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Edge of Known Space's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme interpretation | #80 | 3.636 | 3.636 |
| Innovation | #112 | 3.273 | 3.273 |
| Graphics | #155 | 3.455 | 3.455 |
| Overall | #198 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Gameplay | #212 | 2.818 | 2.818 |
| Audio | #385 | 1.545 | 1.545 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/jschomay/edge-of-known-space
Game description
You wake up from long-term cyrosleep in a starship on an alien planet at the edge of known space. The rest of your team are missing. What happened?
"Edge of Known Space" is a single-screen micro-metriodvania with a sci-fi narrative. Discover clues and tools to reveal more of the map and more of the story. Explore the full map to piece together what happened.
(Note, I didn't get to finish the content for the game, it is only about 1/4 done. I have more planned, and I will finish it after the jam voting completes, but I welcome feedback and comments on where it is so far.)
Theme interpretation
"Secrets" as exploring the "Unknown"
- map is hidden until finding the clues to reveal it piece by piece
- story of what happened is a mystery that gets revealed piece by piece
- the plot twist includes secret agendas
- in the beginning almost nothing is known, by the end all is revealed
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Comments
It's great, I have somehow gotten into ascii art games recently and this makes your mind fill in all of the visual blanks, also the mysterious storytelling is pretty good as well.
Nice game with the little story! I really liked the map and the ASCII art! A little collection of 8-bit music could have added more depth to the game, but nevertheless, gameplay was nice. Awesome job! Try out my submission too!
I really like the ASCII aesthetics, I found the crystal labyrinth quite original as well. Of course, some kind of audio feedback would have been great, but that's something I'm sure you could add quite quickly if you continue to work on this, as I would expect minimalist beeps would be more than enough for this style.
Frustrating that things are impassable for no reason and then suddenly passable (e.g. until you read the log, the way east is just magically blocked then magically unblocked) but I liked the visuals as it revealed. Didn't like the strange 'whole map changes for no apparent reason' but I liked the areas and challeges being uncovered. The torch/scanner mechanic has a lot of potential. But need a clearer indicator that you can't see - took me a while to discover that squares I could 'see' I in fact could not see and that I'd have to walk over them to find there were critical logs sitting there (maybe make the initial gray dots all black squares until tey've been visited once, so its more obvious)
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.
Yeah that sounds a good way to handle it
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!
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.
Great, big improvements, works nicely.
I found 5 items, 4 corpses, but couldn't find a way to recharge the bridge. Walked everywhere, couldn't figure out what was missing
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.
Yep, I have all 5 items, including the bridge. it keeps saying I have no power for it. But I have no idea how to power it.
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.
I hadn't run out of power yet, had a few dots left, but whenever I stepped on to the 'I' by the river it said the bridge wasn't wokring and needed some power or it was drained or something. All other items worked fine.
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 :)
Fun to explore and the graphics look good.
Really cool concept. Could use audio for sure. The crystal maze was beautiful, really crazy how the barriers shift as you move. Loved the story. Unfortunately couldn't find my way through the crystal maze. Good stuff! Poor balthar :(
Great work! I'm loving the ASCII graphics and the good use of colors. The gameplay, theme and writing are also good. I didn't hear any audio, it could definitely have some. The crystal maze was pretty cool, i had to explore it like 3 times and I was just about to give up when I found my way through.