itch.io

Had I more time in the jam I would have added some diagetic maps on the walls (got that in my back pocket for future jams), but in my view the navigation is really one of very few pieces of actual “gameplay”, which would wash away if there was a minimap!

Thanks so much for playing, hope you had a fun time!

Thank you, you’re very kind!

RetroTechFun stumbled upon this game when playing some Pico8 titles, and humiliatingly triggered a soft-lock. I’ve fixed the softlock, introduced softlock detection (dying twice within 0.1 second will now cause you to warp back to the start – consider this a valid speedrun tech if you can get it to work!)

I’ve also removed some spikes on the second screen because they are a holdover from an early vision, and is not appropriate for the direction the game ended up taking.

Hi, these pages are 404’ing for me

This happened to me to! My first black cat scratch card had two black cats and I guess that it’s gameover for me! Had fun while it lasted, though, good luck!

Seven over par, I’ll take it!

I used to be a professional escape room designer, so that makes sense!

We knew it’d happen to someone, sorry it was you! Glad you like the visuals!

I’m very pleased for you both

✨magic✨

Thanks @ayyspoon! I’m very proud of that transition, I think it explains the “plot” of the game so clearly and so efficiently, without a single word needing to be said!

@andreyslmv really knocked it out of the park with the music and sound design!

In a post processing shader, I have a set list of colors, and then for every pixel i cycle through every pair of colors (including 2 of the same) within some tolerence of similarity to that pixel. Whichever average of the 2 colors is closest – with the 2 colors being equal getting a boost – is chosen, and a simple checkerboard pattern of the colors is used. By checkerboard i mean color A if (x is even xor y is even), and B otherwise. The color list is here: https://lospec.com/palette-list/hidden-library

You know what, @khosthos, you just ooze niceness too! Thanks for the kind words!

What a fun idea! I had a blast, although I wasn’t very good at it! I do wish that the expanding arm was more relevant inside the kitchen – it’s such a fun idea, I just wished it was used for everything, you know?

I found the controls a bit confusing, especially because you expect the arm to be more relevant. I also found that the arm extending has no acceleration or deceleration made it harder to control then felt “fair”, especially when the targets are so far away. This means that really you’re just looking at the red x, rather than whole scene.

I also really liked the textures of the buildings!

The bug designs are really the star of the show, they’re just delightful! I really like the idea of building the web, but in the end it didn’t feel like I had many choices, since it’s completely random where the bugs go, the only strategy is to fill the screen with lines and then hammers spacebar until you have caught all the bugs. I think you’ve built a really interesting foundation to add different mechanics on top of.

Really really cute, great job!

The trophy at the end was a really nice tough. Simple but addictive gameplay, and who doesn’t like to see big number go up?

On my machine it did start getting laggy when the number got very big, which meant it felt slower to click (and face lag) than just wait. The sound design was great, and the visual design was well executed.

A jammer has learnt an important lesson about time management. We’ve all been there

Must play game for any PICO-8 fans!

Thanks @jumpoy! Glad you enjoyed it

1 bit spites

looks inside

2 bit sprites

Jokes aside these are great, thanks!

Thanks for your kind words! I tried very hard to make sure each area felt and looked unique – I think you were even helping me on Discord when we were discussing ways to achieve exactly that for one the of the rooms!

You don’t happen to still have that map to hand, do you?

Ooooh, I didn’t know LOWREZJAM was a thing. I’ll be joining that for sure!

The spacesuit bit was very intentional – there’s a magic tile which kills you if you’re suitless. This was intended partially as an homage to Outer Wilds, where new players often will forget to put on their suit and step out into deep space, to predictably fatal results. But it is also there to reinforce how dangerous the lack of oxygen is and make it clear that a lack of oxygen is the “enemy” of the game. This happening at the very start of the game is vital, so players only lose a few dozen seconds of progress (plus slow loading times, in fairness).

The chicken is super valid, and will probably be fixed in the first post-jam build.

Thanks for you kind words.

I know that bug: it is fixed in the newest build! But, alas, I can’t upgrade the submission! I’ll update it as soon as the jam is over!

Thanks for the kind words

Thank you! One my my playtesters gave up because they died in the final room – and hadn’t saved! That’s when I decided Autosaving was a must.

I went the manual saving route first, because I wasn’t sure I was able to ensure that no softlocks were possible – but in the end I was forced by playtesters to eliminate them on by one anyway so we got to a place where autosaves were safe!

Thanks for your kind words!

You can read more about how I scoped the project here, if you’re interested: https://kaisalmon.itch.io/zero-atmospheres-dungeon-crawler-jam-2025/devlog/933418/zero-atmospheres-a-postmortem

“found the chicken – NEXT!” 🤣

Absolutely valid – the original concept involved more features which involved antagonists and more tactics (was gonna have scary robots who you could throw into space or away from you with well timed gravity switches), but I realised that the length I could create a polished product with every feature (textlessly) tutorialized and executed on whilst keeping to the 15-30min game time I wanted for maximum accessibility… So it got left on the cutting room floor. Its a shame because I wanted to reuse elements of this animation from an unfinished pico8 project: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?pid=159985&tkey=nR95ntMnNWV6Uhi4V3Th

I appreciate that the oxygen leaking putting a timer on puzzles and the single source of environmental damage is toeing the line of what counts as a DC for the purposes of the jam – I know we discussed this in the discord. I’m already planning next year’s entry and I’m going to make it combat focused to make up for it!!

Oh, and the game does let you continue from your last oxygen tank, so if you wanted you will be able to restart, and select “continue” from the main menu, and lose almost no progress! You’re so close to the end, I’d love you to experience it

Ah, I’m sorry you managed to find an out-of-bounds glitch! There is some bugginess where people can interact with elements they’re not directly facing. I do the “are you facing an object” code with vectors and dot products, when a simple ray would both have been easier, less buggy, and would be prevented you from being able to interact with objects through walls! Oh well, we live and we learn!

I used godot, but did not use any of the Godot physics, instead building all the movement logic from scratch – something I’m very used to doing with my experience with PICO-8 which gives you nothing out the box! The advantage to building things from scratch is that they work exactly how you want them to!

What would you want to know from a post mortem? I’d be happy to write one, but I don’t know what people would care about?

Thanks, you’re very kind!

I really enjoyed your play through, I’m glad you didn’t lose patience in that one room!

Hi wolfheat,

It was interesting in playtesting how players found the space very easy to navigate – one even told me to make it harder – whilst since release I’ve been a real mix of those who navigate easily and those who get disorientated quickly! I think this really comes down to how well people can visualise 3d spaces in their heads without the ability to free look, which seems to be something some people can do without trouble and other’s struggle with.

My desire to create an accessible entry did mean that a lot of the puzzles are brute-strength-able, and can sometimes be solved without intentionality. It was an intentional decision that every puzzle you will eventually solve if you just keep doing something. I understand that the game loses out in something there, but I think there’s a place for a game that everyone can complete (even if it takes some people a lot longer than others!!)

Thanks for playing

/Kai

Thanks!

Thanks so much for your help throughout the jam – I don’t know if Godot 4.4.1 actually helped at all, but I’m glad you encouraged me to do it anyway even if it was just a 5% speed boost on mobile!

Don’t forget to leave a rating!

Yep, gotta have grid movement in a dungeon crawler jam!

That said, I did turn on free movement at the very end to get the screenshots, and it actually felt really off. I put a lot of effort making sure everything felt good on the grid, so as soon as you could run around like an FPS everything felt too big and too hollow and too boxy!

Thanks so much for your kind words!

/Kai

I put almost everything I wanted into the game, the only two things left on my TODO list at the end of the jam was “Credits screen” and “Punch Chicken”!

Thanks for playing twice to find all the content!

Hi, thanks for your kind words.

I don’t know if you’re in the discord, but I put a lot of effort into the level design – both at the detail level and at the structural level.

I did the first pass of each of the main rooms separately, and once I was happy with them, I worked out a flow diagram with how I wanted everything to interconnect, and played through the game in my head about what order things should come, and where I could put the keys to allow different branches whilst still ensuring each possible branch was still engaging.

It was only after a handful of attempts where I was happy with it, I tried to figure out how that flow could work as a 3d space, which was kind mind bending as I was figuring out how all these 3d spaces interconnected with each other!

I’m really glad I put this effort in, and it’s clear it’s being appreciated it! I also think it was healthy for me to think so deeply about the project away from the screen, in a nice cafe.

Once I then put the rooms in the right place, I then expanded/modified/edited them to fit properly, and created the handful of new rooms and content I needed in my plan in the spaces left between the already made scenes!

Thanks for playing

/Kai

Having jammed in the past, and having played a bunch of Jam games, it was a very intentional decision to have a short game but one which I could be confident that every single section was well polished and as fun/engaging as I could make it.

The result of that is a game that feels short, but I’d rather keep them wanting more than have them get bored and Alt-F4 half way through!

Thanks for playing, the stream was a lot of fun!

This game is absolutely beautiful, I love the aesthetic and execution so much!

I also love how lovely the UI-design is, so many game jam games don’t put time and energy into making their UI/UX feel good, let alone thematic, and you guys knocked it out the park!

The movement and combat Just Worked™, which is high-praise for a gamejam game, which usually have to just accept some level of jank

Have you four worked on projects before? This one came out so well. I’m looking forward to playing more

“The elevator rises to the surface, you have survived”

What a fun game. Like CryptRat, I found the slow movement frustrating. Being able to sprint helps of course, but I think the sprint should be a lot slower and the base movement a lot faster. I also feel perfect slide with no bob or sound effect made everything feel more stiff.

I also wish the areas had more visual variety, as I found I could only tell my way around using the map – but maybe that’s the point?

I do understand the game design reason for giving the player personal protection device, but it did somewhat make the monster less scary than he otherwise would be.

Overall, I enjoyed myself, as the difficulty and length were perfect for a jam game – thank you for a fun submission!