It was really unclear to me how to replenish my energy and oxygen. I tried landing on a pad, but it just didn't want to replenish. I liked the rest of the game, so it was a shame that it held me back from playing :)

@leonvano I am sorry to hear about that problem. Unless there is some bug I did not encounter it should automatically replenish when landing more or less to the center of the pad. Being on it just partially is not enough. Thank you for you feedback though :slight_smile:

The best thing about this was the graphics and the chopppppppppppppppaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Pads are a little harder to see, but they worked for me with no problem. Controls take some time getting used to, as they are not fluid vertically as they are horizontally, but after a while and with patience it was okay.
Nice entry with questy feeling. (Also landed on the door that opened afterwards and the choppa just stayed in the air :])

The contols were a little bit irritating, and the music too loud, but i enjoyed the idea greatly, out of all things i love the fact taht you have to go in and out of your copter, and the kinda monochrome graphics are lovely.

Really like the feeling of flying on choppa. Also art style is nice and ending is funny!

This one is cute! The controls are pretty solid and I like the consistent style.

yeah I'm not seeing the pads? they could be way more obvious (maybe a blinking arrow or something lol)

I will be forever remembered as a hero! Talking to the deep mibs on the way down was fun, and I enjoyed learning how to control the chopper. I thought that the "oxygen" mechanic was under-used (I was never at risk of running out of air), and I noticed certain level elements didn't respawn after death (for example, if a spike fell then it would not respawn on death). Overall I enjoyed delving deep into this little world :smile:

Thanks for feedback so far everyone, really good to read all this!

@prostone yeah, after seeing my friend play today I suspected that pads might be a bit hard to notice at first despite two blinking lights. I was hoping to do some actual lighting for it but I would need more time. About landing on the passage that opens, haha, knowing the I suspected that is exactly what might happen but didn't get around to actually test it. Should have just let it crash down without crew :smile:.

@dominium11 I was going for a bit RC drone like controls where power once set stays at certain level but directional movement has to be constantly applied. I figured it might not be very intuitive to start with but I didn't want to make it lunar lander style like.

@robochase6000 Sorry to hear that. I should have made them pop out a bit more. They might be even harder to notice at first due to the larger settlement structures placed close to them when you first encounter them. They do have small blinking red and green lights though, but since they are 1 pixel sized they can be hard to spot.

@boxedmeatrevolution yes, after final test of full game and just before publishing I was thinking perhaps oxygen should be limited resource. But since submission deadline was quite close I decided not to change since it might have broken the game if you completely ran out of it. As for respawns, let's just say it was by design, it does make it a bit to easy in the gauntlet section since you can just brute force your way through by dying once or twice. It is actually possible to full speed that one :wink:. Congrats on becoming a hero of the uplands! And just as a trivia MIB stands for Mars Indiegenous Being.

I liked the helipad mechanic. The sprite pack and music choice was decent. Well answered theme. Quite like how the little dudes are moving around the villages and that you can chat with a lot of them :)

It wasn't clear to me where the pads even where. I thought they were the little buildings but nothing happened when I landed on one.

Hello everyone. Based on current feedback it is clear that landing pads are hard to notice. I am unable to edit the description of the game. Please look a the image in this link:
https://imgur.com/a/G6CMrQP

Hopefully it will help those having problems finding landing sites. The image also shows interaction icons, look out for these :slight_smile:. Sadly I am unable to embed the image in this post. If anyone knows if it is somehow possible to edit game's description please let me know how. I've tried editing and saving the game description but it does not apply for some reason.

Edit: managed to embed the image in description, phew.

Great game! Loved the level design and the chopper controls. Little guys are also cute af!

Music and graphics were very nice. Interesting controls for the chopper but I think they worked nicely. My only suggestion would be a faster pace through the game to counteract the slow and precise movements need to navigate some areas. Interesting that the helicopter is used to navigate down.

Really love this kind of art style! Music I think sounds great, very epic, though I'm not 100% sure it super fits with the visuals. I think the writing is solid as well. I think the retro text box style would have been a nice touch though / made longer dialogue a bit more manageable to parse. By that I mean each paragraph is its own text box, text appears one character at a time, and you can click through it to move to the next chunk of text.

I have really enjoyed this! And I would love to play a longer version of your game - maybe some metroidvania? I was surprised with its heart-warming tone. In your world everybody does not seem to have a problem with helping one another. Maybe there is a lesson in your game? :)

This was really cute! The story is light hearted and the art is nice, and I really quite liked the handling on the helicopter, this was honestly a joy to play, really well done!

Freaking adorable. I almost rage quit but I'm glad I didn't the ending is <3

Played the whole thing through. When I first died, I thought I'd have to start over, but the fact that you start at the last safe point was a nice detail. And a clever one too, as it kept players engaged, instead of discouring to the point of leaving.
I would've liked a bit more variety in the gameplay, instead of only talking to the mibs and flying. But I understand the limits of a gamejam.
I was really invested in the game because of the cute and well thought out lore and also found it quite clever, how story and gameplay progressed simultaneously like in one of those good old snes games. It also fitted the theme pretty well of course and for such a limited amount of time it actually was enough content.
I didn't have problems with the loading stations and thought, everything got explained quite well and dynamic.
I wanted to say dope music, but found out that that wasn't from you. I wished, you had done something yourself, because I'd always prefer some crapy music over something non personal in a gamejam.
Maybe one thing I'd change would be the amount of text as it disrupted the gameplay and reading is always boring. Show don't tell, you know. Difficulty was balanced and challenging and also nice touch with the second meter for breathing outside the ship, although maybe a bit unnecesarry, don't you think? Maybe that could also have been expanded upon.
But as you realise i don't have that much negative to say, so over all solid entry!

My only "negativ" point if you could even call it that, would be that at the beginning the recharge pads were not too visable to me but I found out what to watch out for really fast so it´s not that big of a deal. I really enjoyed playing your game since 1. I thought the music was very well chosen 2. the artstyle looked really good to me 3. I thought the mouse characters were really cute and 4. the recharge pads also were safepoints/respawnpoints so someone like me didnt need to start all over just because I´m bad xD. Great job! :)

Oh no! I really liked this game, but after quite a while I was killed and the message promting me to respawn wouldn't disappear whatever I did :(

Nice music, graphics (Mousie and the others are so cute) and controls, I'll give it another shot later, just hope the message promt doesn't stick around that time!

What a chill and cute game !
Not very hard but very enjoyable !
It works perfectly too. No bug or anything.
I learnt, little by little, how to use the choppa by pressing up and down to manage the elevation.
This a testament to a solid level design.
Real nice.

The pixel art is absolutely adorable and very fitting of the story.

The pads for the choppa could be in orange so they pop more and are easier to see... Maybe.

Had a really nice time playing it, thanks !

really good atmosphere and a nice experience :) Everything fit together really well but I had some trouble with the controls. Over all great experience though, nice job!

This was fun and totally cute. I don't know what it is, but I really enjoy the way the helicopter flies. Something about having the different lift settings just feels nice to pilot. The level design was pretty simple, but it set a nice feel for the little villages and things. The 1-bit feel is fun, and it fits really well. Nice entry!

The absurdity of the storyline and dialogues is adorable. The whole game is adorable really. Chopper controls may be difficult at start but they are not that hard, and end up adding some spice to the whole thing. I wish the game lasted let's say 10 minutes longer, it was enjoyable flying around and I was always curious what's the next thing those creatures will come up with to say.

I like the level-based helicopter controls. Nice/Cute game :)

Thank you everyone for all the feedback so far! I really appreciate it. Since I will be away until Sunday evening I will not be able to play/rate your games until then but I will start as soon as possible :slight_smile:

Cool game! Really nice atmosphere to it! Controls take some getting used to but I did like them!

The chopper was nice to control, and the dialogue with the mibs was also nice, my only criticism would be, that the landing pads did't work all the time and I had to reposition myself often, but otherwise, a very nice game!

Cute little game, solid controls and nice graphics. Well done!

This pixel art is beautiful - simple and elegant. Cute characters, funny dialogue, plus a helicopter... great stuff. The atmosphere was fantastic. It's great that you got some story into it (which is more than I managed!). Really solid LD entry :smiley: Looking forward to seeing more from you.

Wow, really nice idea and cool level design, the mood and ambience are really good too!

Okay this is a game I could really get into. The music fit so well with flying a helicopter underground. Only a couple small things didn't work, sometimes I would land on a pad and my energy wouldn't refill. Nice job!! I also like the worldbuilding.

Great game, I love the pixel graphics and the music