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A jam submission

Cosmic DreadnoughtView game page

Stay grouped, avoid the monsters and find an escape (dcjam2024)
Submitted by Lucky_Laszlo, Kory (@KoryPxl), Sharyask — 2 minutes, 14 seconds before the deadline
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Cosmic Dreadnought's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall fun and playability#1062.5682.733

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Theme incorporation
Cosmic Horror:
Lovecraftian horrors invade a space station.

Solitude:
No time to complete the implementation.
Basically, it should have been a sanity system where you become more insane the less party members you have.

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Comments

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Nice entry.  It's lacking in a few areas like sound and player direction, but I love the complexity and verticality of the map.
Playthrough:

Developer(+1)

Thanks you ! It's a nice feedback being able to see your playthrough, thanks for this too.

Submitted(+1)

I made it to the portal! There's alot to like here. The Alien Isolation style gameplay was great, the graphics are right up my alley, the abandon spaceship with ladders and vents to traverse was a nice touch, movement was well implemented. The flashlight didn't seem to have much use but it still helped add to the darker parts of the ship.

Only thing I wish there was sound an music, even basic public domain stuff can go a really long way to add to the ambience. There's not a lot of feedback when the monster kills someone, I wish there was more to that mechanic as I just felt I would randomly cross by the monster and one of my people would go away, but only sometimes. This could be fleshed out to be more engaging.

Overall great job! I would like to see this developed more,

Developer(+1)

Congratulations, thanks for playing!

Nice to hear you are interested in further development of the game.

An update right after the jam votes close is already planned. It will mainly include bugfixes for monster behavior, sounds (important for ambiance as you mentioned) and some tweaks/QOL (like a retry button if you die).

Then, I will try to improve the game a little more with:

  • A proper interface/menu
  • Sanity system that I didn't have time to implement during the jam
  • Maybe, with the help of my two teammates, sprites adjustments and original soundtrack

After that, I want to continue experimenting in the Dungeon Crawler genre, but I don't know yet if that will take the form of an expansion to Cosmic Dreadnought or a different project.

Submitted(+1)

IF I get it correctly the combat is a sacrifice of people in your team. And your goal is to try to avoid it. The Level felt nice, and the culvert/vent thing was a cool addon. Also you misspelled the retry in retry button.. :P

Enemy felt scary, but I still fed him with all my team members. He seemed happy with that. Didn't really understand the use of the flashlight.

Sound is nice in the game, could use some music and sound for losing team member to hungry mob.

Nice job!

Developer

Thanks for playing !

Misspelled indeed. Written in total panic during the last hour of the jam, and not in my native language at that :P

The flashlight is mostly useful in a late area of the level where there is no lights (one of the screenshots show it).

Submitted(+1)

Not bad at all, the graphics were very nice, the movement very well implemented. I liked the "avoid combat" approach to the game, though monsters didn't always seem to want to attack or chase me. Sometimes I ended up chasing THEM haha.

Developer

Ahahah yeah, the monsters AI is a mess. It's fixed now, ready for the post jam update.

Thank you for playing the game and for your comment.

Submitted(+1)

Very nice, plenty of stuff to like about it. The ambiance is there, and the torch/unlit area works well, there is varied tiles and it looks great all over. Monsters were so unrelenting they attacked me in the vent a couple time. I did not manage to find the exit. I kept being stuck in the bottom section/unlit area. I did find my way up a couple time, but I was persuaded that the exit was there, until all my crew got eaten up. The movement are a little floaty, and adding something to denote the steps (sound effect, some slow down or a little shake) would give a better feel.

I like this entry. With sounds on, I would probably have been too spooked to play ahah.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback !

The level is not that big, but its easy to miss the exit, even when passing very close.

I agree, the movements could be improved. I will try with a sound effect first to see how it feels, and next I will probably try some smalls camera movements as you suggested.

Submitted(+2)

The graphics are fine, as is the ambience sound. I wish there were some sound effects, which would rise the tension of the monsters roaming around. The crawlspaces are a nice touch to escape the monsters. The system with the differen crewmembers could become an interesting mechanic. Shame, that you did not have enough time to implement all that you tried to do. Still, it is a cooll start.

Developer

Thanks you.

Missing sounds effect, fully agree with this.

A lot of idea regarding the crewmembers (and other mechanics) emerged during the jam, but ultimately the hardest part was properly managing the time allowed to implement what we wanted (we failed 🤡). This is my first game jam and I don't have much experience in game development, so I think I learned a lot for the next time I have to work under these kinds of time constraints.

Submitted(+2)

Great visuals. Especially liked the idea of finding a rarer type of cool guy to join your party, although I have no idea what their various abilities were, aside from the note on your main game page about engineers. Also curious if the flashlight attracts enemies or anything.

Some bugs and lack of sound, and I got extremely lost and didn’t manage to finish. I like the use of vents and multiple floors, but I do poorly enough navigating large similar-looking environments even when I’m not getting chased by monstrosities. Cool though.

Developer

Thanks for the review.

There are 3 types of party members.

Standard guy: No ability, just acts as a hit point.

Engineer: Open red doors.

Cultist "cool guy": Was supposed to be a modifier for the ending screen (cultist in your party: good ending, else: bad ending), but was not implemented. He's just a standard guy with different skin.


The flashlight does not affect monsters. A flashlight that attracts or repels certain monsters was considered, but not implemented.

We didn't have enough time to work on the sound and that's definitely a gap we want to fill next time.

Submitted(+2)

A pretty good minimum submission-everything is there that needs to be. I liked the character & monster art, and the environment art was serviceable. I think it could have used a colorswap or two to designate different areas, but that is firmly in the realm of 'polish'. I ran into a few issues - got softlocked in the monster's collision once, and slipped outside the map and could not get back in once. Also, the music just kinda cut out after a fairly short time.

Here's a recording of my playthrough, in case you would like to see it:

Developer(+1)

Thanks for your dedication to completing the game despite the game breaking bugs !

I'm aware of the collision problems with the monsters. Dumb error, easy to fix, but I didn't notice it early enough du to lack of testing.

The music issue is similar, easy to do, but forget to make it loop in the final hours of the jam.

Its the first time i saw the out of bounds issue though. Your record will probably be helpful to investigate it, thanks for that :) .

With more time to work, a colorswap would be a nice addition indeed (maybe in post jam update).

Submitted (1 edit) (+2)

"NOW WHERE ARE WE? WHAT'S NEXT?"

It looks like I'm not the only one who implemented the horror+solitude themes with a redshirts plot.

I had a lot of fun playing and mapping the game. This last, mostly dark floor is annoying the fun way.

The game is very well executed. Movement and field of view feel perfect, I like the engineer mechanics, and the game looks pretty good and consistent. The dungeon layout just feels pretty good too, the multiple connexions between two levels, right size and amount of openness, the holes and red doors are certainly part of it, the hole allowing to unlock one more character was cool for example.

Excellent entry, thanks for sharing.

Developer(+1)

Thanks you for trying the game and for the nice message, including the "proof of completion" password, its appreciated.

I'm glad you enjoyed it despite the bugs and rushed/missing features.

Right now i prepare a post jam update, fixing the bugs and maybe adding somes features with the help of my two mates.

I'm pretty new to gamedev, the jam was a good experience and I'm looking forward to do another project (probably another sort of dungeon crawler actually).

I'm curious to play your game, and will try to give you a feedback as complete as yours.