I also updated the instructions from Powerslide Master.
If that still doesn't help, at least there is now a ch(e)at command "/unlock_gateways" in case you're really desperate to see the end. :D (only use this if you have completely given up, lol)
Yeah, I gave plenty of leeway for being able to complete the game with many, but not all electrons. I think in a future version something special will happen if you have everything, but it will still be optional.
Somehow your little joke game still did better than TWO submissions. :D
Occupy Moon got last place, probably because people didn't like it was basically just a Minetest Game + Technic ripoff (+ other old mods), which was missing the point of the game jam.
And there was also Making Space, basically a non-game which just generates cardboard boxes everywhere, that's it. It wasn't even ranked at all, this one is already deleted from ContentDB.
Yes, I did finish the game, but the ending struck me as unremarkable. But that's not really the problem; the real problem is the whole game just does not offer a lot of things to do. :-(
OK, the solar panel does not work below Y=0 but it does work above. Weird.
And yeah, I absolutely thing that if this is meant as a standlone, you can't expect players to know the ins and outs of Technic. Complete newcomers might not even know what Technic is. Servers are different.
You don't have to collect ALL electrons to win, only 512, which I think is a generous leeway. If an electron is to difficult to you, skip it. If a sector is too difficult, try a different sector. Repeat until you unlock new sectors. If you try to 100% this game, that's a much different challenge, but nothing special happens if you do that (YET). Backtracking to sectors you already visited is intended and an important part of the level design. In the Void Pipe, there is a launchpad that you can't use immediately. Other players appreciated the backtracking, so I guess you can't make everyone happy. :-) There is a secret sector with lots of electrons in it (within your reach).
Yeah, the Hub was probably the best and most important idea of the whole level design. When I completed that, my motivation got BOOSTED, trust me. I added the decorations of each gateway (in the Hub) because even I could not remember where these gateways would lead to otherwise, so I needed that myself to make playtesting easier. :-) Thanks for appreciating that.
Indeed, the powersliding ability has bad controls. The way it is supposed to work is you hold down Aux1 pressed and THEN press forwards. And yes, powerslide is bugged at slopes, until you got the "Super Slope Sliding" ability. Yes, Minetest is not good with reading inputs. :-( I will try to work on that (and other stuff) post-jam. Stay tuned, and check the forum thread for updates! :-)
It's true, the whole "collect lots of stuff and unlock levels doing so" thing was directly inspired from Spyro games, although the idea that the game will have collectibles at all came surprisingly late in development (I will post a full post-portem in the forum thread). The Hub itself is not inspired by any game tho, I just wanted to make sure the basic shape is not yet another cuboid. I settled on using an octagon as the base instead, and it turned out to be great! :)
I feel FLATTERED you're already requesting a Glitch 2. :D The ending wasn't really meant as a cliffhanger, just a quick joke (and the game had to end somewhere), but I can see how this can be a very easy spot to continue the story. I have no idea if I will ever start that. Polishing and fixing up Glitch (esp. the controls) will have priority.
I deliberately decided to not add multi-electrons (like 5 electrons in one) to keep it simple. It's easier for the player to count (like, when you still need 10 electrons for the next sector, you actually need to collect 10 things), and also easier for me for level design. If there ever will be a Glitch 2, I think I'll stick to the 1-electron-is-always-worth-1-electron concept.
As I already said, all electrons are reachable, but nothing special happens if you find them all (YET!). You only need 512 electrons to complete the game, not all of them.
I will not add more abilities in this game, those would only make sense if I add even more levels but I don't plan to add a ton of levels in Glitch. Also, the way the levels are connected, and how you progress through them is closely linked to the way how you receive abilities. The abilities are supposed to be gotten in a certain order (roughly). Adding only one more ability would mean I might have to redesign the whole level structure, which isn't fun. There will be no 5th ability in Glitch.
What I DO plan is add a few more characters to talk to, and a FEW more levels, fix bugs, polish the weird controls, add more secrets, and call it a day.
Any idea beyond that is best reserved for Glitch 2. :D
Yeah, having a real intro and ending sequence was very important to me to make sure the game feels "complete". Different than many sandbox games that just throw you in with ZERO explanation. The soundtrack was created by Visager, and I chose it on the very last day. I initially planned to do even the music myself, but then I remembered I had near-zero experience lol. Thankfully, using external resources is allowed (and many entries did). But everything else was my own work.
You may or may not play in 3rd person, I personally felt like playing in 3rd person MAY a little bit easier, but once you got used to the physics, playing in 1st person can be just as easy. The choice is up to you.
Maybe it would be better if the game started in 3rd person by default, but that's a missing feature in Minetest. :(
Thank you. Yes, this is the point of this game jam, to create something new and standalone. :-) I am working on a few other standalone games as well, but they are more close to the sandbox genre.
The powerslide controls clearly are the most common complaint, I really need to make this more reliable (and understandable). Sadly not as easy as it sounds ... Hint for now: Hold down Aux1 pressed BEFORE pressing forwards (but even this does not work 100%).
As for the story ... Yes, I do plan to improve it a bit post-jam. Because I did plan to add even more characters, but time was running out. I do plan to refine the story post-jam, but no radical changes. The emotes idea is nice, I also had a similar one (by animating the faces directly or something). And yes, more secrets, I wanted to add more secrets to the levels, but again, time. :D
Check out the forum thread for updates.
Indeed, the powerslide controls need work. The trick is that you hold down Aux1 pressed BEFORE pressing forwards, but even that is not 100% reliable. The reason why the powerslide does not work on slopes sometimes is also weird. It's probably related to how stepheight in Minetest works. Once you got the ability to slide on tall slopes, you can powerslide on slopes just fine. That's not really intended, I wanted to make powerslide work on all slopes, always. Will try to fix this in the next version.
Edit: Pressing Shift doesn't affect the powerslide at all tho. Just to clarify.
Yeah, the powerslide control has issues. "Reading input" is not very well done in Minetest, I wonder if I can find a more reliable method ...
I do plan an update with a FEW more additions, especially figuring out a better control scheme will have top priority.
So the correct way to powerslide is to FIRST hold Aux1 pressed, and while it is pressed, press Up. If you press both at the same time briefly, it might not register. This is not made clear enough in the game yet. Sadly, Minetest is not that great with reading player input, but I try to improve that in an update.
Hint: Hold down Aux1 pressed BEFORE pressing forwards, then it should be more reliable. I did not make it clear in the game.
I agree, the powerslide control has issues. "Reading input" doesn't work that well in Minetest, I wonder if I can find a more reliable method ...
I do plan to release an update to Glitch to fix this (hopefully) and other stuff.
Small factual correction (since you implied this game has no secrets): This game does have a secret level (you need it if you want all electrons), and a small easter-egg.
I didn't want to comment on the comments before the game jam is over, but here I want to correct a factual statement:
But some points weren't reachable and the game was a bit short.
I swear that all electrons are reachable in the game jam version. I actually did a FULL playtest a few days ago. Maybe you just didn't see the correct path to the electron yet, some aren't obvious.
That was a very low effort criticism. Besides, what else are we supposed to say other than "shit" when the game is literally about it? "poop"? "feces"? "excrement"? Some people just want to feel offended.
This isn't a game. You can't do anything. Don't bother with this.
This is just the default world generator that generates ONE block. That's it. I don't even know what the author intended to create here, very confusing.
I'm sorry, but no recommendation, this is way too incomplete, too little gameplay. This looks like a prototype tho, so I'm still interested to see where this game will go in the future, if it is continued post-jam, because I'm kinda curious about the concept.
Gameplay
Sadly, there is not much you can do yet. Probably this is another prototype for the game jam. Your main mission is to collect 5 asteroids with the "power hammer" tool and then you win. :-( And you basically just have to wait until they randomly drop from the sky. The mapgen is also very, very simple and mostly, although the MASSIVE ravines look really cool. I was promised an alien fight but even after 3 playthroughs I never encountered them. (?????) I like that you have a companion, the C.O.M.P. Unit. This reminds me of some really old-school sci-fi stories. There are special abilities you can use with your two tools, but what use do they have if there is nothing to fight? :(
Graphics
I was pleasantly surprised. Interesting art style and use of contrast which sets the world apart from default Minetest Game textures. The game logo could still do some work tho.
Sounds
This one had a surprise: It has speech output for your companion "C.O.M.P.". And the music seems to be composed and created by the author as well. Very nice! Even if the music is a bit simple, I really like that someone made music for the game specifically for the game jam.
Stability / Performance
The game is stable. It greets me with an harmless error message about missing river water, but not real bugs. I had no performance problems on a >10y computer. 60 FPS effortlessly.
Very minimal. The worms look kinda cute, but not very detailed. I observed only two behaviors: Sliding around, and sleeping. The worms don't interact with each other. The asteroid is a flat orange which is ... meh. There is a very blurry space background. The menu interface doesn't look too great either.
Stability / Performance
It doesn't crash, but: The game greets me with a "missing image" error. Space worms can get stuck if you raise the ground into them. There are no performance problems at all. At least the worms seem to be intelligent enough to avoid the void or walls, so the very minimal basics seem to work. That's better than nothing, I guess.
Music / Sounds
It is silent except for a few click sounds. :-(
UI/UX
It's not self-explanatory, and the buttons look like they are written in an alien language. But I still was able to figure out what it all means, so the UX is fine.
Absolutely no recommendation as a game. This is just too boring even as a tamagotchi. It is probably WIP/incomplete anyway. At this stage, it might serve as a screensaver at best.
"Gameplay"
This is a very early prototype, so there is very little of what you could call "gameplay". You mostly just watch forms slide around on an orange asteroid, that's it. You can raise the ground at certain places and add new space worms with a maximum of 3. That's it. You can't even undo the raising of land, that's how incomplete this is. It gets boring instantly, sorry. First, this is not a game, as there is no gameplay. It is more like a tamagotchi. That alone isn't a problem, but even as a tamagotchi is has nothing to offer since you just can't do anything. And if all you can do with the worms is just watch, you can hardly call it a game.
It's still interesting to see new concepts being tried out in Minetest. I believe something like Adopt a Space Worm! was never even tried before, so I give a few points for the idea. :P
Oh wow! So many 3D models and textures! That must have taken a long time to put together. Also, the map is BIG and pretty detailed for the given time frame. There are many rooms you can explore and many items you can find, although most items still seem to be dummies. I think this alone gives the game potential for future releases, but it obviously needs more work. The map
It rare you see hi-res textures actually being used in a Minetest, we're all so used to 16×16. XD But it makes sense
Music / Sounds
With 2-3 small exceptions, the game is completely silent. :-( Seems like there wan't time for that.
Story
Oh no, it seems the author ran out of time. :-( I like the idea of a mystery / adventure-style game to figure out what went wrong, but currently, the story is more like an jigsaw puzzle where like 80% of the pieces are missing, in a bad way. The few pieces that are available aren't really written out yet. It seems the story writing must have been done as a last-day panic effort. For a game like this, story is key, hopefully a future version will improve on this. Although, maybe you might even get away by throwing away all text in the post-jam version (should you attempt it) and still have a good game.
What's good is that the game's premise is very clear right from the start.
UI/UX
It's the standard Minetest controls, you can't do anything wrong with that. A lot of furniture randomly drops items when clicking them. I'm not sure it's a good idea the game lets you toss away ALL items tho (possible unwinnable state?). The game sometimes uses red text on a blue background, ew! (My eyes are still bleeding ...)
Many events are told to the player with chat messages, rather than a dedicated (and more pretty) UI. :(
Performance / Stability
I had no performance issues. The game, like most submissions, greeted me with many console warnings. But I found no real bugs, so the game seems stable.
No recommendation, because the gameplay experience is still bland due to incompleteness. A lot more work is needed, but it's a start. To players I advice to just wait until the complete game gets released. Currently, this is mostly feels like an early demo version. I think the size of the map was ultimately this game's downfall, the author made the map WAY too big and then was unable to create a complete (or even semi-complete) experience within the time frame. I still appreciate the work that has been put into this MASSIVE map already, I think I should check out this game again if a post-jam version is planned. Although the game got no recommendation, I do NOT say it's worthless. I would love to see an actual polished adventure/mystery-style game in MT.
Gameplay
First of all, this game might be the first attempt to create a non-trivial adventure/mystery-style game in Minetest ever (together with Piranesi, I guess). The attempt alone is cool, it's high time that Minetesters explore new genres. :-)
Sadly, the result ultimately falls flat IMO. You explore the various rooms and collect items and clues, except the only item that actually matters are the keycards that unlock new rooms. Oddly, the key cards just magically increase your security clearance by using them in mid air (not at a terminal)??? There are working computers which their own GUI, which is nice, but you can't do much with them yet. A minimal game functionality is available: You can open doors and close them and the security clearance is checked properly.
The graphics look simple yet pretty nice. The game is dark and you better never ever lose your flashlight. Thankfully, the game has a (small) chance to give you another flashlight in one of the many boxes, but it's still PAIN.
Stability / Performance
The game is mostly stable, but a bit buggy. The spider egg tasks don't register, so I guess that means the game is currently unwinnable, and I remember getting unknown items sometimes, but overall it's playable. There is a HUGE number of console warnings. But for a game jam the bugs are still on an acceptable level, since it's not really about the game goals, I guess (I hope these are just dummy goals, to be replaced later). I had no performance issues.
The game goals technically can be exploited by placing the same thing over and over again to increase the counter. I can also technically nerd-pole to the top walls, but this is not really useful, as the walls are short and nerd-poling in this game is actually pretty expensive, other than in Minetest Game.
There are 3 manuals to find, which explain different tasks you might do: Repair computers, repair an O2 filter and refuel the ... engines? However, it seems some that two of the things the manuals explain aren't actually possible to do in the game yet. :( I did manage to repair a computer tho.
There are "Incase of Emergency tasks" but this looks more like a ripped achievement system than actual game goals. This looks WIP. It would be nice if you could actually do repairs to trigger some secret event and whatnot. These game goals feel kinda like a grind. The coal task is definitely the biggest grind.
The only enemy are spiders, but they are really fast and hard to kill. But if you know how to avoid (or kill) them, they should pose no threat.
Sounds / Ambience
This submission has by far the best audio ambience and sound design of this year's game jam. A really eerie and dark soundtrack / ambience, and it also doesn't feel repetitive even after a long time of play. Also, the node sound effects are great, with great attention to detail. Different sounds make different sounds, and it's all heavy metal. There's also an echo effect which makes sense in this environment. Play with headphones! Sound design is an often completely overlooked part of games, so I really like to hear something like this in Minetest. Good job!
I give this one a recommendation for the sound design ALONE, even if the game is lacking a bit in content and the goal is a GRIND to achieve. I hope this one will get expanded (and bugfixed) post-jam, I am looking forward for an update.
Gameplay
The gameplay is basically ... survive, I guess? You run in a seemingly endless expanse of metal rooms, except it's not rooms, it's walls in a chaotic pattern. This game must have been directly inspired by SCP stories from the Internet, I guess it's not a coincidence that the letters "SSP" are similar to "SCP". :-)
You constantly run throughout the rooms, hoping to find something new and punch to destroy objects like drawers, storage boxes. Most of the "rooms" look alike, but they are not identical, it's chaos. Normally I would find such things boring fast, but the ambience REALLY carries the game. I found two rare special structures: The engines with coal stacks inside, and a filter system. Apart from that, it's boxes, computers, drawers and some random electronics.
The game tells you very little about what happens, you have to figure (most) things on your own, but this adds to the mystery. You get hungry fast, but there are plenty of food boxes, but you still need to restock constantly, so you need to explore further. I think the game still needs to add a few more special structures to be not monotonous, however, the endless repeating halls still have something spooky ...
Like in most game jam entries, I was greeted with a few console warnings. Also, using the spray gun triggers an error message (not a crash). I found no other bugs. The biggest problem for me is performance; I had serious performance problems. This is the only game of this game jam with performance problems for me. The mobs are lagging so much, they keep killing me without me being able to even see the projectiles. Also, placing a lamp takes ages until it actually appears. Everything in this game reacts slowly. This unfortunately ruins the game. I still managed to win the game legit somehow. I am aware of the system specs in the README, but I think this high demand is kind of unjustified given the low-res (but great!) graphics., probably the game's performance can still be improved without losing features. If the game had really high-end graphics or something like that, I might have been more tolerant of performance problems.
Story
The story is simple yet it makes sense. It's special enough that I actually still remember it after a few days.
Mapgen
The whole map is so surreal. It reminds me a lot of spooky SCP stories you find on the Internet. Onc I got the map item, I saw how simple the map actually is, but the eff
The game displays the purpose of your tools at the beginning ... ONCE. In a tiny font. If the message is gone, it's gone forever. So if you missed it, you have to figure out everything on your own. The inventory screen looks cool, but it didn't really understand what everything means at first, especially the abbreviations which aren't explained anywhere.
I also wish the game would display in the HUD what I've just mined. I never know whether I just got saturnium or an organic, and how much.
It took me a while to figure out how my tools actually work, even with the explanation (which I of course instantly forgot, lol).
The game compass/map is confusing to use, I never know where I'm heading.
Scaffoldings and lamps don't seem to be really useful, and I also cannot remove them. If I can't reach the plant on the ceiling, I just look for somewhere else, this is more convenient than building the (relatively expensive) scaffolding.
The intro UI is strange, you have to press Esc to proceed with the intro story. (Why not a "continue" button?)
The game ending is also aprupt. The screen suddenly turns black and I first thought it was a bug, only in later tries I noticed there was an outro text.
The ambience is great. It's a good mix of music that fits the game's theme perfectly. Each layer has its own mood. Unfortunately, there are (almost) no sounds but I think that's OK. The ambience is still not as good as for Secrets of the Space Parable (SSP). :-P
Graphics
Definitely the coolest graphics of the game jam. The formspec design looks very polished and cool, it's very unique. There's even a custom font. The node textures are also pretty nice, it's alien-looking, I like how the various layers become hotter and hotter. The atmosphere is very believable, you really feel like you're on an alien planet. I like the night sky is dark blue instead of pitch black, matches well with the ground. A lot of effort was put into making the game look great. This game is kind of an art form, although I still have criticisms …
First, the particles the plants emit are very small, I almost didn't notice them at all, so these particles are pretty pointless if you can't see them. Second, most organics look well made, except those plants that have a "flat color" for some reason. I don't know why some plants only have 1 color, they don't match with the theme at all. I like most layer "stone" textures, except the one right below surface (the "Defrosting" one), because you can clearly see the pattern repeat itself. The other layer textures look really cool, how the become progressively hotter and hotter.
(Pro-tip: Minetest actually allows you to let a texture span over multiple nodes.)
First of all, even if this game is incomplete, this game demonstrates greatly how games can be a form of artistic expression. This game is clearly a very special and unique submission for tha game jam. I like that a lot! But I still have to give a "No recommendation" due to massive performance problems. This is a shame, as the game is otherwise something really special, I really hope the problems will be fixed and the game will continued to be worked on post-jam, it 100% has HUGE potential. I am looking forward for a post-jam version of this game. It's stuff like this why I like the game jam, even if not every submission passes the park.
Gameplay
This is unique, yet familiar. It takes on the "mining" genre with a twist. The custom mapgen definitely is a huge plus for this game. Your goal is to go deeper and deeper.
The mapgen is good, you will be able to go down relatively easy, don't have to backtrack often and frequently find large cavities. What's unique are the ores, which might come in high and low quantities. Alien plants grow on the floor and ceiling.
You collect resources while venturing down and have to evade ... aliens?
This game should actually be called "Speedrunning Down" because that's the winning strategy. :D My winning strategy is to first stockpile enough saturnium and steel on the high and safe layers, and then YOLO downwards as fast as I can, not even trying to fight the enemies. When I get hit, I briefly heal my self, then continue to speedrun downwards. I also try to avoid large caves due to the enormous amount of enemies.
Maybe it would be better if the game had some other method to prevent the player to venture down too fast.
What was confusing is the game tells you to go to a spot on your radar but I did that and found ... nothing. Strange. Probably this wasn't coded yet?
This looks like a VERY VERY VERY early prototype and there is almost nothing you can do. No sounds, no music, no explanation. You spawn in a space station and there are a couple of blocks you can pick up and place somewhere else but that's mostly it. You can also "warp" your space station apparently but I don't know what it does. I am VERY confused and I don't know what else to say. The README file also openly admits you can't do much, so …
Obviously, I cannot give a recommendation for such an early game. I might still check it out later, just in case.
The game is unstable. The game greeted me with one console warning. The game crashes often when I dig. One minor bug I found is that I can't throw away items, they instantly return to my inventory. I had no performance issues.
Graphics / sounds
I think it's OK but not great. The sky is convincing, because it is always black, even at daytime and you can also see the stars at daytime. Good one! And at night, the Earth rises instead of the Moon, and the Earth texture is really good!
The GUI sadly only has the default style. The node textures are meh. Since the world is having HUGE expands of the same node, the repeating pattern quickly becomes an issue. Hint: Minetest allows you to let a texture span across multiple nodes, read about the world-aligned textures in lua_api.txt.
Story
There technically is a story, but it's an excuse plot since it is essentially "Worker, do your job!". Unfortunately, the instructions only appear when you start the game, you can't get your briefing back.
No recommendation, because there's way too little to do, and it crashes often. However, I like this submission a LOT more than Occupy Moon since at least an actual effort was made to do something new from scratch rather just mushing together Minetest Game and Technic. So, I appreciate the effort. :-) Maybe this game will be more interesting with more missions, content and in general just more stuff to do and more challenging gameplay.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very simple: You grab your jackhammer and dig as many moon rocks as you can, then you return them to the base. There's a catch: Your jackhammer needs to recharge, so you might need multiple travels. But this is really the only thing the game has to offer: Once you collected 50 rocks of a total of 4 types, you win. The game's only real challenge is to remember your base location, which is easy if you place moon rocks as some kind of waypoint markers. Not every rock will be right at your doorstep, so you might need a longer trip. But that's really the only challenge.
I don't think it is even possible to die / fail, or at least that's very hard to achieve.
Mapgen
Unfortunately, it appears it's just the default mapgen with different blocks. Since it's a moon game, I would at least expect something like moon craters, but I could not find anything unique about the mapgen. The strangest thing about the map is the HUGE amounts of moon ice.
No recommendation, this game is just a prototype, the gameplay doesn't really work yet.
Game Jam comment
This game was created for a game jam, but it has clearly missed the point of it, because there is a HUGE number of pre-existing mods, but the goal was to create game from scratch. Using some existing code is OK, but this one apparently includes half of Minetest Game and the Technic mod and even more; that's way too much for a game jam IMHO. For that reason alone I cannot give a good rating for this game jam submission. The README lists the pre-existing mods. The only mod that is not listed is weld_all. I looked at this and apparently it is responsible for the checmicals sampler and supply rocket and missions. This is a bit too little effort IMHO. The bulk of this game is this clearly carried by the other mods.
But I am going to pretend I'm not aware of that …
Gameplay
This is very clearly an alpha stage game. Not even the moon gravity is working! And everything about this game I have to get from the README. At first, the README told me I had to install an inventory mod myself. :( Then I tried to start with farming. This part worked, but growth is slow and boring. Unfortunately, I quickly got stuck as I have been unable to produce power for the technic machines. The game doesn't even tell me how the basic Technic stuff works, but I still remembered the basics. Sadly, the solar panels don't work, and that's apparently the only way to operate a working furnace, so I can't even cook glass, apparently, so I came to a screeching halt. And then I lost interest.
Graphics, sounds, controls, etc.
No comment, most content is just copied from other games/mods.
No recommendation. This game just offers way too little in terms of gameplay to be interesting, and it's a grind.
Gameplay
Frankly, it's a boring grind. There are only 3 things to do: Fly to astroids, mine and craft stuff to advance the story. Later you get to search for blackboxes, and then the game ends. Meh. I appreciate the innovation of flying in a spaceship, but movement still feels a little bit laggy sometimes. You can safely crash into asteroids without taking damage.
The universe is made out of asteroids, but they are very repetitive. The map generation appears to be procedurally generated, but it looks the same everywhere. The astroids don't look "natural" to me either, they look more like blobs than asteroids.
Graphics
The graphics are a werid mishmash of high-res and low-res textures, it's not a good overall. The menus all use the boring default graphical style. :-( The health indicator also uses the default texture.
UX/UI
It's all pretty confusing. For some reason, you must combine a stick and a broken drill to even get started (???). Later, I was flying in slow-mo for a long time until I realized I must release the handbrake. XD. The game doesn't have any HUD indicators. Also, the various ship's crafting features are kinda confusing as well, and I had to try out various combinations. The crafting system is pretty weird, so you collect every asteroid to craft "gravel mix" and this in turn gives you ... fuel?!
Music / sound
I really like the music, it gives the game a good "space explorer" vibe. Quite a contrast to the graphics. But there are no sounds.
Story
The story isn't really noteworthy. It a generic "lost in space" story that we all heard hundreds of times. Other game jam entries had more memorable stories.
Stability / performance.
The game is mostly stable, but I found a funny bug: You can drop items and they … fall down in space?! I had no performance issues.
The new version 1.1.0 is here and I think I fixed the biggest powersliding issues (if not all). Please give feedback about what you think and if it works better. https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?p=418738#p418738
I also updated the instructions from Powerslide Master.
If that still doesn't help, at least there is now a ch(e)at command "
/unlock_gateways
" in case you're really desperate to see the end. :D (only use this if you have completely given up, lol)Thank you!
Yeah, I gave plenty of leeway for being able to complete the game with many, but not all electrons. I think in a future version something special will happen if you have everything, but it will still be optional.
Interesting. I'll keep this game on my watch list then.
Somehow your little joke game still did better than TWO submissions. :D Occupy Moon got last place, probably because people didn't like it was basically just a Minetest Game + Technic ripoff (+ other old mods), which was missing the point of the game jam. And there was also Making Space, basically a non-game which just generates cardboard boxes everywhere, that's it. It wasn't even ranked at all, this one is already deleted from ContentDB.
Yes, I did finish the game, but the ending struck me as unremarkable. But that's not really the problem; the real problem is the whole game just does not offer a lot of things to do. :-(
OK, the solar panel does not work below Y=0 but it does work above. Weird.
And yeah, I absolutely thing that if this is meant as a standlone, you can't expect players to know the ins and outs of Technic. Complete newcomers might not even know what Technic is. Servers are different.
Thing is, I still found all 5 meterorites LONG before nightfall, kind of defeats the whole purpose.
I wonder if this will be developed further.
Unfortunately, this game includes non-free media from X-Decor.
This can be fixed easily by replacing X-Decor with X-Decor-libre. https://content.minetest.net/packages/Wuzzy/xdecor/
You don't have to collect ALL electrons to win, only 512, which I think is a generous leeway. If an electron is to difficult to you, skip it. If a sector is too difficult, try a different sector. Repeat until you unlock new sectors. If you try to 100% this game, that's a much different challenge, but nothing special happens if you do that (YET). Backtracking to sectors you already visited is intended and an important part of the level design. In the Void Pipe, there is a launchpad that you can't use immediately. Other players appreciated the backtracking, so I guess you can't make everyone happy. :-) There is a secret sector with lots of electrons in it (within your reach).
Yeah, the Hub was probably the best and most important idea of the whole level design. When I completed that, my motivation got BOOSTED, trust me. I added the decorations of each gateway (in the Hub) because even I could not remember where these gateways would lead to otherwise, so I needed that myself to make playtesting easier. :-) Thanks for appreciating that.
Indeed, the powersliding ability has bad controls. The way it is supposed to work is you hold down Aux1 pressed and THEN press forwards. And yes, powerslide is bugged at slopes, until you got the "Super Slope Sliding" ability. Yes, Minetest is not good with reading inputs. :-( I will try to work on that (and other stuff) post-jam. Stay tuned, and check the forum thread for updates! :-)
It's true, the whole "collect lots of stuff and unlock levels doing so" thing was directly inspired from Spyro games, although the idea that the game will have collectibles at all came surprisingly late in development (I will post a full post-portem in the forum thread). The Hub itself is not inspired by any game tho, I just wanted to make sure the basic shape is not yet another cuboid. I settled on using an octagon as the base instead, and it turned out to be great! :)
Now here’s my real response:
I feel FLATTERED you're already requesting a Glitch 2. :D The ending wasn't really meant as a cliffhanger, just a quick joke (and the game had to end somewhere), but I can see how this can be a very easy spot to continue the story. I have no idea if I will ever start that. Polishing and fixing up Glitch (esp. the controls) will have priority.
I deliberately decided to not add multi-electrons (like 5 electrons in one) to keep it simple. It's easier for the player to count (like, when you still need 10 electrons for the next sector, you actually need to collect 10 things), and also easier for me for level design. If there ever will be a Glitch 2, I think I'll stick to the 1-electron-is-always-worth-1-electron concept.
As I already said, all electrons are reachable, but nothing special happens if you find them all (YET!). You only need 512 electrons to complete the game, not all of them.
I will not add more abilities in this game, those would only make sense if I add even more levels but I don't plan to add a ton of levels in Glitch. Also, the way the levels are connected, and how you progress through them is closely linked to the way how you receive abilities. The abilities are supposed to be gotten in a certain order (roughly). Adding only one more ability would mean I might have to redesign the whole level structure, which isn't fun. There will be no 5th ability in Glitch.
What I DO plan is add a few more characters to talk to, and a FEW more levels, fix bugs, polish the weird controls, add more secrets, and call it a day.
Any idea beyond that is best reserved for Glitch 2. :D
Thank you. I hope to hear from you again when you completed the game. :D Check out the forum thread for updates.
Yeah, having a real intro and ending sequence was very important to me to make sure the game feels "complete". Different than many sandbox games that just throw you in with ZERO explanation. The soundtrack was created by Visager, and I chose it on the very last day. I initially planned to do even the music myself, but then I remembered I had near-zero experience lol. Thankfully, using external resources is allowed (and many entries did). But everything else was my own work.
You may or may not play in 3rd person, I personally felt like playing in 3rd person MAY a little bit easier, but once you got used to the physics, playing in 1st person can be just as easy. The choice is up to you.
Maybe it would be better if the game started in 3rd person by default, but that's a missing feature in Minetest. :(
Here's my long response:
Thank you. Yes, this is the point of this game jam, to create something new and standalone. :-) I am working on a few other standalone games as well, but they are more close to the sandbox genre.
The powerslide controls clearly are the most common complaint, I really need to make this more reliable (and understandable). Sadly not as easy as it sounds ... Hint for now: Hold down Aux1 pressed BEFORE pressing forwards (but even this does not work 100%).
As for the story ... Yes, I do plan to improve it a bit post-jam. Because I did plan to add even more characters, but time was running out. I do plan to refine the story post-jam, but no radical changes. The emotes idea is nice, I also had a similar one (by animating the faces directly or something). And yes, more secrets, I wanted to add more secrets to the levels, but again, time. :D Check out the forum thread for updates.
Again, thank you for playing.
Thank you!
Indeed, the powerslide controls need work. The trick is that you hold down Aux1 pressed BEFORE pressing forwards, but even that is not 100% reliable. The reason why the powerslide does not work on slopes sometimes is also weird. It's probably related to how stepheight in Minetest works. Once you got the ability to slide on tall slopes, you can powerslide on slopes just fine. That's not really intended, I wanted to make powerslide work on all slopes, always. Will try to fix this in the next version.
Edit: Pressing Shift doesn't affect the powerslide at all tho. Just to clarify.
Yeah, the powerslide control has issues. "Reading input" is not very well done in Minetest, I wonder if I can find a more reliable method ... I do plan an update with a FEW more additions, especially figuring out a better control scheme will have top priority.
So the correct way to powerslide is to FIRST hold Aux1 pressed, and while it is pressed, press Up. If you press both at the same time briefly, it might not register. This is not made clear enough in the game yet. Sadly, Minetest is not that great with reading player input, but I try to improve that in an update.
Hint: Hold down Aux1 pressed BEFORE pressing forwards, then it should be more reliable. I did not make it clear in the game.
I agree, the powerslide control has issues. "Reading input" doesn't work that well in Minetest, I wonder if I can find a more reliable method ... I do plan to release an update to Glitch to fix this (hopefully) and other stuff.
Small factual correction (since you implied this game has no secrets): This game does have a secret level (you need it if you want all electrons), and a small easter-egg.
I might give a longer response post-jam.
I didn't want to comment on the comments before the game jam is over, but here I want to correct a factual statement:
I swear that all electrons are reachable in the game jam version. I actually did a FULL playtest a few days ago. Maybe you just didn't see the correct path to the electron yet, some aren't obvious.
(I might say more about your post post-jam.)
Oh, this is great to hear a post-jam version is planned!
OH! That explains it! Well, I found all 5 meterorites before the first night with no effort; the game is too easy then. :D
That was a very low effort criticism. Besides, what else are we supposed to say other than "shit" when the game is literally about it? "poop"? "feces"? "excrement"? Some people just want to feel offended.
This isn't a game. You can't do anything. Don't bother with this.
This is just the default world generator that generates ONE block. That's it. I don't even know what the author intended to create here, very confusing.
Overall result
I'm sorry, but no recommendation, this is way too incomplete, too little gameplay. This looks like a prototype tho, so I'm still interested to see where this game will go in the future, if it is continued post-jam, because I'm kinda curious about the concept.
Gameplay
Sadly, there is not much you can do yet. Probably this is another prototype for the game jam. Your main mission is to collect 5 asteroids with the "power hammer" tool and then you win. :-( And you basically just have to wait until they randomly drop from the sky. The mapgen is also very, very simple and mostly, although the MASSIVE ravines look really cool. I was promised an alien fight but even after 3 playthroughs I never encountered them. (?????) I like that you have a companion, the C.O.M.P. Unit. This reminds me of some really old-school sci-fi stories. There are special abilities you can use with your two tools, but what use do they have if there is nothing to fight? :(
Graphics
I was pleasantly surprised. Interesting art style and use of contrast which sets the world apart from default Minetest Game textures. The game logo could still do some work tho.
Sounds
This one had a surprise: It has speech output for your companion "C.O.M.P.". And the music seems to be composed and created by the author as well. Very nice! Even if the music is a bit simple, I really like that someone made music for the game specifically for the game jam.
Stability / Performance
The game is stable. It greets me with an harmless error message about missing river water, but not real bugs. I had no performance problems on a >10y computer. 60 FPS effortlessly.
Graphics
Very minimal. The worms look kinda cute, but not very detailed. I observed only two behaviors: Sliding around, and sleeping. The worms don't interact with each other. The asteroid is a flat orange which is ... meh. There is a very blurry space background. The menu interface doesn't look too great either.
Stability / Performance
It doesn't crash, but: The game greets me with a "missing image" error. Space worms can get stuck if you raise the ground into them. There are no performance problems at all. At least the worms seem to be intelligent enough to avoid the void or walls, so the very minimal basics seem to work. That's better than nothing, I guess.
Music / Sounds
It is silent except for a few click sounds. :-(
UI/UX
It's not self-explanatory, and the buttons look like they are written in an alien language. But I still was able to figure out what it all means, so the UX is fine.
Overall rating
Absolutely no recommendation as a game. This is just too boring even as a tamagotchi. It is probably WIP/incomplete anyway. At this stage, it might serve as a screensaver at best.
"Gameplay"
This is a very early prototype, so there is very little of what you could call "gameplay". You mostly just watch forms slide around on an orange asteroid, that's it. You can raise the ground at certain places and add new space worms with a maximum of 3. That's it. You can't even undo the raising of land, that's how incomplete this is. It gets boring instantly, sorry. First, this is not a game, as there is no gameplay. It is more like a tamagotchi. That alone isn't a problem, but even as a tamagotchi is has nothing to offer since you just can't do anything. And if all you can do with the worms is just watch, you can hardly call it a game.
It's still interesting to see new concepts being tried out in Minetest. I believe something like Adopt a Space Worm! was never even tried before, so I give a few points for the idea. :P
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Graphics / Map
Oh wow! So many 3D models and textures! That must have taken a long time to put together. Also, the map is BIG and pretty detailed for the given time frame. There are many rooms you can explore and many items you can find, although most items still seem to be dummies. I think this alone gives the game potential for future releases, but it obviously needs more work. The map It rare you see hi-res textures actually being used in a Minetest, we're all so used to 16×16. XD But it makes sense
Music / Sounds
With 2-3 small exceptions, the game is completely silent. :-( Seems like there wan't time for that.
Story
Oh no, it seems the author ran out of time. :-( I like the idea of a mystery / adventure-style game to figure out what went wrong, but currently, the story is more like an jigsaw puzzle where like 80% of the pieces are missing, in a bad way. The few pieces that are available aren't really written out yet. It seems the story writing must have been done as a last-day panic effort. For a game like this, story is key, hopefully a future version will improve on this. Although, maybe you might even get away by throwing away all text in the post-jam version (should you attempt it) and still have a good game.
What's good is that the game's premise is very clear right from the start.
UI/UX
It's the standard Minetest controls, you can't do anything wrong with that. A lot of furniture randomly drops items when clicking them. I'm not sure it's a good idea the game lets you toss away ALL items tho (possible unwinnable state?). The game sometimes uses red text on a blue background, ew! (My eyes are still bleeding ...)
Many events are told to the player with chat messages, rather than a dedicated (and more pretty) UI. :(
Performance / Stability
I had no performance issues. The game, like most submissions, greeted me with many console warnings. But I found no real bugs, so the game seems stable.
Overall rating
No recommendation, because the gameplay experience is still bland due to incompleteness. A lot more work is needed, but it's a start. To players I advice to just wait until the complete game gets released. Currently, this is mostly feels like an early demo version. I think the size of the map was ultimately this game's downfall, the author made the map WAY too big and then was unable to create a complete (or even semi-complete) experience within the time frame. I still appreciate the work that has been put into this MASSIVE map already, I think I should check out this game again if a post-jam version is planned. Although the game got no recommendation, I do NOT say it's worthless. I would love to see an actual polished adventure/mystery-style game in MT.
Gameplay
First of all, this game might be the first attempt to create a non-trivial adventure/mystery-style game in Minetest ever (together with Piranesi, I guess). The attempt alone is cool, it's high time that Minetesters explore new genres. :-)
Sadly, the result ultimately falls flat IMO. You explore the various rooms and collect items and clues, except the only item that actually matters are the keycards that unlock new rooms. Oddly, the key cards just magically increase your security clearance by using them in mid air (not at a terminal)??? There are working computers which their own GUI, which is nice, but you can't do much with them yet. A minimal game functionality is available: You can open doors and close them and the security clearance is checked properly.
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Graphics
The graphics look simple yet pretty nice. The game is dark and you better never ever lose your flashlight. Thankfully, the game has a (small) chance to give you another flashlight in one of the many boxes, but it's still PAIN.
Stability / Performance
The game is mostly stable, but a bit buggy. The spider egg tasks don't register, so I guess that means the game is currently unwinnable, and I remember getting unknown items sometimes, but overall it's playable. There is a HUGE number of console warnings. But for a game jam the bugs are still on an acceptable level, since it's not really about the game goals, I guess (I hope these are just dummy goals, to be replaced later). I had no performance issues.
The game goals technically can be exploited by placing the same thing over and over again to increase the counter. I can also technically nerd-pole to the top walls, but this is not really useful, as the walls are short and nerd-poling in this game is actually pretty expensive, other than in Minetest Game.
Gameplay (cont'd.)
There are 3 manuals to find, which explain different tasks you might do: Repair computers, repair an O2 filter and refuel the ... engines? However, it seems some that two of the things the manuals explain aren't actually possible to do in the game yet. :( I did manage to repair a computer tho.
There are "Incase of Emergency tasks" but this looks more like a ripped achievement system than actual game goals. This looks WIP. It would be nice if you could actually do repairs to trigger some secret event and whatnot. These game goals feel kinda like a grind. The coal task is definitely the biggest grind.
The only enemy are spiders, but they are really fast and hard to kill. But if you know how to avoid (or kill) them, they should pose no threat.
Sounds / Ambience
This submission has by far the best audio ambience and sound design of this year's game jam. A really eerie and dark soundtrack / ambience, and it also doesn't feel repetitive even after a long time of play. Also, the node sound effects are great, with great attention to detail. Different sounds make different sounds, and it's all heavy metal. There's also an echo effect which makes sense in this environment. Play with headphones! Sound design is an often completely overlooked part of games, so I really like to hear something like this in Minetest. Good job!
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Overall rating
I give this one a recommendation for the sound design ALONE, even if the game is lacking a bit in content and the goal is a GRIND to achieve. I hope this one will get expanded (and bugfixed) post-jam, I am looking forward for an update.
Gameplay
The gameplay is basically ... survive, I guess? You run in a seemingly endless expanse of metal rooms, except it's not rooms, it's walls in a chaotic pattern. This game must have been directly inspired by SCP stories from the Internet, I guess it's not a coincidence that the letters "SSP" are similar to "SCP". :-) You constantly run throughout the rooms, hoping to find something new and punch to destroy objects like drawers, storage boxes. Most of the "rooms" look alike, but they are not identical, it's chaos. Normally I would find such things boring fast, but the ambience REALLY carries the game. I found two rare special structures: The engines with coal stacks inside, and a filter system. Apart from that, it's boxes, computers, drawers and some random electronics.
The game tells you very little about what happens, you have to figure (most) things on your own, but this adds to the mystery. You get hungry fast, but there are plenty of food boxes, but you still need to restock constantly, so you need to explore further. I think the game still needs to add a few more special structures to be not monotonous, however, the endless repeating halls still have something spooky ...
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Stability / Performance
Like in most game jam entries, I was greeted with a few console warnings. Also, using the spray gun triggers an error message (not a crash). I found no other bugs. The biggest problem for me is performance; I had serious performance problems. This is the only game of this game jam with performance problems for me. The mobs are lagging so much, they keep killing me without me being able to even see the projectiles. Also, placing a lamp takes ages until it actually appears. Everything in this game reacts slowly. This unfortunately ruins the game. I still managed to win the game legit somehow. I am aware of the system specs in the README, but I think this high demand is kind of unjustified given the low-res (but great!) graphics., probably the game's performance can still be improved without losing features. If the game had really high-end graphics or something like that, I might have been more tolerant of performance problems.
Story
The story is simple yet it makes sense. It's special enough that I actually still remember it after a few days.
Mapgen
The whole map is so surreal. It reminds me a lot of spooky SCP stories you find on the Internet. Onc I got the map item, I saw how simple the map actually is, but the eff
Controls/UX/UI
The game displays the purpose of your tools at the beginning ... ONCE. In a tiny font. If the message is gone, it's gone forever. So if you missed it, you have to figure out everything on your own. The inventory screen looks cool, but it didn't really understand what everything means at first, especially the abbreviations which aren't explained anywhere. I also wish the game would display in the HUD what I've just mined. I never know whether I just got saturnium or an organic, and how much. It took me a while to figure out how my tools actually work, even with the explanation (which I of course instantly forgot, lol). The game compass/map is confusing to use, I never know where I'm heading. Scaffoldings and lamps don't seem to be really useful, and I also cannot remove them. If I can't reach the plant on the ceiling, I just look for somewhere else, this is more convenient than building the (relatively expensive) scaffolding. The intro UI is strange, you have to press Esc to proceed with the intro story. (Why not a "continue" button?)
The game ending is also aprupt. The screen suddenly turns black and I first thought it was a bug, only in later tries I noticed there was an outro text.
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Music / sound
The ambience is great. It's a good mix of music that fits the game's theme perfectly. Each layer has its own mood. Unfortunately, there are (almost) no sounds but I think that's OK. The ambience is still not as good as for Secrets of the Space Parable (SSP). :-P
Graphics
Definitely the coolest graphics of the game jam. The formspec design looks very polished and cool, it's very unique. There's even a custom font. The node textures are also pretty nice, it's alien-looking, I like how the various layers become hotter and hotter. The atmosphere is very believable, you really feel like you're on an alien planet. I like the night sky is dark blue instead of pitch black, matches well with the ground. A lot of effort was put into making the game look great. This game is kind of an art form, although I still have criticisms …
First, the particles the plants emit are very small, I almost didn't notice them at all, so these particles are pretty pointless if you can't see them. Second, most organics look well made, except those plants that have a "flat color" for some reason. I don't know why some plants only have 1 color, they don't match with the theme at all. I like most layer "stone" textures, except the one right below surface (the "Defrosting" one), because you can clearly see the pattern repeat itself. The other layer textures look really cool, how the become progressively hotter and hotter. (Pro-tip: Minetest actually allows you to let a texture span over multiple nodes.)
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Overall rating
First of all, even if this game is incomplete, this game demonstrates greatly how games can be a form of artistic expression. This game is clearly a very special and unique submission for tha game jam. I like that a lot! But I still have to give a "No recommendation" due to massive performance problems. This is a shame, as the game is otherwise something really special, I really hope the problems will be fixed and the game will continued to be worked on post-jam, it 100% has HUGE potential. I am looking forward for a post-jam version of this game. It's stuff like this why I like the game jam, even if not every submission passes the park.
Gameplay
This is unique, yet familiar. It takes on the "mining" genre with a twist. The custom mapgen definitely is a huge plus for this game. Your goal is to go deeper and deeper. The mapgen is good, you will be able to go down relatively easy, don't have to backtrack often and frequently find large cavities. What's unique are the ores, which might come in high and low quantities. Alien plants grow on the floor and ceiling.
You collect resources while venturing down and have to evade ... aliens?
This game should actually be called "Speedrunning Down" because that's the winning strategy. :D My winning strategy is to first stockpile enough saturnium and steel on the high and safe layers, and then YOLO downwards as fast as I can, not even trying to fight the enemies. When I get hit, I briefly heal my self, then continue to speedrun downwards. I also try to avoid large caves due to the enormous amount of enemies. Maybe it would be better if the game had some other method to prevent the player to venture down too fast.
What was confusing is the game tells you to go to a spot on your radar but I did that and found ... nothing. Strange. Probably this wasn't coded yet?
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This looks like a VERY VERY VERY early prototype and there is almost nothing you can do. No sounds, no music, no explanation. You spawn in a space station and there are a couple of blocks you can pick up and place somewhere else but that's mostly it. You can also "warp" your space station apparently but I don't know what it does. I am VERY confused and I don't know what else to say. The README file also openly admits you can't do much, so …
Obviously, I cannot give a recommendation for such an early game. I might still check it out later, just in case.
I don't know what else to say.
Stability
The game is unstable. The game greeted me with one console warning. The game crashes often when I dig. One minor bug I found is that I can't throw away items, they instantly return to my inventory. I had no performance issues.
Graphics / sounds
I think it's OK but not great. The sky is convincing, because it is always black, even at daytime and you can also see the stars at daytime. Good one! And at night, the Earth rises instead of the Moon, and the Earth texture is really good! The GUI sadly only has the default style. The node textures are meh. Since the world is having HUGE expands of the same node, the repeating pattern quickly becomes an issue. Hint: Minetest allows you to let a texture span across multiple nodes, read about the world-aligned textures in
lua_api.txt
.Story
There technically is a story, but it's an excuse plot since it is essentially "Worker, do your job!". Unfortunately, the instructions only appear when you start the game, you can't get your briefing back.
Overall rating
No recommendation, because there's way too little to do, and it crashes often. However, I like this submission a LOT more than Occupy Moon since at least an actual effort was made to do something new from scratch rather just mushing together Minetest Game and Technic. So, I appreciate the effort. :-) Maybe this game will be more interesting with more missions, content and in general just more stuff to do and more challenging gameplay.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very simple: You grab your jackhammer and dig as many moon rocks as you can, then you return them to the base. There's a catch: Your jackhammer needs to recharge, so you might need multiple travels. But this is really the only thing the game has to offer: Once you collected 50 rocks of a total of 4 types, you win. The game's only real challenge is to remember your base location, which is easy if you place moon rocks as some kind of waypoint markers. Not every rock will be right at your doorstep, so you might need a longer trip. But that's really the only challenge. I don't think it is even possible to die / fail, or at least that's very hard to achieve.
Mapgen
Unfortunately, it appears it's just the default mapgen with different blocks. Since it's a moon game, I would at least expect something like moon craters, but I could not find anything unique about the mapgen. The strangest thing about the map is the HUGE amounts of moon ice.
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Overall rating
No recommendation, this game is just a prototype, the gameplay doesn't really work yet.
Game Jam comment
This game was created for a game jam, but it has clearly missed the point of it, because there is a HUGE number of pre-existing mods, but the goal was to create game from scratch. Using some existing code is OK, but this one apparently includes half of Minetest Game and the Technic mod and even more; that's way too much for a game jam IMHO. For that reason alone I cannot give a good rating for this game jam submission. The README lists the pre-existing mods. The only mod that is not listed is
weld_all
. I looked at this and apparently it is responsible for the checmicals sampler and supply rocket and missions. This is a bit too little effort IMHO. The bulk of this game is this clearly carried by the other mods.But I am going to pretend I'm not aware of that …
Gameplay
This is very clearly an alpha stage game. Not even the moon gravity is working! And everything about this game I have to get from the README. At first, the README told me I had to install an inventory mod myself. :( Then I tried to start with farming. This part worked, but growth is slow and boring. Unfortunately, I quickly got stuck as I have been unable to produce power for the technic machines. The game doesn't even tell me how the basic Technic stuff works, but I still remembered the basics. Sadly, the solar panels don't work, and that's apparently the only way to operate a working furnace, so I can't even cook glass, apparently, so I came to a screeching halt. And then I lost interest.
Graphics, sounds, controls, etc.
No comment, most content is just copied from other games/mods.
Overall rating
No recommendation. This game just offers way too little in terms of gameplay to be interesting, and it's a grind.
Gameplay
Frankly, it's a boring grind. There are only 3 things to do: Fly to astroids, mine and craft stuff to advance the story. Later you get to search for blackboxes, and then the game ends. Meh. I appreciate the innovation of flying in a spaceship, but movement still feels a little bit laggy sometimes. You can safely crash into asteroids without taking damage.
The universe is made out of asteroids, but they are very repetitive. The map generation appears to be procedurally generated, but it looks the same everywhere. The astroids don't look "natural" to me either, they look more like blobs than asteroids.
Graphics
The graphics are a werid mishmash of high-res and low-res textures, it's not a good overall. The menus all use the boring default graphical style. :-( The health indicator also uses the default texture.
UX/UI
It's all pretty confusing. For some reason, you must combine a stick and a broken drill to even get started (???). Later, I was flying in slow-mo for a long time until I realized I must release the handbrake. XD. The game doesn't have any HUD indicators. Also, the various ship's crafting features are kinda confusing as well, and I had to try out various combinations. The crafting system is pretty weird, so you collect every asteroid to craft "gravel mix" and this in turn gives you ... fuel?!
Music / sound
I really like the music, it gives the game a good "space explorer" vibe. Quite a contrast to the graphics. But there are no sounds.
Story
The story isn't really noteworthy. It a generic "lost in space" story that we all heard hundreds of times. Other game jam entries had more memorable stories.
Stability / performance.
The game is mostly stable, but I found a funny bug: You can drop items and they … fall down in space?! I had no performance issues.