Where Stars Belong by NORRIMO
A narrative exploration game ...


... about the inner space, thoughts and feelings.
Once there was peace but now something is spreading.
Something dark ...
It's time to restore the balance.
Norrimo: Lead Game Design, Programming, Leveldesign, 3D Art
Sasinka: UI Design, 3D Art, Game Design
Sounds from freesound.org
Note: if you have found the new created pure thoughts than you have reached the end of the story content
The theme: We wanted to take more the abstract idea of ‘Running out of space’ because it’s often related to physical situations where things shrink or become less. So we wanted to go in a non-physical direction. It is the space in your mind and some thoughts takes sometimes too much space and blocking us in our daily life.
Play with WASD and mouse. Have fun. :D
Ratings
| Overall | 460th | 3.513⭐ | 82🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 896th | 2.92⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 789th | 2.994⭐ | 82🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1112th | 2.669⭐ | 82🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 54th | 4.43⭐ | 88🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 98th | 3.859⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 31th | 4.16⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 31🗳️ | 44🗨️ |
@monetai @joschi I am really sorry for this. D:
Usually something would have been activated at the altar by the balls. The problem has now been solved. It was just a missing tick on one of the prefabs.
Chek it out now. Everything should work.
@iokin We will check it out. :D And a mac build is coming soon.
Come check out our game as well!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/bus-stop-blast
In the end, very relaxing gameplay and a nice experience.
It's one of the best game on this LD)
Just to make your game better, I think te sound when you collect a dark tought doesn't fit in the theme and is very loud.
And when you reach the top of the elevator there is 3 holes and I thought i needed to place the dark balls in these but apparently not. Also a properly end could have been nice to indicate that the game is finished.
Anyway super nice entry, gived me emotions and made me thought about my own feelings and try to think less about dark things. <3
Please play my game if you wish, i tried to make a game with a lot of mood too :)
Well, we wanted to create a more 'walk around and try things out' experience, but It can definitely improved. If you have found the new created thoughts than you have reached the end of the content.
And yes, we planned to work a bit more on this project and want to do more beautiful stuff.
And I will check out your game today too. :)
Yeah, maybe the theme is not so obvious. We wanted to take more the abstract idea of 'Running out of space' because it's often related to physical situations. So we wanted to go in a non-physical direction. It is the space in your mind. :D
Very nice graphics, the music is totally adapted to the game. The mood and the calm reflexive atmosphhere were enjoyable. Nice game overall ^^
Awesome overall.
P.S. I managed to break the game somehow?

@tuism Not yet but we will upload one soon. I inform you if that happens. :)
@xarras Thank's. :D Yeah, at the beginning of the Ludum Dare, we planned to implement much more storytelling than we currently have.
@aayush Yeah, thank you. But how you did this and what happened exactly? Do you mean this thin thing in the sky? :o
I like the sense of mystery your game has, and its introspective nature. The "puzzle" were not very imaginative though.
I'm not sure if I finished the game. I got to the top of the tower, shot stars, then found a secret platform that told me I could shoot stars with "R" and... that's it?
Good entry overall, even if I'm not too sure how it fits the theme.
One last point: if you're gonna use WASD for your control scheme, please make a rebind option so that other types of keyboards can play too. Not everyone uses a QWERTY keyboard :)
And thank's for the QWERTY advice. The funny thing is, that my keyboard is a QWERTZ. xD
@aayush Ah, I understand. I will see if I can fix this. Thank's for the bug report. :)
Did you choose shooting stars because of the current meteor shower that reached it's maximum during this Ludum Dare? I'd really like to know, I did it in my game and it would be really cool if someone had the same idea :D
The audio is good, and the game plays good, but I would really like to give you credits for the art and design, which reminds me a lot of Rime in a more "terrestrial" palette, with brownish colors.
Also, I used to little secret to take a shower made of stars. It was really good.
Thanks you for this experience, and please keep working on games like this. Good job !
It is quite performance heavy, I had a very un-smooth gameplay which reduces the fun alot :(
Another critism is that I don't see the theme anywhre.
But beside these points it is an beatiful and really good game.
I did find a glitch though I think, in the part where you need to find the heart and put it on the holder thing, I used one of the music discs instead and that seemed to work. Other than that, it was really relaxing and well made! Good job!
However, a better indication for end game would be nicer. I kept wondering if there was anything more to do after finding the pure thoughs and the secret key.
Besides that, it's a pretty good game. Good job!
I guess I didn't get to the end, but I found the 'secret' said I can shoot stars with button, but all the stars just flew through the ground and I couldn't catch them.
Good luck with your game!
@n-feofentov If you have found the new created thoughts than you have reached the end of the current existing story. And thank you! I will improve it by time. :)
All in all, still really cool looking game and it had a nice atmosphere.
You mention in the description that "Sounds from freesound.org" if you got the sounds/music from there you should opt out of the category, if it was stuff created during let me know and I'll come back and rate that category.
And yes, it's true that we used some sounds from this page. We only made the soundeffects by ourself but not the nice ambient background music. We were not sure if we should accept a rating or not. So, you are probably right because the most of the people have rated in this categorie because of the nice ambient track.
For me the best part was the graphics/artstyle
Overall ok game :)
I want to see more of this team
@virtual-turtle-studio Oh, that makes us happy. Not many see the LD theme in our game because we have used it maybe a bit too abstract for a jam. xD
And we will make a polished post-jam version of this in couple of days. Will not so much bigger but maybe more beautiful as now.
@nam-nguyen Spoiler: Once you have found the "secret", you can shoot the stars from other positions. ;)
And yes, we will do a post-jam version.
@toboggan Thanks for the advice. We will make the UI more handy in the next version. :)
@rayne Maybe soon. :D
I found it difficult to get the thrid anf final black core though.
The atmosphere is amazing. Those billowing clouds are just sublime. The models are simple but with enough variation in them to make them look great with static light source. Really good. They don't look like they had baked lighting? Why not? :)
Never found the last secret :)
The sentiments are surreal and good, though the "gameplay" was a little lacking, but that's just the nature of something like this. It's not really engaging in a mechanical sense.
That was the only true drawback for me. Congrats for this game !
@tuism Thanks man. :D Yeah, we changed really often something in the leveldesign and at the end we simply missed to bake it. And maybe it would be looking different as now ... so if we do it now it would maybe influence the graphical category and because of this we doing this in the post jam version. :)
And the secret lies in a ... secret place. xD I can link you if the Post Jam version is released, if you want. Then you can try it again. ;)
@anastasiats The only "goal" for us was more that the player explore this world and feel good by wondering about all. You can create new thought and read them and that's it. I think games are more experiences which we create for other peoplse and sometimes they have no goal no end only the feeling to be in this creative world. (I know thats really abstract xD)
@wrenpirate Thank you for your advices. :D And there is no really story in there. Because to the end of the jam we had not so much time left to implement all thoughts. And it's only about these thoughts, about the thoughts everybody has sometimes and which block us in our daily life so that we have no room for other thoughts and things we could do. Hope that explains it a bit.
Well done :)
* graphics were well done
* not really fond of walking simulators, so didn't find any fun.
* the clouds were GPU intensive (made my FPS drop really low when I was 'outside')
I think the game flow could use some improvement. I get that you want the player to move and discover things on themselves, but I still think it's important to give small clues or nudges here and there to guide the player through the game. It can be visual, audio, etc.
For example, you could rearrange the stone at the starting cave so that the player starts with the character facing the music cave. That way:
- most players would probably go towards it first, which is actually what they have to do;
- on their way back to the starting cave they probably find the staircase to the upper cave;
- when putting the first ball and/or on their way to the upper cave, they would almost certainly notice the spire.
The thing with the current setup is that most players would probably go towards the spire first since it's likely the first interesting thing they see outside the cave, not to mention that long inviting bridge. At least that's what happened to me :sweat_smile:
Of course, that could be *the* experience that you intended. But I feel I should still point that out since I really like this kind of games and the subtlety in which designers can guide their players.
Oh and I noticed the blocked doorway at the starting cave, and the third ball slots at the stone that was already lit from the start. Was that intended or supposed to be a third thought that was cut due to the time limit?
Anyways, well done!
By the way please feel free to leave us some feedbacks on our game!
I have rated your game, but all of my feedback was captured in the stream.
You can hear my comments in the archive at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/300361630
- The mood was fantastic
- Amazing soundtrack
- Felt very complete
- Nice art style
Cons:
- Walking could be a bit faster
Fantastic entry! Thanks for making it!
- I looooooved the graphics you managed to pull out! I loved the color palette, and the shapes, and the clouds! The mood is 5*
- the controls could have been a bit smoother, but it's a jam after all
- maybe its greatest weakness is narration-wise: I liked the actions and the symbolism but the dialogues sounded quite 'commonplace'.
- the music could have had a bit more personality
- I loved how you built the world: the long way to the crystal to build anticipation, the window showing the black star particles... I found it very intuitive. (only the jump to the star-shooter felt a bit wierd).
Great entry! :D