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A jam submission

Arcturus StreamView game page

The sole survivor of a mysterious incursion, Iris must find the power to persevere in the lonely expanse of space
Submitted by Tower Illusion II — 1 hour, 3 minutes before the deadline
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Arcturus Stream's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality/Creativity#53.8183.818
Aesthetics#83.9093.909
Audio#83.6363.636
Gameplay Polish#93.3643.364
Overall#93.4683.468
Engagement/Fun#93.6363.636
Theme Interpretation#103.3643.364
Magical Girl Concept#252.5452.545

Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the Magical Girl genre?
Iris is a girl with latent potential. She is the sole survivor of a mysterious attack on her space colony. Will she rise to meet her potential and make right what has been turned wrong?

Which theme(s) do you pick?
1. I am Legion, for We are Many; 2. Identification: Friend or Foe; 4. Under pressure; 6. We'll meet again

How does your game fit those theme(s)?
The villain has turned the station citizens into duplicates of himself in search of... something. There is a pressure to survive, a cyclical game loop, and uncertainty around the villain's true objective.

If you follow any of the optional challenges, elaborate as you like.
Horror (survival and isolation), keep an eye out for the Senator

Were the assets for your game made during the jam? Elaborate as you see fit.
All assets were made for/during the jam. except for an open licensed font.

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Comments

The web build appears to be broken, or is having problems with my browser. It softlocks in the first gameplay sequence with the weird monster; no matter what option I choose, the game just sits there. There's a worrying lag spike in the intro where the ship stays in one spot for several seconds (is it loading something in the background?), too.

I might try a desktop build later, but I probably won't have time to get to this before the rating period ends.

Submitted

The iso view is unique. The atmosphere is great. The sci-fi is also outstanding in the game jam. The plot hook in the intro is strong but the darkness maze is too tough. Sorry I haven't finished your game.


Submitted(+1)

Cool stuff! Controls were confusing at first for two keys had to be pressed at once, but I did get the hang of it.

Developer(+1)

Good news! There are now two control options available in the config menu. If the default isn't working for you, maybe the alternative will be better!


Regardless, thanks for the feedback and for playing!

(+1)

Interesting game with great aesthetics. 

Developer

Thank you for playing!

Submitted(+1)

I like the isomeric perspective, trippy background and moody ambiance! It gets crazier when it is dark and you have a small view of your sourrounds. Animations in the HUD were charming as well. Charming is the name here. I'd say it is overall solid work.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing and providing feedback!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Very interesting game! The isometric perspective was cool, and the entire game had a great spooky aesthetic that I enjoyed!  It was very engaging and tense throughout. I wasn't even sure if the enemies could actually hurt me, but they were ominous enough that I wanted to avoid them anyway. I also thought the whole UI was very cool!

The story seemed interesting, though I'm not sure if I understood it at the end. It also seemed more sci-fi than magical girl, but it's possible that my choices effected that.

The game ran a little slow on my PC, though not so slow as to make it too hard to play... but the lag seemed to get worse the further I got. My only other critique would be that I found the controls fairly difficult. I'm not sure why, but my mind consistently had the horizontal and vertical movement reversed... so I'd press a key expecting to go one way, but then go in a different direction. I managed to get semi-used to it, but made mistake all the way to the end.

Overall, impressive work! I really liked the atmosphere, it's rare that a jam game feels so immersive for me. I hope you keep working on this!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the comprehensive and insightful feedback!

We have updates planned - very soon - to give a control option; absolute (the current one) and isometric (basically W+D to move northeast). Any other suggestions are welcome.


The performance thing is interesting. We have been working on optimizations and there are some quirks on different platforms that I haven't been able to solve for. Are you running in the browser or installed?

We are also working on the multiple endings/ environmental story beats to better clarify what is happening and how it is a marriage of magic and sci fi.


Your feedback is super helpful!

Submitted(+1)

I was playing in-browser. I can imagine the downloaded version might run better. (Though I'd ultimately be playing on a slower computer,  so it might not run better XD... I'm extremely picky about downloads on my primary workstation, I appreciate you having a web-build!)

The part where it started snowing had a lag so long and intense I thought the game had crashed, but waited a minute and it came back so I was able to continue. Otherwise, the lag built slowly as the game progressed. But never so bad that I couldn't win. However, if the enemies had been more aggressive I probably couldn't have completed the game. By the end I was crashing into them regularly as the lag made it tough to precisely move about.

Developer(+1)

That's good to know. There's a lot going on in the residential area, computationally, and you have given me some ideas for how to improve. The experience. I may try a shader instead of GPU particles and progressive activation of the enemies rather than per sector.


Smart on being selective about downloaded executables.


Thanks again!

Submitted(+1)

Cool game! Nice spooky vibe!

Developer

Thanks for the feedback and taking the time to play!