Asteroid Tagger
A downloadable game
It's the distant future, and the rapid development of space exploration has allowed mankind to establish numerous settlements, cities, and small pockets of civilization all across the Milky Way.
You're Werner Huang, an "object mapper" - someone whose job is to explore and identify astronomical objects that could stand in the way of establishing routes between the space colonies. Your profession is slow and monotonous, but a change of pace might be just down the road...
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"Asteroid Tagger" is a free short single-player, story-driven science fiction game developed by Inquisitive Turtle Studios and built with Degica's RPG Maker MV engine.
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Download & install instructions
- 1) Unzip the game folder
- 2) Within the folder, launch the "Asteroid Tagger" app
- 3) You're good to go!
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Background image: Ram Samudrala on Wikimedia Commons (Wikimedia.org); Shared & edited under a CC 4.0 Int. license
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Version 1.2.5 released!Aug 31, 2023
- Version 1.2 released!Jun 03, 2022
Comments
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make 1 for vr
Soon
I had been meaning to play this for sometime but never got around to it. I absolutely adored this short RPG, which explored the feeling of loneliness and the mundane task of tagging asteroids. The tagging gameplay is simple, to the point, and oddly relaxing, and is never overdone. The true gem to this RPG is its story. There's two endings, and I must say.... that second ending... anyway, good job! I really love the use of muted colors to give it that lonely space feel.
Haha, you might be the first person who's said that about the asteroid tagging segments - but thank you so much for your review!
Great little story. It really feels like it's trying to break through the engine's limitations.
Thank you, fellow anonymous user whose real identity is totally unknown to me, hehe :)
Very interesting story to this game! good job
Hell yeee, it's awesome to see a playthrough of it and to experience a player's reactions live! Thank you so much ^^
An enjoyable and surprisingly poignant little story about the bleak existence of a lonely spaceship pilot doomed to spend each day out in the middle of nowhere tagging asteroids... until something unexpected happens.
The gameplay is pretty simple, mainly advanced through NPC dialogue and the inevitable asteroid tagging sessions, and as far as I know there isn't really any way to "game over" or get in any sort of fail state. Asteroid tagging itself is kind of tedious but I suppose that's the point, what with how bleak and lonely the main character's living situation is. Play this game with the same mindset you'd have reading a science fiction short story and you'll get the best experience out of it.
One gripe I have with the game is that the "choices" the game offers at certain plot critical points are clearly meant to push a player in a particular direction with a right and wrong option rather than offering meaningful decisions. If one option just cuts out a boatload of narrative content while the other actually properly advances the story, the choice might as well not be there at all. Luckily the choices the game expects you to make are pretty obvious so I doubt many players will fall for this trap.
I actually started to get emotionally invested in what was going on with Werner so the "revisit the nebula" ending was kind bittersweet and a tad disappointing for me. If there's another hidden ending I'm not aware of that gives a happier conclusion I'd love to hear about it.
Hey, thanks for trying out the game and for your awesome in-depth review! Some points:
- Yeah, unfortunately, it is true that the asteroid tagging component is a bit monotonous, and while it did occur to me that it does work in tandem with the narrative, I'd be lying if I said that was the primary reason as to why those segments are so drab. Instead, it's mostly because of the constraints of the RPG Maker MV engine, plus my own limited experience with the software, that forbid me from making something more interesting with that part of the game as I would have otherwise liked to.
- Your point about the branching choices (especially the first one) being a little redundant is pretty reasonable, however, I do believe the final one is nonetheless important. I'm currently working on a small update for the game that will overhaul some of the dialogue, so to accomodate for that criticism, I'll probably remove the first branch and flesh out the "going home" end screen with at least a little bit more writing to make it into a more meaningful narrative path.
- Last but not least, there are currently no other endings in the game (and to be fair, I do believe the "happy (-ish) ending" will always remain going home rather than returning to the nebula), but I have been thinking about maybe adding some extra one as an easter egg in that aforementioned update, perhaps one that's less sad and more abstract or metaphysical? Guess we'll see how that goes!
Yet again, thank you very much for your review, and I am happy that there was some degree of emotional investment in the writing! :)