry and hard to read. Other than that, 10/10
Had a tough time as others have said, wish I could have switched modes while paused though it probably wouldn't have helped much. It's a good fit for the theme and a solid game idea, I'd definitely play a post jam version with refined controls and graphics. Great work!
gdman
2026-04-22 21:36
It's pretty tough, but interesting and advanced game, I liked music and art, and definitely worth learning how to beat it. Good luck!
frib
2026-04-23 15:08
A chaotic mess :D My best score on hard mode is 349.0, with a strategy of just luring the aliens together 24/7 while occasionally shepherding humans (regardless of value) towards an exit, and hope they don't wander into my murder room.
I think the game would be a bit more manageable if you could use one key for each command and immediately execute it, so you don't have to cycle through the list and then use it. Also, it feels like the lure command also lures humans, while the description says it only lures aliens.
Good stuff! Fun to play :D
I struggled a bit with the controls, but I love the concept! This is a fun one. The music can get a _tad_ repetitive with those high notes, but in general it's a good vibe. :) Nice pixels!
very cool, i like the idea a lot. it was slightly hard to cycle through the signal types, but i did get the hang of it
i kept on pressing R accidentally instead of E, probably want that in a menu or a confirmation to restart.
but really cool game
Up until now this is my favorite game of this jam, incredible work in this short time frame.
magus77
2026-04-24 11:27
the difficulty level needs some playtesting and balancing but gawd i like this effort! very cool game mechanic and retro art style.
2026-04-24 11:36
First of all, what's very considerate is that there is a difficulty level prompt right from the start of the game, and there are also set groups of people and monsters in the scene, which seems very well thought out. The sound of the music malfunction is slightly less pleasant in terms of auditory experience, and the gameplay needs to be explored a bit. Overall, it's a very good game.
I honestly couldn’t figure out how to save the humans or get them into the escape pods, so I ended up helping (I think I did, at least) the spiders wipe them all out. And even then I didn’t quite succeed—one human was left stuck in a room whose doors I’d accidentally closed, and I couldn’t reopen them afterward.😅😅😅
Overall, it’s fun and enjoyable. But during longer play sessions, the sound really starts to get on your nerves. Next time, try looping the sounds or a track for yourselves to check how they feel after a few minutes.