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A jam submission

The Derelict OrpheusView game page

An eldritch sci-fi whodunnit jam game
Submitted by FallingWallGames — 1 hour, 10 minutes before the deadline
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The Derelict Orpheus's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Concept#124.0594.059
Enjoyment#203.6473.647
Overall#203.8243.824
Presentation#213.8823.882
Use of the Limitation#473.7063.706

Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Team members
Alexander Kazazis

Software used
Unity, Visual Studio, Aseprite, bfxr

Use of the limitation
The entire game has a palette of 5 colors: 8c847d, 484848, f2eddc, 1c3059, and bf213e.

Cookies eaten
5

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

This game looks and sounds amazing. The gameplay may be a bit too simple, but for me the interesting part was the story. Congratulations!

Developer

Thanks so much for playing! Glad you enjoyed.

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

Thanks for letting me know!

Submitted(+1)

Great atmosphere and writing to build of the scene. I enjoy the controls and the small deails like item descriptions and being able to interact with multiple part of the level. I had picked  up a lot of what the enemies dropped only to realise.. NO WAIT... my battery had drained more lol.. After some getting used to I made it further. I enjoyed this super cute game. Very nice good job :)

Developer

Thank you! Really appreciate your trying the game and sharing your thoughts.

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

nice graphics and music . I liked the gameplay. Awsome Game !

Developer

Thank you for playing!

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

Really great game! My only complaint is that I wasn't 100% sure when it had ended (until I checked the comments). Seems like I too got lucky on my first go. After that, replaying and exploring more was still super interesting. Great writing!

Developer (2 edits) (+1)

Thanks so much for playing and giving feedback!

This issue has been raised by many players. I plan to put out a post-jam edition (hopefully this weekend) that fixes a number of problems, including that one. I'll implement a proper ending. :)

Developer(+1)

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

Nice atmosphere! 

I really enjoyed the mystery vibe that the game had. The messages appear to be random? Could be an idea to have the messages pseudo random to create a more coherent storyline. (I was a bit unfortunate so the story ended after the first log on my first run.)

Also great choice of music, really elevated the experience!

Developer

Thanks so much for playing and rating!

Each journal has two versions, an innocent and a guilty one. In each playthrough, one of the five journals will randomly be designated to display the guilty version. After you read the guilty journal, you get the notification that it's time to evacuate. When you reach the loading bay, you get a little dialog with the pilot, and the Replay and Main Menu buttons pop up. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to implement a proper ending to the game.

I can see that this element of the game ended up being a lot more confusing than I intended. I'll make an effort to make it clearer in a post-jam build (a "definitive edition," if you will), and to implement a proper ending screen.

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

I really enjoyed learning about the crew. Although I found myself dying from running out of battery a few times, it was still cool to piece together the narrative from multiple runs. The art and atmosphere was great!

Developer

Thank you so much for playing and rating! Take care.

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

Incredible that you had time to make this game. I liked it a lot, my only complaint is that the battery restricts you a bit in a narrative game.

Developer

Thanks so much for trying it out. I'd say I spent about 45 hours total on this game, 15 hours per day.

I plan to develop & release a definitive post-jam version soon. I would consider extending the default battery life, but I don't really want to eliminate that mechanic because much of the game is built around it. :)

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

(+1)

Nice game, and good atmosphere.  I had a hard time determining everything I needed to do, and since the power had a bit of a timer to it I felt like reading was making me lose so I wanted to skip the dialogues, which was the best part.  Here is my playthrough:

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Hey, this is awesome! This is the first YouTube playthrough I've ever seen of one of my games. I'm so honored. :)

Here's how the goal of the game works. There are five journals to read. In each playthrough, one of the five authors (Captain, Chief Engineer, Ship's Surgeon, Intelligence Officer, and Envoy) is randomly selected to be the culprit. So there are two versions of each journal, one innocent and one guilty. When you read the culprit's journal, the music changes from an action to a horror track, and 3 seconds later you receive the notification from the pilot to return to the loading bay for pickup.

By the way, time does *not* advance when you are reading the journals, or when you're talking with the pilot on the radio. I now realize that this isn't sufficiently clear with the current UI, and I'd like to fix that in a future build.

So you actually beat the first playthrough. The Ship's Surgeon was the culprit in that version. That's why, when you reached the loading bay, you got the Replay and Main Menu buttons. It really *should* transition automatically once the dialog is complete, but I just didn't have time to implement that feature.

By the way, you were handling the combat just right--taking cover, sliding out, firing a shot, taking cover. The enemy AI is very simple, but it seems to do the trick. 

I plan to upload an improved version after the jam is over, and among other improvements I plan to incorporate (a) an automatic end to the game once you arrive at the loading bay and talk to the pilot, and (b) some sort of timer that shows the passage of time, making it clear that time does not pass during dialogs.

It was sooo helpful for me to watch someone play the game "raw" like this. Thank you so much! Cheers and stay safe.

Developer(+1)

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

Man, its was incredible that you develop this game in 72hs, amazing.

I really enjoy the story behind all and the atmosphere, it really immerse me in the game and want to play even more haha.

One thing it's something mention also by others, that the bug of catching unlimited quantities of batteries and repairs from the chest leave the challenge of the combat a bit lacking, but still it's a fun experience over all.

Congrats for achieving something so polish in the amount of time given and by your own.

Developer

Thanks so much for playing, and I'm so glad you enjoyed! I worked three 15-hour days to make that game. :)

I think I know how to fix the battery bug. I'm embarrassed that I missed that one! I'll put out a new build with some bug fixes after the jam is closed.

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

This was really fun! I think the action economy is screwed up when you can use chests over and over, but it was really fun reading all the story and exploring the ship! Great job!

Developer(+2)

Thanks so much for playing! So glad you enjoyed. And yes, I'll be fixing that bug in the post-jam build.

Developer(+1)

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

I thought it was a really neat game! I did feel that the energy system was a little too restrictive for a game that's about story/narrative, but I still enjoyed it. One little bug I found was that you can continuously hit spacebar to gain the contents of the chest as many times as you want. The graphics were charming and the sound, although sometimes a little loud, really helped sell the retro vibe.

Developer

Thank you for playing--and thanks so much for catching that bug! :)

I will look into calibrating the volume of SFX in the post-jam rebuild.

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

Interesting take on the theme. Fun game!

Developer

Thanks so much for playing!

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

Great game! It looked really nice, with lots of detail shown through only 5 colours, and the controls felt smooth and easy to use. The story was brilliant too - there was so much worldbuilding and development, especially for a game made in 72 hours! One problem I had was the sound effects - they were a bit too loud at points, but the music was still fitting. Good job!

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thank you for the feedback! I'll add SFX calibration to my list of post-rating fixes & improvements.

I kind of went a little overboard (so to speak) on the story. I stayed up until 2am Friday working on it.

I spent Friday hashing out the story as well as the movement and combat systems & rudimentary enemy AI, Saturday on the dialog system, the mystery mechanic, and the UI, and Sunday on the front end, the sound system, and the fail conditions. I worked on graphical assets throughout as needed, with the player & enemy animations coming first.

The static in the transmission panel gave me some unexpected grief; I like the way it looked, but I couldn't figure out how to swap it out for the portraits when someone was speaking. (The solution, btw, was to use .overrideSprite instead of .sprite, which works for sprite renderers but not for images in the UI.)

Developer(+1)

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition

Submitted(+1)

This is a cool game, it's got a lot of polish and does a lot differently.

Developer

Thank you for your feedback! I try to push myself a little more each time.

Developer

FYI, the post-jam edition of The Derelict Orpheus is now up. I fixed the bugs I was aware of, implemented a proper ending, and added a bit of polish.

If you are curious, you can check it out here: https://fallingwallgames.itch.io/the-derelict-orpheus-post-jam-edition