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Themed Horror Game Jam #6

Hosted by Beregon · #ThemedHorrorGameJam
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A jam submission

Beast of the Dread Star - Jam EditionView game page

Submitted by AKS Games — 2 days, 11 hours before the deadline
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Beast of the Dread Star - Jam Edition's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Theme#64.1674.167
Horror#93.3333.333
Story#113.2503.250
Overall#143.2923.292
Creativity#173.3333.333
Presentation#213.1673.167
Gameplay#212.5002.500

Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How did you choose to implement the Theme: Among the Stars in your game?
I went obvious and made a horror game that takes place upon an 'abandoned' research vessel/spaceship. The direct implementation is the tagline 'Among the Stars, there is one creature whose bloodlust is unmatched by any other, the Beast of the Dread Star'.

Did you implement any of the optional Bonus Challenges, and if so, which ones?
1 - The game is set on a spaceship
2 - The player character is an alien creature.

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Comments

a_nikitaSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

I had no luck escaping the beast :D Otherwise, great game!

Submitted
Project Extraction
Reply
AKS GamesDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Thanks!

Don't worry though, it's not your luck, I didn't get a change to properly test and balance the enemy so it ended up being unfairly hard to deal with as a player.

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FallingWallGamesSubmitted1 year ago(+1)

I like the character design. Reminds me of the Rodian from the Mos Eisly Cantina. The sound design is also good, with an appropriate sense of dread. The written segments were also generally good, although [partner name] should have been swapped out. :)

I enjoyed exploring the ship, but since there is no vertical movement, a top-down perspective might have been more suitable than but a sidescrolling perspective. On the other hand, I understand that a sidescrolling perspective can be scarier, so it's a tradeoff.

Since we spend so much time watching the hero walk up and down corridors, more effort in the walk animation would also have helped.

Lastly--I could not figure out how to protect myself from the Beast. It would show up, I would die. :)

Submitted
The Gnawing Hunger
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Coding KittensSubmitted1 year ago

Fun game! I like how you play as the alien, it's a nice twist. I like the character design of the aliens and the music is good to :)

I think you forgot to put the name of the aliens partner in this text.

Submitted
Beyond The Stars
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AKS GamesDeveloper1 year ago(+1)

Thanks!

I absolutely did forget that, haha. I wrote the original dialogue ages before I settled on names and then never went back and actually put them in, oops.

Reply
BeregonHost1 year ago (1 edit)

Interesting game. I quite enjoyed it, but I also have some criticism regarding the basic gameplay.

For the good, you did manage to pull off a genuinely suspenseful atmosphere, especially once the Enemy showed up. The art is also pretty good. There are some issues, like the mess hall has a weird black line obscuring part of the floor and the protagonist's partner is literally named [Partner Name], I assume that is due to time constraints.

For the negatives, I knew what I was getting into when I read your warning about the unfair AI, however I feel like I have no idea how you are actually meant to play the game and how it works. It's way too hard. For one, everytime the enemy starts chasing you, it's basically game over already. 

Whenever I saw some red glow at the side of the screen that signaled that the enemy is close I instantly hid, but the enemy always found me, so I'm not sure what's the point of hiding. And if you try to run away, the enemy detects you and starts chasing you and that's basically it for you. Felt like simply being in the same corridor as it meant it was time to restart.

Maybe you are meant to run to the exit to another hallway and hide after, but it seemed like an excercise in futility. It doesn't help that sometimes I entered a doorway to another hallway and got a Game Over instantly because the enemy was right next to me with no warning from the outside. Maybe have the doorway emit red light if the enemy is behind it.

Also, the first few times I'd mash the E key on instinct when I saw the Enemy is near and exited my hiding place right after hiding. Maybe adding a slight delay would help prevent that.

Anyway, with pure luck, I managed to avoid it entirely one time. I reached the ending, I think? I mean, after that cutscene the death screen popped up just as when the enemy catches you, which is confusing. Maybe I got the bad ending, dunno. I did really like the twist though, it was pretty clever! :)

Reply
AKS GamesDeveloper1 year ago

Thanks for playing! And thanks for the feedback, I'll take it on board. :)

As for the ending, the 'bad' ending is the ending. I couldn't settle on a ending where the player survived that I was actually happy with so I decided to make it a death is inevitable type game, I should have made that more clear with a different end screen.

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