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Die On The Tether's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #24 | 4.071 | 4.071 |
| Innovation | #32 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #47 | 3.937 | 3.937 |
| Visuals | #88 | 4.405 | 4.405 |
| Gameplay | #143 | 3.738 | 3.738 |
| Enjoyment | #251 | 3.762 | 3.762 |
| Theme | #323 | 3.643 | 3.643 |
Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
Roll and place dice to discover tiles in derelict spaceships. Pushing deeper may net you more scrap, but the further you go, the more your oxygen ticks down. Use the scrap you find to purchase upgrades that allow you to search deeper. Hope you have a bullet in the chamber if you run into any creatures; otherwise, your body is being dragged back without a head and half your scrap.
Capsule Art by Moe_Anxious
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Everything was made during the jam.
How many people worked on the game?1
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Comments
After rating over 40 games I just wanted to come back and say - this entry was my favourite, congrats on the score! :)
I really appreciate it, glad you liked it
Damn, the game's super cool and offers a lot of content, both visually and mechanically!
I enjoyed it a lot, Great game! > v<
Thank you so much
A very unique game that deserves a proper steam release! And for it to be made by one person is impressive, keep it up and well done!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it
To think a project with this much polish was made in a week, and by one person too! I've already sunk about half an hour trying to get all the upgrades.
Sometimes things go smoothly and you get a lot done and sometimes they really don't hahah. Hopefully it was an enjoyable half an hour, thanks for playing
The concept feels quite unique to me, and the atmosphere is nailed perfectly. The audio design especially stood out: the eerie synths and subtle clicks make exploring feel tense and lonely, and the dice mechanic really sells the “risk every step” feeling.
The 1-bit art style is striking, though personally it felt maybe a bit too extreme for my taste. That said, I still managed to keep playing and got drawn in despite the monotone look. I did struggle at first to clearly see the dice, maybe a small splash of red or another highlight could help them stand out without breaking the aesthetic.
The 1-bit low-res thing is pretty tough keeping everything clear, sorry you had some readability issues. Glad you liked it otherwise, thanks for playing
Hey awesome game!! The audio is incredible, and dice is always a great risk mechanic! I got wildly unlucky with finding enemies, and it took me a while to figure out how it works, i thought i was losing a russian roulette for some reason, i got it after a while tho! The upgrades started to get a bit too expensive and tedious to get.
Amazing work on this game! Congrats on submitting something so great!
The randomness can really cause the early game to be pretty rough unfortunately (and sometimes it's way too breezy). The long term balance is definitely also a little out of whack sorry about that. There also definitely needs to be a little more feedback on things but glad you figured it out. Thanks so much for the feedback, glad you could still have a good time with it
An excellent game all around.
That audio! The eerie synths and decimated clicks and groans of a derelict space ship are so good. The 1-bit art and crawling speed also snap together perfectly toward the overall vibe. There's a bit of a gameplay challenge here that I'm not sure is entirely solved: how do you keep things tense and lonely while maintaining the pace? I felt like the time taken to walk each tile became more and more noticeable as time went on. I don't think I have a solution for this that doesn't clash with the overall atmosphere in some way. Something to think about.
On the risk side of gameplay, the dice-based approach works well. There is a gradual descent into danger as you go deeper and deeper into the ship, chipping away at your oxygen. There is also a similar gamble for exploring more rooms while out of ammo. The odds are you'll run into these situations many times by the time you're seeing the relevant relief upgrades. This really helps to make the choices matter.
Overall great experience. Excellent work!
Thank you so much for all the positive feedback. It is weird keeping the atmosphere without the pacing of the game becoming a bit of a drag. I think one way to handle it is to make each run more significant so that you're cycling through less, as well as expanding exploration so the tension of the slow walk helps drive something the player cares about (at this stage, you already know what's in the room, so waiting feels a bit tedious). Will definitely continue to figure it out, thanks for playing
Enjoyed the art style and aesthetics, feels very thoughtful and deliberate. Although I found some of the text a bit hard to read and I think it didn't sit well for my eyes after a while. It felt quite punishing for the oxygen to decrease so much early on, that and the fuel "tax" after exiting a ship. I started to rely on volume at the start and just kept doing very small runs.
Even then, I just wanted to get some better upgrades and it felt like it was taking too long. As for the chance for oxygen to decrease randomly, I think for discovering new tiles it makes sense, but having it random on the way back seems unfair. If I knew how much a discovered tile would decrease my oxygen, I could plan better and the runs will be longer overall.
Also, the fuel cost increasing so much as I get further along was not fun, especially since my earnings didn't seem to increase proportionally.
With all of that said, once I managed to push through the initial portion, I really got into a groove and enjoyed playing! The music and clicking sound effects were really effective in drawing me in and building the tension. Before I knew it, I had been playing for over 30mins, even managed to almost clear out the entire upgrade tree. Great job!
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, the text was not ideal, but it was too late to swap it, will be looking for a more legible font in the future. It is pretty punishing, and the balance is a bit out of whack. I have been getting comments that the game does not have enough stakes, so idk where the right line is. The game is supposed to be pretty punishing; you are searching dead spaceships, and there's a general desperation to your financial situation, so I wanted you to be constantly just getting by. Glad you got into a groove after the initial hang-up, thanks for pushing through
This looks so complete! The bgm haunts you as you travel by yourself. I wish the font for the numbers is more readable (the zero doesn't look like zero, it actually looks similar to the shape of the scrap), the font itself fits very well into your game! Without reading the description, it took me a while to understand the mechanics but I'm in love with how the gun animates on shoot. I wonder what was your thought process from "biscuits" to your "scraps" and you locking into the idea. It'd be great if you could add a bit of story of how you're able to carry on the next scrap hunt, considering you simply move on to the next trip after being headless in the previous run. Overall, cool game!
Yeah, definitely have to find another font, sorry about the confusion. The onboarding is definitely a bit too hands-off, but I did want the player to discover a lot of the game. There's not really enough feedback to fully support that, so glad you got there eventually. I decided to take the "Risk it for the Biscuit" metaphorically pretty much straight away, so I never planned to use a biscuit, and scrap worked for the sci-fi setting. I did plan to add a reanimation cost when you die, but I've not decided whether you're a new crew member every time. Thanks for playing
Wow! What a good game! This was so cool and so well done! I love how the game makes you play at its pace. So much atmosphere too I really love it. I could see this idea being taken much further : D
I've got some ideas for where to take it next, so we'll see if I ever do any of those. Thank you for the feedback
The artstyle is SO cool and that thumbnail on itch is gorgeous. Very slow but also very rewarding once you get into it. The audio in the background is also really eerie and well made, makes you feel like you're exploring an abandoned area while suffocating.
Thank you so much, glad you liked it
This felt very complete for a game jam entry, congrats! Some rough edges, for example decided to just die to end my run by rolling an enemy without bullets, but... nothing happened?
Oh that's very strange. When you roll an enemy and then place them onto the map you should walk into it and, if you have no bullets, the game should go to the run summation screen, strange that didn't happen for you? Thank you for the feedback
The game looks and sounds great, but there are no consequences for the death, it would be nice to have stakes a bit higher!
Thanks for playing. As fuel costs scrap there are situations where you can lose banked scrap. This especially starts to kick in once you start discovering bigger ships which cost even more scrap. The whole balance is a little out of whack so sometimes that can feel super punishing or inconsequential so sorry about that. Thanks for the feedback
I absolutely loved playing this game, it's ridiculously well put together! It's haunting and tense in all the right ways, and the risk elements are super well thought out. Some notes:
- The concept is flawless. Space is terrifying, especially the idea of only being connected to safety by a flimsy tether, and this idea only amplifies that fear.
- I ADORE the atmosphere of the title screen already, and that haunting title screen theme especially. The color scheme is perfect, not pure black and white but just SLIGHTLY tinted blue was a genius move. That said, the thumbnail is so clean that I'm genuinely sad it's not used in-game.
- Really, the atmosphere of this game is just flawless in general. The music is haunting and keeps you on edge, the darkness is overpowering, the character being so small makes everything more overwhelming. Genuinely professional grade stuff.
- The gameplay loop is also simple but effective, needing to march forward to get scrap, never knowing whether you'll be able to make it back or if a few bad rolls will screw you over, with everything being a literal roll of the dice - it's so good.
- That said, I do feel like the game is currently missing one big thing: stakes. Maybe I was just getting lucky, but it never felt like there were stakes on the "macro" level - sure, I could die at any time, but that only costs you a bit of scrap, and you have infinite tries to regain that scrap as far as I can tell. There doesn't seem to be a lose condition, and that made the prospect of a failed run much less scary, and the idea of evading risk (like, say, putting down that last die with no bullets in the chamber) much more palatable. Perhaps wracking up enough of a "scrap debt" or failing to reach a quota could completely end your run, so you can be forced to play even riskier out of desperate measures? I like that dying doesn't end your run, though, because I think that would just make people play safer. (If this is already a thing and I just never noticed, forgive me!)
- The upgrade system is really nice and well-paced, and does does provide some incentive to build up scrap, but again, I don't think it provides quite enough incentive to go for big plays on its own since you have unlimited tries.
- The tutorial was pretty good, but because of how simple everything is visually, I still got a bit confused - adding arrows to the text boxes or specifically highlighting which die/mechanic is being talked about would be nice. Also, corporate's lending box was something I missed for my first few runs.
- I'm a bit split on the tile dice, since on the one hand, like I said, the dread of having to roll and then being forced to place down the die to live with your roll is fun, but then on the other hand, I think it kind of kills some of the tension that slowly moving could give - since you HAVE to play and immediately move onto a die you place down, it functions exactly the same as if you only found out after moving, except you replace all of the tension of the movement with the feeling of "ugh, now I have to deal with this" - which can be really cool in its own right, it gives you a sort of sinking feeling that you're screwing YOURSELF over by placing that die even if you're being forced to ("you made this mess, now sit in it"), but it can also just sort of spoil the tension ahead of time, and the way things are set up gives a false sense of being able to do more about a bad roll than you actually can. This could be solved by either placing down a die and THEN having it roll, or by perhaps being able to do something to a die with a bad roll, like placing it on a non-adjacent open tile at some cost. That said, I still do think you'd be losing something in the process, so your call.
- Being able to see the sides of each die is nice, but in my experience at least, they're all the same - having the sides of each die be a bit different might make the risk assessment element of the game a bit more engaging. (I notice colored dice in the screenshots - I'm not quite sure what those do since I haven't encountered any, but if they fulfill this function, then ignore me.)
- I really like the revolver spin animation and effects.
- The results screen is super well-done and keeps the empty feeling going super well, and kind of funny in a dry, dark humor sort of way - I like it a lot.
Overall, I absolutely ADORE the core gameplay loop, and I definitely plan to keep playing - while I think the stakes could be a bit higher (a lose condition, and maybe a more concrete goal to work towards), and there are a couple mechanics I feel could maybe be fleshed out just a bit more (namely, placing dice), the gameplay itself is already addicting enough as-is. This is an incredible game, thank you so much.
Woah, I seriously appreciate the effort you put into your feedback. I'm glad it really clicked for you. As you've spent the time to write such detailed feedback, I feel I owe you a response and some insights for all your points (I'm super not trying to convince you or anything, I figure you deserve some of my thoughts , all of your criticism is extremely valid and much appreciated):
- The stakes: yeah it's definitely a weird one. The game is a bit slow and pretty punishing at times, so I think having to play back through would be a nightmare hahah (based on me having to replay it so many times). The main stakes in the game are that you can lose banked scrap in a run, and that can snowball. As you discover bigger ships (through upgrades), your fuel costs go up. I tried to balance it as there are doomed runs and, considering you have to fight for every piece of scrap, losing too much of your previously hard-earned scrap would suck. I tried to balance it in a way where it doesn't happen too often, but you can spiral and lose all of the scrap you've been saving up. Also, not that this is always the best way to punish the player, but you do have infinite tries, but it's super annoying to save up a ton of scrap, then lose it all and have to do it again (I guess it's the Dark Souls punishment). Some people have found it super grindy already, so I have no clue where the line is, but the game definitely needs many passes of balancing. It definitely would be nice to have another layer of stakes in the meta game, I'll definitely have to think about what that could be (narrative maybe??)
- The tutorial: completely fair, it definitely needs some work, a victim of the jam format, unfortunately. The goal of the tutorial was to teach the player enough that they are mechanically able to progress through the game, and the rest of the game elements are discovered by the player. This approach felt right, as over-explaining every piece would probably kill the atmosphere. That said, there's probably not enough feedback in the game to properly support the approach and the core systems aren't really explained well enough either. Will definitely improve post jam
- The dice: this was a concern I had early on. There are a couple of reasons I kept it this way. First, I wanted the tension to lie on the roll itself and wanted to keep that separate from the process of exploring a tile. Secondly, I wanted players to manually place a result onto the 'board' (just a design constraint born out of enjoying analogue games like miru). Last, I planned to have tiles on the board that already have some properties before placing a die onto them, which would bring back some of the tension of discovery. I agree that it is weird in its current form. Due to the resolution of the game, I wasn't able to add icons to the animated dice, so I wanted dice that looked the same to act the same, in order to not require the player to hover over for the net to understand what kind of die it is. The coloured dice in the screenshots are upgrades that have different face compositions.
Seriously appreciate all the great feedback and am really glad you liked it so much. Thanks for playing
Thanks for the reply! On the topic of stakes, that's definitely fair, though I feel like there has to be some way around making the early game overly grindy - perhaps having a more variable early game, or simply allowing the player to carry something between playthroughs to make future playthroughs go somewhat faster. This may just be me preferring a proper game over to an unsalvageable run, though. I just feel like, for a game like this, not having the threat of losing something irreplaceable significantly takes away from the tension.
As for the tutorial, yeah, absolutely fair that the jam's time limit would make things rough. For the record, I think that the tutorial mostly does the job really well and achieves what you were looking for, and I did in fact pick up on mechanics beyond that over time! It's just that, because I wasn't entirely sure which informational box was referring to which part of the UI, I was confused for some time.
Your explanation about the dice makes plenty of sense - especially in terms of wanting to keep the tension in the roll and wanting to mimic analog games, I think that makes a lot of sense, and I think the game definitely succeeds on those points! That said, regarding the variable dice faces I don't personally think that needing to hover over the dice is necessarily a bad thing? You could even have a permanent display somewhere if you wanted. I would totally understand thinking the exact opposite, though, especially since it's not a mechanic immediately explained to the player. I really like the idea of spaces with unique effects beyond those caused by the die placed on them, that definitely sounds intriguing.
Lots to think about there. Will definitely think of a way to have larger stakes, I do think even though it's probably against genre tropes it would be better for this game (although I could maybe do a prestige thing), so will definitely eventually come up with something. Thank you so much
The style and atmosphere of this game are absolutely top-notch. I really love this game, and the upgrade system is designed with great depth
Thank you, glad you liked it
Awesome visuals and audio , it's very impressive you did this alone , i got pretty confused for a while but i think i got the hang of it ,
Yeah I tried to be pretty hands off with the tutorial, but some times hands off is too hands off so sorry for the trouble you had. Thanks for playing
Really awesome art style and super cool concept!!
Thanks for playing
Fantastic atmosphere! You've done and amazing job on the visuals and audio. And I love the idea of a procedurally generated dungeon, where you are literally rolling a dice and dragging it into the space. Great work!
Thank you so much, I'd really like to develop the exploration side of that more with rolling for specific tiles not just contents. Thanks for playing
Absolutely genius. I think the game could do with a little bit more balancing, but man the concept is strong. I had a blast with this one. I think with some quality of life features (being able to move multiple tiles at a time) this could be a great full-release title. Very impressive for a solo developer.
Yeah balancing is so tough, obviously too punishing is bad but, too easy and so much of tension the game is built upon dissolves, so didn't know where to leave it hahah. Yeah moving multiple tiles would be a great idea honestly really didn't want to have to deal with pathfinding. Thank you so much for the positive feedback
Didn't think I'd like this kind of game, the art style isn't really my cup of tea. But the music was really great and the sound effects of the oxygen depleting, the risk and reward system hooked me and the progression was nice. Very polished well done!
Thank you so much. I was a bit worried you'd have to like the genre to be into it, glad it worked for you anyway