Things that were really cool.
- Parallax space background
- Story
It seems like a good starting point. I couldn't understand why I can shoot an asteroid but fly through it.
Keep up the good work
Play game
There is No Heaven's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #247 | 2.750 | 2.750 |
| Music | #262 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Aesthetics | #389 | 3.193 | 3.193 |
| Theme | #502 | 2.523 | 2.523 |
| Fun | #506 | 2.568 | 2.568 |
| Mechanics | #521 | 2.489 | 2.489 |
| Sound | #541 | 1.920 | 1.920 |
Ranked from 88 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
Yes. Some from Itch.io, Kenny and OpenGameArt.org and from Unity Open Project #1
Link to your source?
https://github.com/vendolis/ThereIsNoHeaven
Comments
Hi! I tested you games current version and here's is some of my thoughts after playing:
- I like the multiplayer star background. It's very atmospheric. Although I think there is some issues when turning. This is especially easy to see when going in circles. If try pressing up and down at the same time for some seconds you should see that the stars start to move chaotically.
- Also other visual element of the game looked really good. Great job with this!
- Moving up or down I feel I don't see where I'm going because the spaceship gets so close to the edge of the screen. Maybe the camera could react faster when moving vertically. When moving left or right the camera movement is fine.
- If there was a goal in the current version, I did not find it. I noticed that one can shoot asteroids and collect rewards when asteroid is destroyed but this did not lead to anything. I guess I got points from doing that but as there was no way to see how many points I had collected it did not feel like I was making any progress. You might want to add having an UI with total collected money to your to do list.
- The money/score gained from one item was quite high to the point that it was really hard to read the whole number and understand how large it was before it disappeared. You could consider having slightly lower values to make it more easy to the eye. I think values with 4-6 numbers are still recognizable but after that it starts becoming difficult (at least for me). Another option to improve readability of the values would be to use commas or spaces to break down the values: 123 456 789 or 123,456,789 are easier to recognize than 123456789.
- Otherwise it was good that you had those numbers popping up when collecting the items. That's making it very clear to player that they gain something and flashing big green numbers on the screen can also feel rewarding.
- I was expecting that hitting an asteroid would lose the game but then it did not happen when I accidently bumbed into one. I can see that you have mentioned ship damage in your future plans so you have probably thought about this but the game should definitely have some way of losing. Or at least most games have something like that.
- About the controls: personally I would like the spaceship to have bit higher maximum speed and have it be able to change direction bit faster. Now turning feels bit slow. Unless you would specifically have meant the controls to part of the challenge or have the spaceship to behave with very "realistic" physics (=fast object changing direction slowly), I would encourage you to improve controllability of the spaceship. In many cases the game becomes more fun when things react to user input quickly.
Hopefully at least some of my feedback is useful when you are continuing with your project. Good luck!
Submitted
SacrificeThanks a lot. These are all good points. Yes, it's hard to call this a game :-) It was way too ambitious for this time frame. I had to cut a lot of things to make anything that can be played.
For the UI, it was last minute, and the numbers don't show up in most cases in the WebGL build. but as said, there is no reachable goal. I really like the idea about the number spacing, that should improve readability. I will need to adjust the controls and figure out what feels right for the game in the end.
My goal for this jam was to try out some systems I had not used before, esp. an event channel-based design based on Scriptable Objects as well as the new input system. The last thing I wanted to try out was the Timeline, but I was not able to fit that into the time I had. So the Intro story had to stay just written on the itch site until I find time to get it into the game. On the site is also some Infos about what my plan is for the future with the game. It's a long way from being finished.
that story is already superb and cool motivation for an arcade game!
if you can match the gameplay to that level, I'll be on board!
Submitted
Kindman's: Life After DeathVery chill game! I like the story. You've put a lot of thought in premise. Hopefully you'll be able to incorporate more of it as you develop your game.
Submitted
Sprite: Spirits WithinThis was a fun little game, well done! As others have mentioned I think the controls made it a little more challenging but I still had fun playing it. I can tell you put a lot of work on the story too so good job! :D
Submitted
Duel of DeathI would have wanted a more responsive controller. Besides that, I love space games and lasers :)
Well done :)
Submitted
Death WishReading your page it seems like you've learned a lot of new things which is great. Obviously its resulted in a somewhat unfinished product but learning cool stuff is its own reward.
I like that you went with the parallax although I think I would have had 1 layer constantly moving as you're never really stationary in space and I think maybe the layers were too tight, I don't know if there were too many or they were just too close in "distance".
I personally didn't like the ship controls, it was very difficult to manoeuvre but I appreciate that is a choice and preference thing.
I did have some issues with the WebGL - I don't think the unity and itch.io full screen buttons play nice with each other, I would try turning off the itch.io on , even in full screen some of the text at hte top was cut off.
Theme-wise, I think this is probably one of the most shoe-horned games but themes are hard, you got a game out and it is playable. Visuals were great and the music was very nice.
Thank you for trying out my submission and writing a comment. The parallax is something I will need to change a little. I used several layers, but they all had the same star constellations, so in some situations, they create a weird pattern. I will try to solve this by rotating and flipping them to avoid this. but I might also reduce the number of layers. I tried it and it did not look as nice as it is currently.
As for the story, it was the first that came to my mind when the Thema was selected. It is a riff on the beginning of the book series "The Bobiverse".
The series is centered about Bob Johansson who has just sold off his software company and he’s looking forward to having a luxurious. There are m many places to go, several movies to watch and a lot of books to read. So, it’s rather a little bit unfair when Bob gets killed when crossing the street. Bob Johansson wakes up many years later only to find out that the corpsicles have already been declared to be without any rights, and Bob is now the state property. He has already been uploaded to computer’s hardware and he’s slated to become the controlling AI in the interstellar probe that’s looking for the habitable planets.
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/bobiverse/
So, I understand it feels shoe-horned, but it actually is not really. My idea was if there is one person who is put as an AI of a ship... there will be more... and people will try to make money with them.
But I also know this is far from a game yet and a lot of work must go into it to really figure out if it will work in the end.
p.s. And yes. compared to your game I have the feeling every game here is kind of far from the theme.
Reading your page it seems like you've learned a lot of new things which is great. Obviously its resulted in a somewhat unfinished product but learning cool stuff is its own reward.
I like that you went with the parallax although I think I would have had 1 layer constantly moving as you're never really stationary in space and I think maybe the layers were too tight, I don't know if there were too many or they were just too close in "distance".
I personally didn't like the ship controls, it was very difficult to manoeuvre but I appreciate that is a choice and preference thing.
I did have some issues with the WebGL - I don't think the unity and itch.io full screen buttons play nice with each other, I would try turning off the itch.io on , even in full screen some of the text at hte top was cut off.
Theme-wise, I think this is probably one of the most shoe-horned games but themes are hard, you got a game out and it is playable. Visuals were great and the music was very nice.
Whats here is pretty good, I like the weight of the ship, the difficulty of the controls makes it a real challenge to chase after what drops from the asteroids. The parallax effect is really nice. I think if it was turned in to a game it would be a lot of fun.
Submitted
Trials of The PharaohNice submission! I was unable to hear game sounds over music, but the music was mellow so I didn’t mind. I’ve rated your game. I hope that you’ll check out and rate my submission as well. :-)
Submitted
Clear Evil!Yo! So I really like what you've done here. My favourite part is actually how the ship moves. It feels weighty with the slower turn speed and the camera movement with it is perfect. I really enjoy going flying around at speed with it. I could honestly see this going the way of a fast paced space racing game too.
Also I really like the parallax scrolling effect with the stars! How did you get that going?
Submitted
GhostmanThank you :-) I think you are the first comment who liked the ship controls I love zipping around in it... yes it's not kind of slow on the turns and has some inertia to it.
The Parallax scrolling is based on this article and code: https://pavcreations.com/parallax-scrolling-in-pixel-perfect-2d-unity-games/ And I think it's 4 or 5 layers of scrolling. The black background I attach to the camera and it moves with the camera so it stands still. I sometimes have the problem that each of the 5 layers shows the same pattern so they look weird in some configurations. To fix that I will rotate them each so they don create weird-looking patterns.
I think it's cool that you used this game jam as a learning project to test things out that you haven't done before. I definitely see the value in that. Cool job with this. I thought the flying was cool but I quickly ran out of comets to destroy so I wasn't able to finish the game. But the flying was fun!
Submitted
Soul CollectorYes. There is very little game still there. At the moment I only spawn one asteroid field, I wanted to spawn a 3x3 grid, and then when you move through it to despawn asteroid fields that are far away and spawn new ones in the direction you are flying. But that was not finished yet. The functions to despawn a field or move it to a different location are there already, but I am missing the part to decide when to despawn one and spawn the next.
Good job with your submission! I think the concept for your story is interesting and would've loved to have seen it implemented (to some degree) in the game. I liked the starfield you made, too! I think a suggestion would be to have a quicker response time for moving the ship mainly in the turning. I feel like flying in space shouldn't feel like I'm having something dragging on my ship when I move around. All around, great work though!
Submitted
Last StandWell done. I like the idea of the story and what you are planning to implement later on. I even like that you took this game dev as a challenge to try out new things. Very well done! The only thing I do not like are the controls of the ship. It's pretty hard to be accurate. But I think this game can become very fun when further developed. Great job so far!
Submitted
Anhedonia: An Eternity WithdrawnNice work! This game has some really cool elements! A faster turning speed would make the game more fun to me personally but I think you did a great job!
Submitted
The Mighty OakNice! I was expecting to be fighting other ships based on the description so it took me a minute to realize the point was to shoot asteroids. I really like the concept and the story. Not sure if it's intentional or not that you can shoot the resources and destroy them, but was confused at first whether they were projectiles that would hurt me or if they were meant to be touched. I'd suggest tweaking movement, it didn't feel quite right and the resources moved to fast in different directions to collect. (i'm guessing the future will bring speed/movement upgrades to make that easier? if so, then awesome, it's good as-is) Background parallax effect was awesome, really well done changing based on your direction. For the lasers, maybe try adding player velocity to the projectile velocity so that they don't just hang out on your ship if you fire while moving.
Well done!
Submitted
Curtain CallThanks for the comment. Adding player velocity is great. Thanks, I forgot about that. Yes, it is intentional that you can shoot the resources.. the shooting is too slow at the moment, but I was planning as a design that you are able to hurt your progress by mindlessly shooting.
The whole resource chasing was more a stopgap solution since what I wanted to do I was not able to implement. The plan is that the other "contractors" will try to kill you when you have collected enough resources (in that model you had a cargo hold and need to sell them at a station) and you are not able to move while you mine resources. .. Depending on how I move ahead with it, there will either be upgrades like tractor beams or other things that make the collection easier.
Also, the color of the element shows the value... blue is the lowest value, and dark red and pink are the highest values. I know I did not tell that anywhere was kind of late in the development that I implemented that.
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