Misfortune in the Galaxy by TarikAF
Become a Junior Spaceship Operator and make efforts to keep your spaceship working. Hurry up with repairs to not let the spaceship explode!
Controls:
WASD - movement
Mouse - look around
Left mouse button - grab item and interact with objects
Right mouse button - drop item
Mouse scroll - switch between first and second item in your hands

Authors: Rafał Fornalik Karol Mikołajko Aleksander Filek
| Link | https://aleksander-filek.itch.io/misfortune-in-the-galaxy |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/misfortune-in-the-galaxy |
Ratings
| Overall | 244th | 3.893⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 367th | 3.675⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 369th | 3.613⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 306th | 3.975⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 329th | 4.088⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 452th | 3.525⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 252th | 3.775⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 342th | 3.813⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 32🗳️ | 61🗨️ |
I enjoyed running around in haste and doing different tasks. The screw mechanic is especially satisfying.
Theme and mood are particularly well done.
I have felt like I was indeed delaying the inevitable destruction of the ship i'm in.
I also felt desperate thanks to the music and deep space atmosphere.
I liked the personality of this game! The concept was pretty neat, especially as it encapsulates the "fly by the seat of your pants" chaos of trying to learn everything on a strict time constraint. Although I do think that some of the instructions could be more clear. I got stuck on the task that said something along the lines of "unscrew the lid, remove it, then screw it back on." However, there were like 4 "lids" on the ship, and unscrewing them didn't seem to do much. I tried clicking and dragging on the lids to remove them, but nothing seemed to work. :slight_frown: So I ended up perishing while looking out to the emptiness beyond. :upside_down:
I didn't really understand what the first task is. I tried to do something with the wrench and pipes in the room with the red tank and the three pipes but it didn't seem to work.
We saw some people don't understand some tasks, because descriptions are a bit ambiguous, we might do a little fix on that :)
Only complaint I will echo from above is that when the time gets in the last 1-2/10ths, the screenshake makes it literally impossible to do tasks as you cant hold your cursor on anything. Otherwise all dope!
There's so many good things to say about it. The art looks great and I really dig the style. The assets look fantastic, the sound design is immersive. I can't stress how much I genuinely enjoyed this game and I'm going to add it to my favorites on Itch. Great job!
PS: Please keep developing this. I loved it
There have been several situations where I didn't know where I had left the tools and I had to look for them fighting against the adversity of the clock, increasing the tension considerably. I liked that a lot.
Things I would add/change: (I know, it's a gamejam and we don't have enough time for everything).
- Basic configuration menu to be able to adjust sensitivity, resolution, volume and to be able to exit the game.
- Increase a little bit the triggers of the different interactive elements.
Congratulations for the game! :hearts:
Thanks Everyone for feedback! We didn't expect such popularity of our game, and we are genuinely happy and thankful that You like it! :)
It's my second (@tarikaf 's and @piczkabobra 's third) jam ,the first one didn't go well in terms of our project planning so it doubles the surprise haha
The accident at the beginning, and the specialist's face were hilarious.
It took a few trials and errors until I learned how to do the tasks properly, and I had the most trouble realizing that in order to drop things, you need to point at a specific place to specify where to drop them. After I got the hang of it, the game was really fun.
Others have already mentioned that it's impossible to do anything when you only have the last couple of seconds, that's what I didn't like. Also some tasks were a lot more complex than others, maybe the player should be awarded more or less time depending on the task difficulty - at least it seemed to me that the time gain was constant.
Also I really liked the graphics and the audio, it all fit together very well.
I can definitely imagine myself playing something like this for longer periods of time - provided there's enough content and variety to keep it interesting.
The tasks that you do are also quite fun though a bit monotonous after a while. I really liked having to manage my very limited inventory and dropping all the items I pick up on the floor around me.
Sadly, on my second try the lid in the utility room just couldn't be removed anymore at some point: all of the screws were out but I had no way to take the lid itself off...
I didn't mind not being able to do much in the last few seconds before death like some of the others seem to. It would have been great for one's first try if that was telegraphed in some way but especially when you know that it's gonna happen, it's a pretty cool moment adding to the atmosphere of the game. Good job!
I'll start with graphics. Overall I really liked the graphical style, but there are a few things that could've made it better:
- One thing that jammers ofter forget is smooth shading. Without it, "curved" edges of meshes such as the tape are visibly flat.
- The signage on the ship wasn't very noticeable, and it was only on my 4th time playing that I realised they were present. FOV is something important to consider as an artist. When directly facing a door, it takes a ~20° rotation for the signs to be on the screen, and even then a player focused on something else may not see them. This is where colour comes into play. Try out different colours for the text and background to find a good mix of grabbing the player's attention and fitting the aesthetic of the game.
- The blowtorch and wrench look too big in the player's hand, especially when compared to the screwdriver
Next, gameplay, which was mostly well executed and the concepts were cool, but a little more polish is needed in some places:
- The camera shake made it so hard to do anything that the intensity of the bar being low was really nonexistent, since it doesn't feel like you can do anything to prolong it.
- The balance is just slightly off, such that a player could keep the game going until they get bored, which of course damages replay value(i.e. no competition for high scores)
- Small changes like making the bolts bigger(they can be difficult to interact with) would improve the quality of the game.
Setting aside these small issues, I did enjoy the game, in total playing for a little over an hour. You've implemented an incredible amount of systems given the timeframe, most of which are reasonably well polished, creating a fun experience. The graphical style was mostly well-defined, consistant, and most importantly, it looked good. The audio was mostly nice apart from the music being slightly repetitive. I enjoyed the intro too ;)
All things considered, this is a really impressive entry, and the amount of effort is clear. Nice work!