UNDER A STAR CALLED SUN

👩‍🚀 🌏 🌟

a sci-fi bitsy game about grieving, holding on to fading memories, and carrying the world on your shoulders, made for LIMINAL magazine's GLITCH series, released in June 2020 as part of the Emerging Writers' Festival.

use wasd or arrow keys to move and interact
content warning: allusions to grief, death
click on the title screen at the beginning if it’s unresponsive at first

soundtrack: Elegy For A Cosmonaut, made in beepbox.co

💫 🛰  🌌 

for Ruslan


bitsy hacks and tools used

[made in bitsy v7.0]

Updated 1 day ago
StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 4.9 out of 5 stars
(819 total ratings)
Authorcecile richard
GenreInteractive Fiction
Made withbitsy
Tagsartgame, Atmospheric, Bitsy, glitch, Minimalist, Narrative, Sci-fi, Space, Walking simulator
Average sessionA few minutes
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard

Development log

Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Viewing most recent comments 1 to 40 of 258 · Next page · Last page

great game

(+1)

Now i miss her, she is still whit me, but i can only see her some times and this ship is bery hard to control. I´m a bad driver, i can crash if the way is too much for me, i can lose her if i cant continue and is so hard to continue, i can lose all. I don´t want to crash, i don´t want to lose, but is so dark out there and i can´t see the future, i´m afraid to look and realise she is not there anymore.

END OF THE MENSSAGE

this destroyed me

this reminded me of the employee by olga ravn in a very weird and good sort of way.

(+1)

this brought me to tears

(+1)

god damn it I love this elegy, I cry whenever I play it though because it's so beautiful, damn I don't even know what to say lmao I'm teary eyed and I can't find the words but this little elegy is really the best

(+1)

This was so lovely and lonely. Doing the same thing over and over, in contact with no one, totally alone... I loved the text in the greenhouse and its timing. I wrote a short story years ago with a similar delivery (short, factual phrases to give the impression of mindless, solitary routine)  with a similar theme, so that was quite pleasing to me personally. 

I really liked how the cosmonaut was the only bit of color besides the friends and coffee, and how the person they were writing to was never really singled out (that it could have been any one of those friends in the cafe or by the tram). I think it adds to the lonely feeling and the fading memories in a natural and satisfying way. I loved that the player had to control the tram, to make it pull up and then leave after. I'm not sure how to phrase it, but in my brain it fits very nicely in the tragic tone. 

The visuals are so beautiful! I love 1bit art, and the additional accent color was so perfect. Everything about this little game is fantastic.

(+2)

Lovely. I miss the person i was  who made memories and not just remember them.

(+1)

so touching!!really love it!!

(+3)

This was an absolutely tragic and delightful and lovely experience. The visual style was so striking. The visuallization of the erosion of memories was so powerful an poignant and hauntingly accurate, this is definitely a grand work.

(+2)

this made me a little teary  eyed, for a game with such a simple art style and so short.. if it was any longer i might have actually cried, the music is absolutely amazing, thank you <3

(+1)

recently i moved out of the city where i grew up, i left everything and everyone behind. my friends, my family, the places i visited often that had become part of me. now i finished my first semester in my new career, and i came back for a while. everything is so beautiful here, and the best part is, that even though i left them behind, everyone (and everything) is still where it was when i left. i can hug my mother, my brother, my friend Noemí who lives across the street, my friends from college, my ex-coleagues from when i used to work at bk. i can say hi, i love you, to all of them. i can write them letters. i can sing them songs. they are still here, and i am far and i am closer than ever. thanks for this game and for putting these thoughts in my head. i teared up and got inspired to express my own stories in little games like this, i hope you have a wonderful day, cheers from Chile :)

(+1)

I took a psychology class a while back at my local community college, where I learned that every time a memory is recalled, it gets changed in some little way. I thought about that class again, while playing this.

This was such a good story. I loved it so much, and now it has made a home in the back of my mind where it will constantly scratch at the floorboards and remind me of its presence.

Мне понравилась стилизованная графика игры

(+1)

was replaying this for the first time in a long time. i was on itch to redo a cover of a game and i just decided to look at this again for inspiration for other games i could make during my time at the summer camp im currently working at and i'm crying once again. what an incredible thing you've created. one of my favorite games ever

I included your wonderful game in a short write up list of bitsy projects! Thank you for the experience! https://gamedhd.com/2024/07/01/bitsy-round-up/

(+1)

thank you! my name’s not “Cecil” though!

(+2)

i'm not crying, you are (this was beautiful)

(+1)

I love someone. it's weird. for 18 years i never loved. never been loved, never needed it, never had it, stopped wanting  and wishing a long time ago. and then i met him. isnt that weird? "and then i met him." what, is this some kind of high school drama? but i did. and... he turned my life inside out, upside down. he changed everything for the better. and we loved. it wasnt easy. we took breaks. we fought. we were both terrified. but we loved. we loves plant. i watched his garden grow. i know their names. the species. i know- roughly- how to care for them, he taught me. i ask about them. i see their progress. i see his. 

we broke up. and it hurts. and even though we're both doing better now, it still hurts. i still love him. only him. always him. i make coffee so fucking strong the first time he tried it he had cramps so bad he couldnt move. he drinks it darker than me these days, i think. i wonder if he still uses the mug i got him.

i love space. i grieve hard. i look at the plants and ache. how dare this game punch me where it hurts. it's beautiful. amazing game.


sorry for the long comment. this game makes me feel things. 


my favourite colour is yellow. 

Thank you for sharing this! I feel like this game resonated with many of us :0

This comment is poetry to me. I hope you are doing well :]

this is beautiful, thank you <3

(1 edit) (+1)

цой жив

What even. This is too much. Thank you. I am crying.

(+1)

Wow. Goosebumps...

great art, music and story c:

i'm so sad, thank you.

(+1)

i lost my mom recently. i cried like a baby. thank you.

Interesting story and great creation.

(+1)

Amazing

(+3)

I fucking cried

(+3)

"It is the hope of reaching you that will always make me think the steepest path the best."

(+1)

This is wonderful

(+1)

Beautiful. Thank you very much.

A curious experience, in itself the game looks quite good for the limitations of the engine, but what surprised me most was the ideas on which the work reflected.

It reminded me of the time when I had to study in a different country than the one I was born in for a year and how I began to miss everything related to the life I had had at home while I began to do repetitive tasks with the intention of not to fall into the frustration and nostalgia of feeling so far from home, although I knew very well that the trip and distance I had to make was beneficial for my future.

In general I can say that the reflections of an astronaut who remembers his past and reflects on how fallible memory is is a very good experience.

Sooooo good! 

I kown i can't get what I dream for from you, but after sending the message , altas put down the burden.

Too much want to say about this moving game. Thank you!

The music lined up really nicely to the story the first time I played it, and even though i think it was coincidence, it really made the experience that much more moving.

beautiful and touching. Thank you!

(+1)

This is lovely. 

It's great!

This hit so hard. Absolutely wonderful and poetic. 

IM NOT CRYING BITCH YOURE CRYING YOU ARE

Viewing most recent comments 1 to 40 of 258 · Next page · Last page