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Nice to see you again iceninexp! Thanks for the plays and feedback. Glad you are enjoying it. You're right about the spawn location. I had wanted to improve that but couldn't find a good way to do so since everything is so random. I'll keep thinking about it. In terms of abilities at level 1, it's supposed to be rough when you're at the bottom of the food chain! That said, there are a few tricks you can use: you can actually hide in the jungle (dark) terrain, which makes it less likely predators will spot you. Or you can hang out near lava and predators are afraid to get too close. I had actually tried the "invisible when not moving" idea, but it just didn't play well. I also had planned to add random traits, like moving faster in water for example, but it seemed to make the game overly complex so I left it as it is. Hopefully those tactics help you and others overcome level 1.

<3 Thank you so much MartinEden! This is why I make games.

Thanks for playing! Glad you found a way forward :)

Hi, glad you enjoyed it. The tricky part about making puzzle games is testing them out yourself if you know all the solutions already. Originally I had copied and pasted a bunch of quotes, but I switched to the joke API, which works nicely, except that you don't have control over the content any more, which can backfire as you saw. I haven't seen that issue before though, thanks for letting me know.

Hi Hinman, thank you for such nice feedback! I'm so happy to hear that all the elements I tried to put into the game came through for you. Making games is fun but hard work, and hearing player's experiences like yours is what makes it all worthwhile! Thank you.

By the way, I checked out all of your games and I think they are great. You really have a nice pixel art style, but what stood out to me the most was your strong sense of composition on the screen and dramatic/comedic timing in your narrative elements.

Hi, thank you for the kind words! I'm happy to hear that you came back to play the final version, and that you enjoyed it. Thanks for the feedback on the ending too, it's sometimes hard to tell if puzzles are too easy or too hard. 

I agree that the mix of game engine and genre is unique and interesting, and I want to do more with it. I started experimenting with another game that uses the same engine but for a different kind of game - it's a Jurassic themed ASCII roguelike open world survival procedurally generated game thing... I've posted the early prototype at https://enegames.itch.io/thunder-lizard-eat-or-be-eaten if you want to follow along :) 

Awesome. Thank you so much for the kind words! Glad you enjoyed it :)

Thanks for letting me know. At least one other player discovered this too -- it is not intentional, it is a bug.  Sorry about that!  I have made a fix and re-uploaded the game, so if you play again you should be able to get to the same spot you were and finish the game in the correct way. You are almost at the end. With the new version you should have a bigger range to be able to figure out the final puzzle. Thanks for letting me know, and sorry again that you ran into the bug. Thanks for playing :)

Oh, wow, what a crazy and unintended bug! Thanks for telling me, I'll patch that right up. It's definitely not intended, though it is an interesting idea, especially being able to pick up the UI. Maybe an idea for another game...  In this case, it was an unfortunate bug -- during dev I had a way of toggling the 3 levels of crystals, and after 3 it would wrap around to 0, which is probably what happened to you.  Oops. Thanks for telling me.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the full game! It was satisfying to make, and even more satisfying to know players enjoyed it and were able to figure it all out. Thanks for playing and thanks for bug squashing!

Hi, thanks for sharing your progress. Congrats on getting that far, you are so close! If I understand correctly, it sounds like you are doing the right things. You are correct that you can't move the EV through the crystals. You are also correct that you should use your remote range to move it along the uneven path. You may need to reposition yourself in one or more areas so that your range can reach. With 3 energy shards you have the right amount of range,  but not necessarily enough to travel the full distance all at once. Hopefully that gives you enough hints, but if you're still stuck let me know and I'll share more (also if you are still stuck it would help if you can include a screenshot of your map).

By the way, what do you mean by you "left the map." I didn't think that was possible, maybe it is a bug :) Oh, also, do you know about how long you played for? I'm just curious, I think most people would take about an hour but I'm not sure. Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it.

Ah! Ok, thanks for the explanation, now I get it. You are looking at the bridge that got destroyed and won't work. You have your own bridge, and you can deploy it near the river, you just have to put it somewhere next to the broken bridge. You can't make the broken bridge work. Hopefully that gets you unstuck. I think others have been confused about that too, I should make it clearer somehow, or maybe take out the broken bridge all together? I'm open to suggestions. Thanks for the follow up! Let me know how the rest of it goes :)

Hmm... maybe you found a bug, but I can't figure out how you would have triggered it. Did you ever get across the river? It should be impossible to run out of power until after crossing the river. Did you get a message saying you ran out of power? If so, where? Do other items work or is your powercell empty? Thanks for helping troubleshoot! Sorry if a bug messed up your experience.

Awesome, glad to hear it. In terms of where you are stuck, it sounds like you haven't been able to cross the river yet, right? Have you tried using item 4? If you are trying to fix the broken bridge, that won't work, you need to use the one you found. Let me know if that helps! Maybe I can make that clearer somehow.

Hello again - I want to let you know that the full version of the game is now released. Your comment spurred a big overhaul in the design, and I think it made it a lot better (though possibly a little harder). So thanks again, and if you want to see where it ended up, check it out at https://enegames.itch.io/the-edge-of-known-space.

Hi, thanks again for the kind words. I just finished the final version of the completed game, so I wanted to share it with you so you can get the full experience. And the unlocking of areas has been completely reworked. Check it out at https://enegames.itch.io/the-edge-of-known-space and let me know what you think :)

Thanks! It took some time, but the full version is now available! I'd love to hear what you think: https://enegames.itch.io/the-edge-of-known-space

Glad you enjoyed it! I wanted to let you know that the full version is now released! https://enegames.itch.io/the-edge-of-known-space

I packed a lot into it, so I'd love to hear what you think of the completed game. And thanks for the early encouragement :)

This was really helpful. I needed a tool to help me design an ascii map for a single-screen micro-medtroidvania. After looking around a fair amount I found this and it worked perfectly for me. I used the web version and it was great. Thank you for making it! BTW, if you want to see what came out of it, you can check out my game Edge of Known Space.  Thanks again!

Awesome music. I used it in my sci-fi micro-metroidvania Edge of Known Space. It goes great! Thanks for making it available.

I wanted to let you know that the full game is now released if you want to play the full version.

Hey tmachine, good points once again. It is a little high-level. I'll try to go back and fill in some more details like you suggested.

This was a really unique and unusual game, from the square aspect ratio to the irregular terrain, and I enjoyed seeing that.

Yeah, me too! Looking back, I think the FOV feature of this game library was a big part of what made me want to use it. I'm doubling down on  it with the other upcoming items. Thanks for playing!

I wrote a postmortem on my jam experience.  The experience was very positive, and I ended up having more to say than I thought I would, including some really great insights for where I'll take the game after the jam ends. If you'd like to see behind the scenes, check it out :)

https://enegames.itch.io/the-edge-of-known-space/devlog/851957/jam-end-postmorte...

Hey, I wanted to share a screen grab of the new approach.  I think it is much better, especially once you find better tools to explore more. It makes the story less linear, but I think that can be ok. Thanks again for prompting this!

Oh, also it was nice to see another top down metroidvania.  Interesting how the perspective changes the mechanics in some creative ways (like no obligatory double jump)

This is fun, I like the story you weave through it.

Cool game, I like how the light and shadow areas work and the camera zooming. Jumping feels great. I got to a place to the right and down where I found a light thing on the ground that I could push and I pushed it off the screen or something and then I was stuck in that area and didn't know what to do.

I'm really impressed.  There's so much in this game.  I like the map and the aesthetic and the pacing.  I like the fun little quips the characters make.  At first I was frustrated when I died and had to start over, but then I realized it saves progress and you can unlock shortcuts which was great. I think it would play better with a controller, I used a keyboard.  I tried to switch my options to the other keyset, but didn't see that option, just the remap option.  Then I clicked on "title" without realizing that would blow away my progress which bummed me out! Great job, I say keep going. 

I also had the issue of passing through the walls in unexpected places which sometime locked me out and sometimes dropped me to lower levels.

I played the html version of this and has some issues, like the character sprites turning into black squares at certain times. But I liked the style and the voice dialog.  I wasn't very good so I didn't get very far, but I would have liked to play more.

Nice job, especially with the visuals and the sound.  The map seemed quite extensive and was nice.  The world was engrossing and the writing was good, though I would suggest trimming it down if you can to make it more potent.  I wasn't very good at it and didn't make it to a power up (or maybe I did but didn't understand how to use it before I died again). 

Wow, thank you <3.  I'm definitely continuing to work on it.  I'm going to enter it into the Super Metroidvania Month that goes until Feb and plan/hope to have it completed for that. Please follow so you can get updates and play it in full.  (also, if you'd like to do an early play test that would be great!).

In terms of the gating issue, another player said something similar and I do agree.  I've already made some (unpublished) changes to how that works and I think it is much better and leans into the "exploring the unknown" theme better.

Yes, it ends there for now, but more is coming soon.  Check back or follow for updates on the full release.  Thanks for playing!

Thanks for the feedback!  For now you found everything, but I'll continue working on it, eventually the whole screen will be filled.

Thanks for playing and for leaving feedback!  I had to think for a while about your comments before I was able to express the design concept I was going for: The unknown remains unknown until it becomes known, either through direct exploration, secondhand information, or leveraging a tool.  Future planned terrain types double down on this concept.  However, you gave me an idea to try -- instead of making unknown areas impassable, let the player trace paths through them, but it will be slow and disorienting.  That will contrast better against the more leveraged means of discovering unknown parts of the map.  Thanks again for sharing.

Nice work.  I'm impressed with the high production value.  I really enjoyed the parallax visual to accompany the text, and the little touches like the reflections in the monitor edges.  The colorization works really well.  Seems like a lot of work, keep it up!

I loved this game, great job.  Perfect mechanics for the theme, and fun play against expectations.  The torch cross over was a nice touch too.

Nice job!  Fun Papers Please vibes.  I particularly liked the interface and use of 4 colors. Music was good too.

2 UI suggestions: It took me a bit to notice the new/approved/rejected ship color indicator, and also to parse what the unlabeled categories were (allegiance, ship class, weapons, etc).  

Hi, thanks for the feedback!  I went back and forth on whether to make that default or a power up.  In the end I decided that I wanted the memory aspect to make it more challenging.  There are different approaches you can take to help gain info while relying on memory, but I realize some players don't like memory aspects as much.  I'll consider it, thanks again!