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How does the game fit the theme?
Deep Night puts real-player diplomacy at its core: trade, treaties, and alliances that share your vision and open your borders. That cooperation is exactly what makes betrayal bite. An ally can turn and take the very worlds they were just helping you hold, and the galaxy remembers every broken pact forever. Co-op and PvP aren't separate modes here; they're the same relationships. Trust and betrayal is what makes a game like this so interesting. You have to trust someone to survive, while they're deciding the same about you.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Credits
- Music — Sci-Fi Space Tracks by alkakrab.
- Planet & nebula art — ported from Deep-Fold's Pixel Planet & Space Background generators (MIT).
How many people worked on the game?3
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Comments
First off 5/5 on the Visuals! The planet meshes and animations were stunning, and the UI looked gorgeous. The music choice fit the vibes perfectly. I felt the scale of the game is huge, and I would have liked to explore it all, maybe at a slower pace, another time. My one suggestion is the onboarding is a bit overwhelming, perhaps slowly introducing mechanics in bite size pieces would make it more approachable. Other than that fantastic job on what looks like a commercially viable product!
As the others already stated, the game is really hard to get into, a tutorial is, in my opinion, really a must for a game of this intricacy.
Also for a jam, the testing is quite tedious as it requires waiting a long time before doing actions. maybe a simplified version could have been desirable.
Aside from which is stated above, i enjoyed the game and find it quire polished. Good job !
Thanks, agreed that it's hard to test during a jam and it does require patience (or coming back later), but did you read the "next steps" guidance? Although it's not a full tutorial, it plainly tells you what to do next in-game (more than what most jam games have :-) ). And although the UI can look complex, it's actually pretty straightforward if you just read what stuff does, especially when starting. And if you hover anything there are helpers that give even more info.
Anyone that would like to leave specific feedback or report bugs can do so right in the game in the settings menu. And that would be very appreciated!
This is such a polished game and I enjoyed every second of trying to figure things out in it, but I do have to agree with other commenters that it fits less as a jam game and more as a game of its own with how much time needs to be dedicated to it.
Otherwise I did fall in love with its music and visuals and overall how polished it is, an absolute gem of a submission!
Thanks!
Lovely user interface and art visuals! It was really surprising seeing a lot of content all at once when gameplay starts hahahah but it makes sense as I go along with the game and easily understood how the game works. It is the type of game that requires a lot of time so I did experience just only staring at the resources to fill up to be able to accomplish the task guide and it takes a while. It'll probably be less overwhelming if the beginning would be some kind of introduction of showing the planet layout first then you could slowly add in the UI elements along the way as the player continues on with the game like the planet information then resources then upgrades and so forth. I liked listening to the background music too and fits well with the game concept, and adding SFX will add more immersive touch to it. Nevertheless, I could see myself enjoying this as a casual game once it's fully polished if given more time. Amazing work!
Thank you so much, great feedback!
I like how broad the game is! At first, the UI was a little overwhelming, but after spending some time playing, I started to understand how everything works. It’s amazing that you were able to build something like this in just a week. Great job!
Thanks! I feel like the overwhelming UI is sort of the hallmark of 4x games lol. But honestly, we would love feedback on how to improve it, to ease players in and gradually add the complexity that many players love.
After playing your game I must say, I cannot seem to comprehend how one could even begin to make a game like this. Its genuinely mind boggling. However, one has only so much time to invest in a game during a jam, and it seems to require more time than I have. It looks as if you are continuing development, and the first thing I would recommend you to do; is add an in depth tutorial. I tried, and I could not understand the game mechanics at all.
Its a interesting game, and has a lot of potential.
Thank you! Will do!
Really well-made and surprisingly complex game. I’d start by saying that this type of game might not be the easiest to fully appreciate within the usual 10–20 minutes you tend to spend on a game jam entry. That said, for the time I invested in it, I enjoyed it a lot.
I’m not usually a big fan of 4X strategy MMOs, but this one definitely intrigued me. Getting something with this much depth to work so well, especially in a multiplayer setting, is a great achievement. I’d genuinely like to come back to it and give it at least another 1–2 hours to properly dive into all the mechanics it offers.
My only minor issue is with the theme. At least from the perspective of a game jam and the time I spent with it, I didn’t feel the theme came through quite as strongly as it could have. I can definitely see how the diplomacy systems might reinforce it more once you go deeper into the game.
Overall, a very well-made game with a lot to offer the more time you invest in it. Great job!
Thanks, appreciate that! Totally agree, it's difficult show off this kind of game in a jam setting. Believe it or not, we're not the biggest fans of 4X usually either haha, and we gravitate more toward RTSs. And that was the dream-- to have real-time combat, but we quickly realized that was going to be too difficult (maybe we will add it in the future). But the idea came from trying to give the feeling of the massive scale of the galaxy and also allowing players to play async. So, we're pretty happy with how that came together, and we found out that it was more fun than even we were expecting lol.
Yeah, the theme is also hard to get across quickly, but the diplomacy aspect really is at the heart of the game. The original core idea was really just Diplomacy is space, haha. It just shows up more in the mid-late game right now, because of the number of players and the time it takes to expand and meet them. But in a full launch with a more crowded galaxy it should be integral to the early game as well.
Thanks for the comments, and hope you do find time to come back and try it more.
I'm shocked that you guys pulled this in just 7 days! Details are amazing. I will play this game after the jam. Pretty solid gameplay. Great work.
Thanks! Would love to have you in the game after the jam, we are going to keep developing it and improving it. It's pretty crazy to see how the players having expanded out over the galaxy already.
It must be hard to make this game! I was just thinking how you did this :)) It's really good!
Appreciate that!
Really interesting concept! I like the slow-burn approach and the idea of a persistent galaxy where your decisions and relationships with other players actually matter. The atmosphere is great, and the scale of the game feels very ambitious. Nice work!
Thank you!
While I definitely recognize the massive undertaking a game of this scale is to execute on, I would echo the sentiment that a lot of people felt and that was the real time waiting made me bounce off of this super hard. I basically opened it up, clicked upgrade on all the things I could and then just sat there wondering what I should do next, after a little bit of poking around I kinda felt like maybe there wasn't anything I could do but wait.
I think this type of game would work well as one of those desktop games that sits right above the task bar or whatever, like desktop fishing etc.
Good job on the general polish and feel but for me it didn't feel like there was much game, it reminded me a lot of old Facebook games where you spend energy and then wait (or pay) for your missions to complete.
Thanks, we appreciate the perspective, but that is the design of the game on purpose. It makes sense it's hard to enjoy (or get the real experience) in 30 seconds in a game jam setting. We can try a quick version where you're basically playing it like a regular RTS (which could be cool) but that would be a very different experience. This is meant to be an MMO and if it worked like that everyone would have to be on at the same time playing (or at all times) or you would quickly fall behind, and players would explore the entire galaxy in a hour or less, and it would soon be saturated. Obviously, that wouldn't work in this jam setting either, because everyone wouldn't be playing at the same time, and it would basically be impossible to balance. Even in a normal situation, it would be hard to manage an MMO gameplay experience like that. So, as I said before, it is meant to be played as you described, async, in the background.
It's a experiment, an obviously not for everyone, but changing the speed that much would fundamentally change the type of game we were trying to make. Believe it or not, there is a significant number of people actually playing Deep Night this whole time, which honestly we were a bit surprised about in a jam setting.
I love the concept of it, at least the micro MMO aspect, but those types of wait games I definitely bounce off of myself. I totally agree a game jam is a hard time to do that for various reasons. I do think that having a faster paced version of it for the jam might have helped, I know that kind of kills the purpose of the game but game jams have narrow windows to hook people.
I've been toying with the idea of setting up a tiny persistent little micro MMO for a game jam but you know more traditional gameplay of just wandering around killing monsters and I've seen some others who have done some cool ones in game jams, but it's exactly as you described, almost nobody else ever sees anyone else in the world. I will still probably do it at some point, but it's a weird fit for sure.
Yeah, definitely. I would love to see the more traditional micro-MMO in a game jam, that's a cool idea. I'd play it!
We're going to keep experimenting and likely we will have a faster mode for a future demo (even if that's not the usual core gameplay). I like the idea of adding a blitz mode as another option where players can spin up a galaxy to play with their friends on fast settings. Different style, but kind of a fun multiplayer option for one sitting.
Thanks for all the feedback.
I really like the idea behind this! The diplomacy system makes the “Trust No One” theme feel like an actual part of the gameplay instead of just a story element.
I especially like how alliances, trading, and treaties can eventually turn into betrayal. Knowing that the person helping you survive could eventually turn against you makes every decision feel more meaningful.
The idea that co-op and PvP are basically built around the same relationships is really interesting. Great concept! 🌌
Thank you! Really appreciate that.
An epic galaxy game! You can really tell the team was aiming for a massive scope. The countdown timers are a bit long though, making it feel like an idle game :D
Thanks! Yeah, the long durations are not for everyone. It's meant to have the feeling of playing over great distances and long timeframes. We could easily experiment by making them shorter if players were interested in it, feels like that might make a distinct game though. But we could have a different game mode and it would be like the difference between blitz chess and regular chess, haha.
That said, one of the core gameplay elements we would love add-- is real time space battles, imagine waiting like 10 hours for your fleet to engage the enemy fleet, but when it happens you get a zoomed in RTS battle! That was part of the dream but way outside the scope for the jam, but if we have enough interest, we might try to add that eventually.
Damn, this is how I wish my game had turned out!
Without even mentioning the contents of the game, huge props to your team for committing to (1) a multiplayer game and (2) of this scale, on a game jam no less.
I haven't fully explored the other features and mechanics yet as I'm waiting on researches, but I can see myself getting hooked to it. I'm getting Factorio vibes but with MMORPG elements.
Great stuff, and excited to see this continue as a full game.
Haha, thank you so much! That's the exact kind of thing we were going for. And we're hoping that it will be addictive enough that lots of people will play long term where it can really shine. :-D We fully plan to continue to work on it after the jam and give it a full release. There was so much we still wanted to add and iron out believe it or not.
Not really my type of game, but still a job well done!
Appreciate that!
This is one of the most detailed elaborate, wonderful jam games I've ever seen!!!!!!!!
Thank you!!!
Oh my god, this is absolutely incredible — it feels like the universe has been perfectly brought to life right on my screen. No astronomy lover could resist this game. So cool!!!!
Such kind words, thank you! That's really what we were going for, so we love hearing that.
Wow! I'm impressed! Such an awesome game. And the zoom feature really blew me away. You can scale the screen from a galaxy to a planet. There's really nothing more to add - you guys are really great!
Thank you so much! So glad you appreciate the zoom, we really wanted to portray that sense of awe at the sheer size of the galaxy relative to your homeworld! (We're space nerds. lol)
Great art and music, project seems to be really large for a 1 week jam! But waiting times are insanely long.
Thanks! Yeah, times are long on purpose-- it's meant to be played over the course of days, weeks, and even months. :-D So definitely not for everyone, haha. It's designed so you can play async and just check back in whenever you want, even on your phone. Or play in the background while you're doing other stuff. The long real-time durations for buildings and travel time are meant to add to the feeling of epic scale of the galaxy.