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A jam submission

SupercriticalView game page

Soviet Nuclear Reactor Operator Simulator
Submitted by dkorduban (@dkorduban) — 5 minutes, 51 seconds before the deadline
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Supercritical's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality#6403.7333.733
Overall#12533.2333.233
Presentation#18563.1003.100
Fun#22822.7002.700

Ranked from 30 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
You control a Soviet nuclear reactor. Sometimes things get out of control. Please read game description on itch.io for hints & controls (follow "view game page" link).

Did your team create the art for this game during the 48 hour time slot?

Yes

We created all art during the game jam

Did your team create the audio for this game during the 48 hour time slot?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Nice Game! like the mechanic and challenge this game have :D nice work -Ivory-

Developer

Thanks for playing and the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

Hello! I played your game on stream! If you want to see your game played with live feedback, you can find the VOD and watch from this sheet: http://bit.ly/bean-stream

Developer

Thanks, very appreciated!

Submitted(+1)

I liked this game. You can check my gameplay here: (I did play a few games so just check in the video)

Developer(+1)

Thanks man! Appreciate your time and the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

I love the spare silence of this game (at least until the reactor goes critical). It is an unbelievably stressful game, having to bounce between all the levels.

Depending on how much information you want to block or withhold from the player, I would make the readouts much larger than they currently are (also make sure your game defaults to full-screen), and elevate them above the player's head. I would also include some UI elements to show the player how much power they've generated (maybe have a soft goal for them to reach) and how much time is left on their shift (could just be an analog clock with an hour hand that goes around once).

I really liked the experience you captured here. I'd love to play this again after you've had a chance to revisit it. Great work!

Developer(+1)

Thank you a lot for the detailed feedback! Glad that you liked the game despite existing shortcomings. Forcing 960x540 resolution probably was my newbie mistake. Shift clock, among many other things, didn't make it into the release because of the tight deadline and this being my first game ever :) I do plan to polish it more after the jam, thank you for the encouragement!

Submitted(+1)

This is a really unique concept and very well executed. I felt the inspiration from the TV show Chernobyl in the art style. It definitely felt out of control with the exponential growth of the reactor power and I had a lot of fun with it. Turns out I would be an awful Nuclear reactor controller.

Developer (1 edit)

Indeed you can say I was inspired by HBO's Chernobyl, but the show itself was quite true to the real life: see this archive photos for example https://i.redd.it/9wdqbcrsl1351.jpg https://pripyat-city.ru/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/1300896837_scn_0063-pr-s.jpg. I'm glad you've liked it :)

Developer

Developer

Submitted(+1)

Such a unique concept. You managed to create a stressful experience. Well done!

Developer

Thank you for playing and glad you've enjoyed it!

Submitted(+1)

Really interesting concept. Simple design, simple controls, but the stress gets really intense at the moment you see the values growing very fast. The desired effect is a success. I really struggled playing this, in a good way. I never managed to finish the game though.

Well done !

Developer

Thank you for the elaborate feedback! I'm glad you liked it, and that the design worked as intended :)

Submitted(+1)

I really like the art style, controls feel good but it's really hard to control the levers. I think snapping into them would make the game more enjoyable

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and the feedback! Sorry, I didn't understand what do you mean by snapping — could you please explain?

Submitted

At the moment it's not clear where you have to stand to properly operate the lever which is a bit frustrating. You could make it so that the lever works the moment the character is covering any part of the machine.

Submitted(+1)

Really reminded me of the old days of newgrounds flash games dominating every computer lab class at school. Very nostalgic and fit the theme very well.

It was difficult to maintain a visual or feel of how activated the individual levers were, but I enjoyed the effect that gave if that was the intention.

Fun game, I'm just terrible at it.

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you for playing and leaving a comment! Glad you liked it :) The levers were meant to be a jab at crappy Soviet industrial design :)

Submitted(+1)

Hard to control the levers with the arrow keys but I guess that's the point. Nice art!

Developer

Thank you for playing! Yes, difficult controls were meant to convey a Soviet industrial design :)

Submitted(+1)

An original take, hard to get it right initially. Fairly fun and really hectic once you get it. Cheers!

Developer

Thank you! Appreciate the feedback!

Submitted(+1)

I clicked on your game because of the pixel art, really interesing idea you have here.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! It was meant to be a placeholder art, but ended up in the release due to short deadline :)

Submitted

The idea is good, but i would have liked to at least see where my lever was when adjusting.
It made it harder to do any planning, and resulted in a lot of hoping you got it right first try...

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you for playing and the feedback! You can see lever state visually — the red pixel moves up and down. You can use it to stabilize near the middle. Of course it gives a rough picture only — this was meant to convey a Soviet negligence to design :)

(+1)

Good balance between fun and difficulty.
The addition  of background music would help complete this game.
Makes me want to watch Chernobyl.

Developer

Thank you for the feedback! Yes, background music was one of the thing that haven't made it before the deadline :) Will update after the rating period ends.

Submitted(+1)

good take on the theme! art assets are simple but effective. very crunchy walking sound effect. i'm glad that the description says so explicitly to pay attention to the character's thoughts otherwise i would've just missed it.

the siren noise was a LOT louder than i was expecting. the game is pretty difficult overall, i didn't manage to get past day 3, but i understood the mechanics. the number rises a lot faster than i was expecting and i was a little disappointed that the point at which the reactor explodes is only 1000 more than the goal (you end up reaching that VERY quickly). most of the time i would end up 1000 short of the goal or i would blow up -- so i suppose i would say the game is a little too hard for me, but others may feel differently.

Developer

Thank you for the very elaborate feedback! Glad you liked walking noise! There's some background noise as well, together they create a good effect I think. 

The siren was meant to be stress-inducing, but it's not the end — meltdown happens at even higher power level. So sometimes you can recover if you're fast :)