Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
A jam submission

The Sun AwakensView game page

Science-Fiction Lovecraftian Action RPG
Submitted by Dinty, Dāku, RedRageMage, Gigglegoblin Games — 3 hours, 50 minutes before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

The Sun Awakens's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Audio#94.2944.294
NES Feel#104.3534.353
Overall#144.0074.007
Graphics#244.1184.118
Gameplay#483.2653.265

Ranked from 34 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted(+2)

The concept for this is incredible. I love how you get dropped in with nothing, and the mechanics, game-over screen, and title of the game explain the premise. Floating in space, a timer counts down. You land on a planet, You Are Out Of Fuel. You die, The Sun Awakens. Each planet's threat level marks its hostility. And planets in closer orbit to the Sun have higher threat levels. The goal was never stated and I haven't beaten the game, but I can imagine very clearly what it is. This rocks lol.

The music is also stellar. It communicates the same feelings of isolation, threat, and growing stronger (as the songs regularly start soft and get real groovy!) Please release the soundtrack when y'all finish tinkering with the game. Please!!

My main points of criticism are SFX, the leveling screen, and difficulty. It seems like most collectables on the planets don't play sound. You collect fuel to leave the planet, but I also collected a moon-symbol thing and wasn't sure what it was. Having a sound there could associate it with something else, which would help. The leveling system itself was cool but often times it would pop up while I was slashing an enemy, so I'd accidentally click an upgrade before I knew the menu was up. As for difficulty I like the enemy designs and level system, but the threat level being tied to distance from the sun has an interesting issue. Planets in further orbit are naturally a bit farther apart since their orbit is much longer. That made it harder to find low-threat-level planets. I never saw a planet with a threat level of 2. I died very fast on threat levels 3-5. I was able to cheese a threat level 4 planet by killing an enemy that got stuck, which let me level up a few times. Still ended up dying very fast though!

Keeping my criticism specific because this game's concept and presentation are very cool. Some little quality-of-life changes would go a long way. Everyone who worked on this should be proud!!

Submitted(+2)

at first i didn't know i was movin but then i figured it out!
Didn't manage to beat any single planet cuz im unskilled af

But it nailed the NES feel really good! Love the art most!!

Submitted(+2)

You definitely captured that 'NES' Feeling. Great sound to go with it. It really felt like playing the old NES. Good job there.

I also like the level up system.  However, those damn flying egg things were annoying as hell.  lol.

Submitted(+1)

Really hard but really cool game! It made me think of Blaster Master or maybe a procedural Zelda.
* INSANE music, that bass is HEAVY wow. Definitely my favorite I've heard so far, talented chiptune sounds. Makes me want to pick up LSDJ again. If anything it might be TOO jammin' for a game about surviving brutal alien worlds lol.

* I think the ship could have used some feedback to tell you were accelerating, like some fire coming out of the end when you press to accelerate, since it's hard to tell you're actually moving given the nature of space having no tiles to ground you.

* I strongly think the space map should have wrapped like Asteroids rather than have invisible walls, it's very hard to tell your movement in space to begin with so it's unclear you're hitting a wall, particularly if no planets are around. If nothing else some sort of asteroid belt or something blocking your path and grounding your vision would have helped

* There's no fanfare or feedback when you pick up a thing on the planet... I feel like I picked up things that looked too big to be items and didn't even know what they were.

* You spend a lot of time walking through very similar rooms completely lost... I think it could have benefited from a minimap so I at least stopped retreating ground lol. Maybe it'd kill the lonely worlds vibe, but I swear I lapped through one world 10 times before finding the room with fuel in it

* I think the art is superb, definitely at home on the NES. The bg tiles were a little bare, but the creatures and character were awesome; tilesets looked cool; space, logo, sun look sick affff. Great vibes.

Very cool entry!

Submitted(+1)

Got the credits!     It took me several hours and 1 million tries (for real maybe 25 counting the very short ones) in total along the week.

I almost got super frustrated because I reached the sun with about 200 XP left to level 10 so that I could heal in the middle of the fight, yet per usual I unintentionally chose strength when it happened, eventually won one or two hits from death. Note that if you got your health back to max whatever your choice then it probably wouldn't matter as much, it's really the combination between the two things (super easy to unintentionally choose strength and not getting your hp to max when not choosing health) which makes it unhandy.

I like that the sun has not that much health when compared to the overall difficulty of the game, surpisingly it was the very first time I really got to fight it with decent power and I got it.

Like during the previous years you made a game which isn't easy and isn't one someone will beat in 5 minutes without knowing it, which overall is a good thing although I would say this one features a gameplay loop which gets a bit repetitive when you're too bad as a player to beat the game in a reasonable timeframe, although the rise in power is addictive. The overall balancing with the starting stats, the amount they increase by each level and the experience you need for each level is very on point, I really like it.

It was super satisfying to eventually beat the game for sure.

Music is awesome, art is good. The overall NES vibe is pretty good, although there are a bit too many, too big sprites on the screen, I think they could and maybe should have been smaller.

The game controls great, I like the different threat the different enemies propose and the overall sequences of enemies, it's cool that they rarely ever attack you in the border tiles (although in some way it makes it all the more frustrating when you end up dying there ;) )

Not super organised feedback, sorry for that ;)

Thanks for sharing!

Developer(+1)

Congrats on beating it. This was my first attempt at something so ambitious. I had never made an RPG before, a roguelike, or for that matter something this open ended. There were a lot of problems with the development of this one as a result and it's got a lot of problems. Honestly it's probably my least favorite game I've made for this jam from a gameplay standpoint, but I deeply love everything else about it. I'm working on a post jam version that fixes most of my personal issues with it and adds things that I personally felt would have made the game better. The difficulty curve on this one was not meant to be as extreme as it was for instance, a lot of the balancing happened last minute.  Thanks for playing and getting to the end though! I was not expecting anyone to actually clear it this time. 

Submitted(+1)

That's fine, your 2 other games set a very high bar ;) .

Developer

Thank you, next year I'm definitely NOT doing an RPG again

Developer(+1)

Oh also the final boss is getting it's health doubled in the post jam version so good luck if you play that lol

Submitted(+1)

amazing work! 

Submitted(+2)

Incredible audio, graphics, and strong NES vibes throughout! It did take me a few seconds to realize that I was moving in the beginning of the game (there weren't any planets visible on my first run), so maybe consider changing the sprite to show when the ship is accelerating or ensure at least one of the planets spawns in a visible location, as it looked like I was just spinning in the dark for a little while at first. I'd be curious how your game would play differently if I could level up my speed in addition to the other stats—more often than not, my health just kept getting whittled down due to just not being able to get out of the way in time when trying to sneak in an attack or not having enough speed to outrun an incoming enemy.

Developer

I'm personally against adding any kind of speed power up to the game since I want the player to get good at using the default movement. I would much rather just try to better balance the enemies around the movement since that slow pace is something I really want to have in order to drive up tension. I'm working on a post jam version and one of the first changes I have made is the one you suggested here by having the ship appear in a different spot. Thanks for your feedback!

Submitted(+2)

This feels very NES-like!  The artwork is excellent, especially the planets and the use of the limited colour palette. Sprites and tiles are simple but look great and the soundtrack is really good too.  

I liked how you swap between navigating space and Zelda-like exploration inside the levels.  I found it quite easy to get lost without a map, but otherwise this is a great entry and 100% feels like a classic NES title. 

Developer

I'm glad you liked it. I personally have mixed views on the gameplay but I'm trying to fix it up a bunch for the post jam version. Not sure when that will be out but I'm aiming for a few weeks after the rating period is over. I'm fixing a lot of bugs and adding new stuff. Thanks for checking it out!

Submitted(+2)

The graphics are amazing and have a strong NES vibe. One small issue is that it's sometimes difficult to tell which planets are manageable with your current stuff and which ones are too challenging. This can make the gameplay a bit frustrating, as I found myself dying and retrying several times just to figure out the optimal route and avoid getting stuck on the first planet I landed on. Even this minor point, it's  a great game overall. The music and sound effects are excellent, and the level design is nice. Well done ! :)

Developer(+1)

Thanks for your feedback. Yeah, balancing was done kinda last minute, the difficulty curve is pretty wonky as a result and it's one of the things I intend to fix in the post jam version of the game. First time even attempting to make something resembling an RPG so I have a lot to learn. Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+2)

Really interesting game!

Graphically looks really nice, making good use of the available palettes. and the music tracks were fantastic.

Could definitely make use of a confirmation button on level up or something, as it was very easy to accidentally skip over it.

The random enemy spawns combined with their fast movement would sometimes cause me to take damage before I could do anything upon entering a room (happened while on the threat level 3 red planet) which was rough,

Overall a very interesting entry, could see myself coming back to it at some point to see if I can beat it, though the global timer seems fairly intimidating (but from the pace I had on the couple runs I did before dying, it seemed fairly generous, maybe more of a thematic thing/incentive to stop the player grinding forever on low threat planets and actually explore and take risks. 

Developer(+1)

If you come back to this game, you might want to wait, I'm trying to fix a ton of issues like the enemy spawns near doors. That issue is personally driving me nuts and I don't want anyone else to suffer it too much longer. And yes, the time limit is really just there to keep the player moving. That said I'm debating making it a bit more strict in the post jam version to further drive up urgency. Also the level up screen having no buffer will definitely be fixed post jam. Very useful feedback, thank you!

Submitted(+2)

This game was difficult for me, I really like the aesthetics, and the foreboding music while traversing the solar system really brings a cool, unique vibe to the game. I did notice a bug where I got hit while attacking and it left a lingering melee hitbox attached to the player. Other than that, I think the game really captures the NES feel. Well done.

Developer(+1)

I usually like to make my games way more difficult than most people do for jams. Although I'll probably take a break from that next year since I want to try and challenge myself every year. Working on a post jam version and that bug you mentioned was actually one of the first ones I fixed. Thanks for checking it out!

Submitted(+2)

The celestial bodies look so cool! Amazing NES feeling graphics. Threat level 2 was already quite the match for me, but I will be back to look that sun in the eye again. Thank you!

Developer

I'm definitely rebalancing the game post jam although first I'm focusing on various bugs that sneaked their way into the jam version. Definitely curious to see what you think if you play the game again at any point. Thanks for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Oh the music takes you right to that NES era nostalgia, very spot-on! The graphics are great too, but it feels like the movement runs on a higher resolution than the graphics, which takes away from the NES feel a bit. The enemies all running on a fixed path makes it a bit too easy to just stand outside of their reach and pick them off one by one. Level design feels a bit aimless. I loved the small part about flying around the star system map, makes the whole quest feel larger than it maybe is.

Developer(+1)

Movement shouldn't be higher resolution since the resolution of the whole game is locked in to 256 x 240 and should be integer scaling, but I'll make sure when I look in the settings. Definitely adding more room variety post jam as well as making some tweaks to the dungeon algorithm and enemies to make it feel a bit more intentional. Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted

Looked at it again and I think I kind of misremembered/misinterpreted a feeling I got while playing when I was writing the comment. The resolution is 100%, but there's a few situations like this where the enemy runs its course horizontally while partially overlapping the background tiles, which felt a bit off.

Developer

Ah, yeah, that's actually intentional since it was the only way I could fix that enemy's collision before the deadline. But I agree that it definitely looks a bit off and could be improved in the post jam version. Not sure if I'll fix that in particular but I'm making a note of it, definitely want to focus more on the big issues first. Screenshot helped, thanks!

Submitted(+1)

it's been fun trying to keep the sun sleeping lmao, except it didn't want to cooperate, the art was nice, the music was nice, the sun wasn't very nice

sadly the upgrade menu didn't want to cooperate either lmao

but other than it was fun to "collect samples" from different planets ;) ;)

Developer(+1)

You just needed to find the blankey item and you would have beaten the game :)

Submitted(+1)

dangg should've looked around better XD the sun gonna go cold and angry now :')

Submitted(+1)

I'm really sorry to say but I think this game very perfectly captures everything about NES games. I thought the graphics reminiscent of C-tier NES games like Faria looked very interesting, and the music is awesome (way better than that of Faria), but the game just throws game mechanics at you with no explanation like real (mainly early) NES games, the enemies are relentless, it's far too easy to cancel past the level-up menu (to the point where I didn't even understand what it was at first), the game tends to spawn you with no planets on-screen at the very beginning. I will likely rate it high in all aspects except for the gameplay. Sad! And next time please make the web version's screen like at least twice as large.

Developer(+1)

Yeah, it has a lot of issues in the gameplay due to it being rushed around the end. Although it being cryptic was 100% intentional. I'm making a post jam version that fixes some of my personal issues with it as well as fixing a lot of bugs. I'm glad you checked it out even if you ended up not liking it. 

Submitted(+2)

Amazing NES feel and soundtrack. Really awesome parallax to the outer space part.. the artwork overall was incredible!! The fuschia/cyan color scheme on the title was what really caught my eye

Developer

Artist and composer both did amazing jobs, thanks for playing and the gameplay video is pretty useful to me as it gives me feedback for the post jam build I'm working on!

Submitted(+2)

An NES Breath of the Wild set in outer space. Absolutely genius!

Developer

I appreciate it, I have a lot of problems with my own game though so hopefully the post jam version is even better. Thanks for playing it!

Submitted(+2)

Really loved the whole vibe of this game.

Submitted(+2)

wow! i really liked this one! grat concept, gameplay and art! banger music too!

Submitted(+2)

Great use of color. So fun even just to look at!