Shattering Star by Emty

Feel the flow of Time and Space!
You are trapped on the Space Station.
Find a way out of there but watch out!
Time here is not as stable as you can expect!

| Link | https://gitlab.com/lawrencebright/unstabletimeline |
| Windows | https://fake-light-studio.itch.io/shattering-star |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/shattering-star |
Ratings
| Overall | 589th | 3.5⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 746th | 3.204⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 438th | 3.49⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 503th | 3.745⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 557th | 3.66⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 527th | 3.234⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 921th | 2.13⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 553th | 3.478⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 95🗳️ | 76🗨️ |
Games that use Unreal engine always tell me that it's time to upgrade my 8-year-old computer.
It's a good proof of concept, maybe need more parallel puzzles to don't be stopped waiting the time too much but for a jam is well resolved.
Well done!
Thank you for your feedback!
Honestly, we've planned to add this jumping element at the beginning of development, but it's hard to give the proper guide to the Player on what he needs to do. I know it can be done, but we couldn't figure out how to do it in a good way for such a short time.
Also, the game was planned to be longer, but we have only one 3D artist (@emty), so there wasn't enough time for him to make it longer as was planned).
As for the creepyness there was planned to be some creepy sounds (for creating them i've spent a lot of time), but again it needs a bigger amount of time to propperly add them according to the time-skipping concept, so each sound could represent certain time period.
Thank you for your interest!
It wasn't easy to plan these two rooms even with this small amount of puzzles for each. Because you have to think about the state of each room in three times simultaneously)
As for the parallel puzzles, you are absolutely right, but each additional parallel puzzle needs time not only for implementation, but for its planning as well.
On the planning stage, you can't see exactly how much time each player has to spend, because you don't know how fast he'll resolve each puzzle. This is why you need testers in game companies).
Thank you for your feedback.
I'm glad, that you enjoy it.
I feel the 10 second mechanic doesn't really work though. I was often just waiting for the correct time which was a bit tedious. Being able to manually switch may have been better, or just more things to do in each frame.
You can also skip the charger by jumping over the gap to the door.
Thank you for your interest! It's a pleasure to read, that you like it.
We are aware about the "waiting problem", parallel puzzles and manual time swithching.
The ambient is also in our improvement plan.
Our team will correct that in future updates.
Thank you for the feedback.
We will add more parallel puzzles in future update.
I really liked the theme jumping between before, during and after disaster too and the environment all fit together nicely!
I played the jam version cause of the whole rating thing so I don't really know what you fixed up in the next version but other than me slipping around the ladder at first, I felt everything was very solid. I'm quite impressed with it all!
It'd be nice to extend the puzzles a bit beyond what there is so far -- most of them involve picking up a thing and putting it somewhere, obviously that's quite a bit more work :sweat_smile:
Nice work!
Thanks for your feedback!
We have a plan for how to improve and update the game in the future with more puzzles and mechanics. But it definitely will take some time.
The atmosphere also will be improved with the existing time mechanic.
We are glad that you enjoy it)
It wasn't easy for all of us for sure, but we wanted to make not just a one-time game, but a game, that can be improved for something bigger.
Thanks for playing our game and that you like the concept)
We are aware of the "waiting problem" and we'll make an update to fix it as soon as possible.
I'm glad to read your comment)
As far as I know, problems with collision will be fixed in the future update (they are already fixed in the engine).
I like sounds too) There'll be more of them in the future.
We are pleased that you like our game) Thank you!
Space - is definetely the theme, that not everyone likes and we like, that you are one of them. Because we achieved what we wanted with this game - that someone would like it.
As for "more" we are planning to update the game with some more puzzles and features.
Of course it'll take some time(
Thank you! We appreciate, that you enjoy our game.
Our artist (@emty) is a talented guy)
Thank you for your interest) We are definitely pleased that you the game)
Did you have some troubles with performance?
If so, let us know in the comments. We will try to fix it in future updates.
Because on our machines weren't any serious issues with it.
Thank you)
It was planned to make the game longer, but there wasn't so much time to implement all that we wanted to add(
We will extend it in future updates.
What made you decide to have the time shifting go from Past, Present, Future, Present?
Thank you for your interest)
We are pleased that you like our try to make a game)
Thank you for your feedback)
One of our programmers had show me yesterday how he speedruns the game in 40 seconds or close to it.
Unfortunately, the audio was added at the very end, so we haven't enough time to make it better or to add more of it.
As for the art though our artist (@emty) have done a huge work, but we didn't have time to do everything as planned(
This is also why the game is so short. There was one more puzzle room planned(
Thank you for playing)
We are aware of the "waiting" problem and we'll fix it in future updates.
Items for pick up also will be larger and we'll try to make the room design more Player-friendly.
What about the "time-reverse" mechanic you mentioned - I'll ask our team if it's possible to do without rewriting a ton of code)
Our team is discussing how to let the Player control the time-skipping and we have some ideas about it, so stay tuned.
To be honest I felt dizzy playing in it. Don't know what's in play - colors, mouse sensitivity, overall picture or something else.
The idea however might work, not sure that 10 seconds timer is a good for this types of games tho, since when you find a card for example it might be slightly annoying to wait until the right cycle arrives. However I see a soul behind this game, so good entry anyway.
Thank you for playing)
We'll try to figure out how Players can skip parts of the puzzle and we'll try to make puzzles more friendly in future
Thank you for those words) We are really pleased)
Thank you for playing.
Our team is creating a plan for how to get rid of this annoying waiting and bad-time skipping.
We already have some ideas)
Thank you) It wasn't easy to make this, really)
But it was fun to think about dozens of combinations, that you can make for puzzle game and how many of it is it possible to create in three days)
Essentially "How to make Portal without portals in three days")
Thank you)
We want to have more player feeedback too)
Just joking.
You are right about animation and feedback overall, but it would be a big part of work.
Our 3d artist made a good job but it would take much more time to make more animations( We'll try to add more feedback for the player in future
There is a story in the game hidden so deep, that noone can find it)
To be honest there were some audio tracks, that covers part of the story of the game world. But as other things they weren't added just because the lack of time(
Story parts we'll be added in future.
About the short end you are right too. Some more puzzles also will be in future.