Space Lancer Haya is a build of a visual novel made specifically for this game jam. Play as Haya, a squirrel space lancer, as she tries to cash in on a universe-changing discovery, only to get roped into a plot set up by figures beyond what she can handle. It won’t be a challenge of handing off this discovery but if she’ll still be mobile to do it.
This entry was created by me and Elpida! We hope you all enjoy this sneak preview into a possible future project.
EDIT: We’re aware that you will likely come across an error when doing the blob route. You are free to click “Ignore” on the error screen to continue with the game normally. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Of course i had to go for the blob route right away, was trying the others paths, most of the fat ones worked but when refusing everything i got this error, hope its helps you find the problem.
Ditto on the “ignore” working. Quick question, if I may. It’s regarding the endings, so I’ll pop it in a spoiler tag.
So far, I’ve come across three endings. The blob end, the fat end (which hit twice?), and the relatively non-descript bad end. Are those all the endings, or is there another I missed? Also, those aliens are douche bags, claiming they want willing participants, but if you don’t do what we say, SUFFER.
Thank you for pointing this out. This was a bug we found at the last minute where no scene transitions were working, so we had to remove all of them. I guess one slipped by, though. You should be able to press “Ignore” and progress fine through the game fine.
We’ll try to fix this for a next build. Thanks again!
Those are the three endings at this point. The fat end is a neutral ending that you get when you give in at least once but not all three times. We’re looking into doing more stuff with this, and that might mean more endings.
It’s less “willing participants” and more like some random person handing you an item and being like “Yeah, if you follow these instructions, you’ll be gucci.” not further explaining the cons of not following them.
Either way, it’s cool you have that reaction since it means you care about the story lol.
Really nice little visual novel, got the blob ending may go back and get the others — I really enjoyed the writing, especially the introduction which was pretty funny. There aren’t many choices but obviously I understand that from the jam point of view. — A great little project with potential for expansion, nice job!
If you have any suggestions and critiques, feel free to say them since it’ll help us when, if there’s enough interest, we end up releasing a more-polished version.
What choices did you wanna see? I realize that the format of “Giving in/Shake it off” might come off as repetitive if done in a long-form game. The only choices I know that don’t follow this is about 3; two being with the mysterious being and one for the giant worm.
I agree with the spoiler comment — It works super well for the current short length since it lets you get to the point in a quick and clean manner but isn’t likely great for a long game — In that regard I don’t have any soild critiques for you. So I suppose what I would perhaps like to see is at least one tracked metric, be it ammo or something of that nature, suited to the character’s prefession that can change the outcomes of scenes (You already had an example in the game I was just thinking of something with a defined value on the screen). — There isn’t much else I can say, it’s well written and the choices suit the length. I suppose I am simply saying something along the lines of to make it larger you need some sort of gimmick (Or a hell of a lot of choices that change the character similar to something like “The Pirates Fate”) — I know it’s not much but I hope I was able to help a little
in the path where you shake it off everytime, in the worm scene it shows the chubby sprite instead of the normal one and i’m not sure if this is intentional or not.
This is a fun game with an interesting setting and a cute main character.
Good game! I get a great sense of a lighthearted space fantasy from the fun character writing. I especially like CZ, he’s very cute and charming. A lot of the dialogue feels natural, Haya and CZ have good chemistry and it’s fun to watch them interact. There’s a lot here that I like, it’s a fun little game.
I’m a bit confused about the framing device. It doesn’t end up mattering later at all, and the game doesn’t really feel like the 1999 visual novel it allegedly would be. I think the game stands perfectly fine without this framing device, and the story would pick up its pace a bit quicker were it not there.
More meaningful choices and more artwork would be good. When I eventually went through everything in the game, I was surprised I was done; making choices at different times just doesn’t impact the dialogue much as I expected (e.g. resisting first and giving in second vs. giving in first and resisting second is hardly different at all). More choices would be great, especially if they changed more about the story. Other comments have mentioned how the “give in/resist” formula gets a little repetitive.
I’d like to also add that choices that don’t do anything (e.g. saying Yes or No not mattering in the blue robe sequences) are really easy to see through as a player. The very first choice in the game only changes one line of dialogue, and has no lasting impact. This gives the impression that choices don’t matter at all, which isn’t the case in this game! I think either making the choice meaningful in these moments or removing the choice altogether would help the game. (Though this is a pet peeve of mine, take this with a grain of salt.)
All that said, I do want to spend more time with these characters! I find myself looking at this less like a weight gain game and more like a fun adventure through a flavorful sci-fi world. What I really want to see in this is just more of it - more of the fun writing, more choices, more complexity.
I hope you keep working on this project or projects like it, there’s a lot of potential here!
Yeah, we plan on taking out the framing device at the start once we finish making the full version of the game. While we had fun making it and it’s charming, it doesn’t serve more of a purpose.
The main priority, other than better art/UI, is the story. We’d like to expand on each chapter so it’ll feel like its a single story; akin to a typical anime episode. This also means fleshing out Haya and CZ. While we’re not writing the next classic novel, we know that making the main characters relatable/likeable is key to a good time.
How dynamic would you like the story to change with each action?
While there is always time for subtlety, I think at some point it starts ramping up, like a snowball rolling down hill, turning into an unstoppable mass of cold, wet, wintery fury
The story, like say the temptation that the crystal nudges her towards is simple at start, like just having an extra side or something.
From there, it’ll try to get twice as much the next time, and this would just continue to escalate exponentially
— I really enjoyed the writing, especially the introduction which was pretty funny. There aren’t many choices but obviously I understand that from the jam point of view. — A great little project with potential for expansion, nice job!