In the Shadow of Stars

huge scope for a jam. wow!

This is a pretty big game for a jam! I really liked the tone that was set by the opening sequence. I won't get too deep into how grindy it is as I'm sure you're already aware. A few points:

- Monsters are quite prevalent and they do very little damage. You also can't really shoot them much without running out of energy. As a result, the optimal play becomes to basically try and dodge and tank monsters while grinding as much material as possible.
- I reached the second area before repairing most of the stuff in the base. Not sure if that's intended but I felt like I got there a bit out of sequence.
- It can be a bit finicky sometimes whether I use my pickaxe or shoot. Binding them to separate buttons may work better.
- Radiation makes it basically pointless to upgrade battery cells before you get to the second area.
- The game is made more repetitive by the map being static. If the map changed every time you went out it might become more interesting.

All in all a solid framework, but needs work to become as fun as it has the potential to be. Good job!

I love the idea of this game! I like the retro graphics, I seem to be stuck at the beginning though, the close button doesn't work on the 2 broken machine windows that I tried, and clicking resources during combat causes me to shoot my blaster. I'd like to see more though! Great job!

Another bug, if you convert enemy parts into resources for upgrades in the last machine, pressing add twice deletes all enemy parts, leaving you with nothing.

This bug made me loose 86 enemy parts :(

My Experience playing this game:
I started and read a lot of dialog. This pilot really likes to talk a lot. I head out, gather some resources, shoot at enemies and get teleported back, wondering why. Reading the death message, I realize that shooting uses up A LOT OF ENERGY.

A bit later on, I have already gathered some resources, my strategy has shifted from using the gun sometimes to basically relying on using the pickaxe to fight because it's just not worth it. Having repaired the first machine, I'm disappointed because now I just have one more resource which doesn't do anything, OIL.

Going out there a few more times now with the strategy, fell trees, gather stones, die, repeat. Because that seems to be the fastest way to GRIND your way through progression.

Pickaxe hit box is really weird, attacks going mostly above the player and shooting or melee pickaxe being decided by whether the cursor is near or far from the cursor made me shoot multiple times when I didn't want to.

Knowing whether an enemy was hit or not is also relatively unclear, which could have been easily avoided by making them do something when hit (like flashing red).

I finally ended up getting the upgrade station and the thing that turns enemy parts to resources, so I thought, finally some upgrades ...
Turns out getting any upgrades with this would give you radiation killing you over time which made them completely useless.

So I went with no upgrades, walked through the entire map once more. Through the opening on the right, and found some flower. (it can prevent radiation)
But, going to the right actually leads to a new area where you also get radiation, so I only got two flowers before dying again.

Having used up all spiders, which are the only upgrade that would make the gun actually usable meant, all other upgrades didn't really help much at this point.

I made a new Energy cell with the two flowers as the only upgrade and walked right until I got to the second "level" where I was now protected from radiation. I collected more flowers and saw another opening to the right, walked through that and reached the ending. (also in this second level the camera is way too far left from the player, you can barely see anything)

I only played through this game to be able to give an honest review. I didn't really enjoy this game at this point. Please, when adding a mechanic or requirement to the game (like things you need to repair the machines) consider the following:

Is it fun?

I still believe this game could be fun, but it does need a lot of rebalancing to do so. Currently, it just feels like an overly long fetch quest that discourages from using any of the games' mechanics by punishing you for doing so.

The art style and music were fine. The UI looked good.

Please make it so you can hold down one mouse button to use the pickaxe (not requiring to click every time) and use the other mouse button for the gun.

It kind of made me a bit sad, seeing what could be a good game have so many aspects that feel like they are only there to make it longer. I'd much rather play a shorter version of this that encourages getting upgrades and has less grind.
(seriously, why do you need 80 rocks and 80 wood to repair those machines, with the mining speed you have this just takes soooooo looooong)

So either this is just not the game for me, or you need to look into what makes a game fun. I'd suggest looking at Jonas Tyrollers video titled "Can We Make This Button Fun To Press?".

You certainly are capable of making a good and fun game, but this wasn't quite it yet.

I didn't finish mainly due to not having time to finish the grind, but a good game. The gun does sometimes fire when I'm trying to gather a resource which was a bit frustrating, but overall a good game. Well done and good luck on the Jam