You were born in an unassuming star system but your fate lies in
The Heavens
Carve a path through the stars, conquer asteroids, colonize planets, and unearth the mysteries of an ancient alien race as you build your stellar empire. Your ultimate goal? Chart a course to the edge of the known universe!
The universe awaits — are you ready?
Controls & How to Play
Master your controls to navigate the cosmic playground:
Directional Pad
Thrusters: Hold the UP button to engage.
Turning: Use LEFT and RIGHT to maneuver your ship.
Mini-map: Hold DOWN to view your galactic surroundings.
Mechanics
Tools Menu: Press the V key to access your tools menu, featuring your Cannon, Fuel Collector, Settlement, and Hyperdrive.
Ore: Obliterate asteroids to collect Ore.
Ammo: Automatically replenishes over time
Fuel: When close to a fuel source such as a gas giant or the sun, equip your Fuel Collector from the tools menu and activate it with the C key.
Hyperdrive: Once unlocked, grants you the ability to traverse between solar systems
Resource Management: Balance your resources—blue Fuel, green Ammo, and yellow Ore—to power your journey.
Colonization: Gather enough yellow Ore and land on an uncolonized habitable planet, and you can establish a new Settlement.
Colonizing solar systems also increases your hyperdrive capability.
Settlement Platforms: Platforms on Settlements replenish your fuel.
Solar Expansion: Start new runs from any of your colonized solar systems. Expand out into the galaxy to further your progress.
Probes: Collect alien probes to enhance your ships systems and extend your warp range, guiding you to the last star.
Star Map: Open your star map by pressing the B button when your mini-map is open
Activate your selected tool with the C key.
The gravity mechanics and graphics are so good, it feels pretty realistic :D
If you're warping to the same star then it might be a small solar system with 1 planet and the chance of you ending up within the vicinity of a star is increased because it finds a random location within the system within range of the planets. Most of the time you can still escape the gravity of the star when warping within range by going perpendicular to the star so you end up in its orbit instead of fighting directly against its gravity. There are times when it's inescapable though and it's the luck of the draw given the rng.
This is one of my favorite Pico-8 games, although I do miss combat, but it is hard enough... A question... on the map view on your gif it shows your trajectory. Did you remove this? seems pretty useful ;)
@makaGeorge - Yeah, I ended up removing it since I needed the tokens for additional features and it was a little confusing to a few early testers.
Has a Maelstrom (1992) feel, like an astroids clone on steroids. The ability menu and controls are solid, gfx are incredible, and the gameplay... omg the space theme immersion feels like a AAA space exploration game. Just fenominal! Thank you so much for making this game, I just wish I was better at playing it :)
I am very bad at landing.... oh wait only green can land? It would help to know that blue and yellow suns/gas clouds are impossible to land on. Would be nice to have a landing assist in settlement mode or a no crash mode that is all about fuel. I usually last all of 10 seconds before crashing... or 30 seconds if avoid crashing and run out fuel. Otherwise, there is a simply mind blowing game here!
This is great but please add a confirmation on the "New Galaxy" option, or better yet, move it to the pause menu. If you die while holding down Up and C (very easy to do if you crash into a star while fuel scooping and trying to escape) it will select "New Galaxy" and wipe your save as soon as you return to the main menu. Even without that bug, it's far too easy to idly hit an arrow key at the menu and accidentally wind up on "New Galaxy"--there's no cursor and red text vs. white is not a clear indicator.
I've lost my save twice now and I don't think I have the energy to start over again.
@Hamano yep, they're generated procedurally, and can be remade with the New Galaxy option in the menu.
@PhasmaFelis Thanks for the feedback. It's hard to add anything without removing something else since I'm right at the token limit, so I might not be able to add a confirm dialog, but maybe I could shift it to a new place
@RealShadowCaster I'll see if I could replicate. Were you warping while grounded on a colonized planet? Also, refueling from a sun is easier after upgrading your ship after collecting a few alien probes - your ship has more thrust, max speed, and can escape the high gravitational pull a bit better.
Finished the game. 108 Explorers were lost. Until around level 4-5, if I remember correctly, it was all small steps, collecting ore and warping back to refuel, with as much colonization as possible.
After that, refueling from suns became manageable, so a lot of probes were lost with warp/refill, warp/refill. A few memorable crashed on the alien planets, and also an even more memorable clutch save where most of the landing was handled with the gun recoil, as there was no fuel left, a full cargo of ore and a planet very far from the last colonized one. Around level 7, I think, exploration became warp/warp/refill, going straight for the signals, only colonizing if lots of ore and a planet was available at the same time.
In the end, only questions remain. What were the aliens thinking, why leave their technology in parts like a bread crumb trail ?
What were they saying ? I didn't pay much attention to the cryptic wisdom ramble, only eying the tech increase at the time. What did they do to burn their planets ?
There's also the question of the colonists. During exploration, I sent ships without care on way too risky explorations, and many burned trying to refill. Was that recklessness necessary ?
When a ship full of ore is able to colonize a planet, did 108 pilots died bravely, knowing that trillions would live thanks to them, or did I sacrifice colonization ships full of millions of people each time I pushed forward too hard ? I'm getting Ender Wiggin vibes, after the fact...
@reskob, thank you for the awesome experience. Wish I could replay the history of the conquest, with the map growing, the losses, the changes in strategy an skill, the tech gained and the messages, that would have made a great 5mn ending.
@RealShadowCaster Wow! Thank you so much for the review and writeup of your journey. I started this game awhile back in Unity and eventually quit due to feature creep, and picked it up again in Pico-8 which made me try and simplify the game down to its core gameplay and progression loop, trying to incorporate many of those questions and experiences that you had. It really is heartwarming hearing someone engage with it in the way you've written about and I could only have hoped. Thank you!
This game, is absolute unfiltered garbage and bullshit filled with high hopes and crushed dreams. It is near impossible to land on YOUR OWN PLANET. You cannot possible know how fast you have to go to crash into your planet with a full ore cargo.
There is no way this was not intended. The gameplay must’ve been like that from the beginning. The lightest acceleration into any plant instantly kills you. 67 explorers lost. I haven’t managed to land even once.
This game brings only rage, unfiltered anger and frustration. You cannot have possible made a less forgiving gameplay than this. Not even once I’ve managed to land on any planet.
Zero, out of ten.
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