Not Alone
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ABOUT:
Not Alone was made in 4 weeks for the Pixel Horror Jam, and was originally released in October 2016. It's set on a damaged spaceship, where you're trapped on board with a single indestructible alien creature. You need to keep things running just long enough to reach the nearby space station and escape to freedom.
WHY WE MADE IT:
The brief for Pixel Horror Jam was to make a horror game with some form of story, and present it using pixel-style graphics. We ended up going with a homage to films like Alien, setting the game on a badly damaged ship and pitting you against a creature you could only avoid, not completely kill. Scheduling issues and last minute bugs mean it isn't what we had hoped, and hasn't been play tested quite enough, but we hope you enjoy never the less!
CONTROLS & HELP:
Gamepad – Left Stick to move, Right Stick to aim, Right Trigger to shoot. Press Left Trigger or A button to interact, hold down Left Trigger or A button to repair.
Keyboard – WASD to Move, Mouse to Aim, Left-click to shoot. Right-click to interact, hold down right mouse button to repair.
(Note: This game also supports various European keyboard layouts such as ESDF, ZASD and ZQSD)
The creature will avoid light, so try and keep the lights on in a few rooms nearby. Too many lights will drain the ships power, so turn them off as you go if you have time. The gun is a useful tool for disabling the creature for a few seconds, but don't hang around! Try to plan your route by checking where the light switches are and if they need repairing or not. Keep an eye on the course at the top of the screen, if you don't go to the main navigation computer to correct it, then you'll be lost in deep space forever.
Comments
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nice little game lol
This is what going into the kitchen for a snack at 2am feels like.
Gun doesn't stop the alien, light doesn't stop it either (I was under the impression both were supposed to). Nav controls die, I fix them, engine dies and as I am leaving the bridge to fix it, the nav dies again. The power is still draining the entire time, even with all lights off. If there is a way to refill the power bar, I haven't figured it out because I die before I can even return to the engine room,
EVERY
DAMN
TIME!
I made three attempts to complete this getting eaten by an alien simulation, and I'm done trying. Neat idea but poorly executed, that is unless it is supposed to be a rage game. If that is the case, 10/10 effectiveness. :P
it takes awhile but i beat it. and so can you
the nav and the thrusters both take power and gun stops the alien for a short moment, light does stop it too, just dont get in its way when its scurrying away from it or it will kill you, its challenging but i just beat it on my first try so try again
Really cool game!
Really original and fun game! I've died three times already, but I'll beat it eventually! A lot of potential that could be further expanded upon. Great suff.
is there any hidden lore you could tell me about
Hidden lore? Hmm, well the monster noise was made use the milk frothing on a coffee machine! It's also entirely possible that this is the 2nd game in a trilogy. The first being Evercloud , explaining how you got onto the ship, and 3rd being Proxima Nova, after your escape pod crashes.
interesting. But the opening scroll said that you had a crew and in evercloud its just you. And in proxima b you can teleport. And you never got into an escape pod it was a space station
this game is amazing. you should do an update though. like multiplayer where there 2 people trying to fix the ship while the alien hunts them
Holy crap this game is hard but I finally beat it! Hope it gets an update but is fine as it is!
very fun. the alien is a little persistent with a door, and will keep walking to it, it also sometimes ignores the light being on and strolls on in and murders me. however, to counter the power limit i just ignore the nav controls until the course needs correcting, as it saves power and ultimately greatly increases chances of getting to the station
Finished the game... So what is the story about?
I'm not sure we really wrote much of a back story on this one, so it's open to your interpretation. The general idea was the classic sci-fi storyline of waking up from a deep sleep on a ship, but everyone is dead and everything is broken. Where did the alien thing come from? Who knows.
Very interesting little game, much in the mood I like. The basic premise of gameplay is simple. You are stranded between two rooms, that you need to take care about. One room is on the other side of the map to the other. You need to be traversing certain distance to remain in check of the systems located in both the rooms, while the systems repetitively break down, so as to need repairs. The point is, there is a monster hunting you meanwhile you do your things. What keeps the monster away, is your taser gun - temporarily disabling the creature- and the lights, which it appears to dislike. The problem is, both of these things have finite longevity. Gun ammo runs out and the lights burn out very shortly. You need to stay alive and keep the systems healthy enough for certain amount of time, as to win the game. In the end, you need to make your final run to the exit doors, while the monster grows even peskier.
By the way, check out this short movie, it may be somewhat conceptually related, though not cosmic space themed, but more "Halloween" - link HERE.
Only took me 7 months but I watched that short film you linked, I really enjoyed it. It's actually similar to a separate idea I had that I never did anything with.
The ESDF control map has E bound twice, making it impossible to move forward. Thank you sincerely for supporting home row controls, though!
Ah sorry, always try and think about supporting different preferences and layouts, but not so easy to test!
Wow, great work Second Dimension Games! :-) A clear homage to the greatest horror sci-fi of them all and it's beautiful. Love the graphical art work and sound design. The gameplay is very straightforward, your instructions are very clear and easy to follow. It's got all the potential of becoming one of those games one simply can't put down, with that "just one more time and then I'm done" feel :-)
Thank you for the experience, Dev!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it
Really enjoyed this game.. i reckon it would be the best if there were other problems to fix, like Oxygen for example... food every so often, then this game will be hard and really fun at the same time
Thanks, glad you liked it. Agree about having a few other objectives, but with our game jam entries we tend to leave them as they are, and move on to other projects. Thanks for playing!
Food would make it to hard, but Oxygen is a really good idea! The Alien could punch holes in the ship with is claws or something
It would make sense for oxygen but I think it would be cool to use food to keep the monster temporarily distracted.
Secret Developer Fact: I made the monster noise by recording the sound of the milk frother on my coffee machine. I put my phone next to it, set it to record and then made myself a cappuccino. Threw a bit of reverb and distortion effects onto the recording and put it in the game!
The gamepad controls don't seem to work. I click on the controls options (wether the arrow keys, the game pad or anything else) but it doesn't save them, I always have to use the arrow keys
EDIT: I really love this game by the way
Hey that's weird, I have tried it and it's OK for me. I wonder if it's a browser thing, I know Firefox sometimes has issues with controllers.
edge made the music and sound? I guess that means it's atmosphere must be really...
... edgy
Believe it or not Edge is my middle name. People often ask me if I like U2. I do not like U2.
So
Good
Thank you! Glad you liked it
I enjoyed playing this game, but it was a little too easy. I only died once or twice while figuring out the mechanics, and once I did, I found that you can just go to the engine room and wait. Once the alien goes after you, you can turn the lights on and off and the alien will get stuck into an endless loop of charging in the room when the lights are off, and running back out once you turn the lights on. I did this for a while, until the alien got itself stuck in a corner when running out of the room. After this, I would only leave the room to repair the navigation systems when they broke, but otherwise, I just stayed in the engine room to make sure the alien didn't get itself out of the corner. This game is short, but fun to play for a few minutes. Second Dimension, if you read this, fixing these issues (and perhaps making the game a little more challenging in some way) would make your game much better, and possibly a little longer, too.
Hey, I did read this! Glad you enjoyed it, although most people we tried this on said it was too difficult! You are right that it's easy to play the system though, and there does need to be a reason to move around the ship more. As this was made for a game jam we probably be going back to it though, as we have too many other things we want to work on.
ANOTHER GAMEPLAY OF THIS AWESOME GAME
Hey thanks for the video! I think the game is a bit too tough sometimes, you just got to keep running between the engine and the navigation and fixing them. Something that's not always obvious is your character has to be facing the thing you want to interact with, so you have to point the crosshair towards the light switch or the navigation console, thanks for playing!
Sorry for the delay of ur game but I didnt jave wifi but i was able to make another video. But I have to edit i
Sorry It took so long but heres the link when I first played it: Imma do another episode
THIS IS AWESOME I PUT THE VIDEO LINK SOON
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Pretty cool, nice art style.