Solar Systems Down

Solar Systems Down is a 2D pixel art adventure shooter made with Unity. This game was made in 44 hours by Team Tart (four members) at the 2024 Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA) Game Jam.

The game jam theme was "sunshine," so the game takes place in a post-post-apocalyptic, solar-punk inspired world where people use solar power systems to live and keep the sludge away.

Sol, nomadic solar systems engineer, travels around on his solar sail airship. When his solar sail crashes into a flooded town, the townspeople offer to give him the parts to fix it in exchange for repairing their house solar systems and destroying the invading sludge.

Start / end screen buttons	L mouse click
Move	WASD or arrow keys
Interact / dialogue advance	E
Dialogue options	Y / N
Weapon aim	towards cursor
Weapon fire	L mouse click
Weapon charge	hold L mouse button (release to fire)

PLAYER MOVEMENT 

• The crashed solar sail can move left and right on the water using A and D keys or the left and right arrow keys.
• Inside the house, Sol can move left, right, up, and down using WASD keys or the arrow keys.

BRANCHING DIALOGUE

• When close to an NPC, use the E key to interact.
• When in dialogue, use E key to advance dialogue lines.
• When proposed a question in dialogue, use Y key for yes and N key for no.

SOLAR METER

• Inside the houses, you have a solar meter (bottom right, yellow bar). This is how much stored sunlight you have.
• When you fire your weapon, you discharge your solar meter proportionate to the charge of the blast (the longer you charge, the more sunlight you use up.
• When you stand next to the main damaged solar cell, you repair it by charging it with your solar meter, so your solar meter will decrease.
• You can charge your solar meter by standing in the patches of sunlight coming through the windows, or by the mini solar cell pickups.

SOLAR CELL

• To complete the inside levels to help the NPCs, you need to repair their solar cell.
• The solar cell is located toward the back of the house and has a timer over it indicating the progress toward repairing it.
• If you stand next to it, you repair it by charging it with your own solar meter.
• Note that if your solar meter is empty, you cannot charge the solar cell.
• Once you repair it, you complete the level and the solar cell will illuminate the house, killing the sludge.

WEAPON

• The weapon fires condensed sunlight from your solar meter, which can kill the sludge.
• Aim the weapon with your cursor.
• Charge the weapon by holding the left mouse button. Fire by releasing. You may also rapidly fire by clicking the left mouse button instead of holding.
• The longer you charge the weapon before firing, the larger, more powerful, and longer range the blasts will be (but require more sunlight from your meter).
• If your solar meter is empty, you cannot fire your weapon.

SLUDGE ENEMIES

• The sludge enemies spawn from points in the house.
• If you are in their range, they will chase you.
• The sludge will spawn more rapidly over time, as well as getting more powerful and having more health.

 HEALTH

• Inside the houses, you have a health bar (bottom right, green bar).
• The sludge enemies will reduce your health when they contact you.
• If your health reaches zero, you will spawn back at the entrance to the house.

SOLAR SAIL PARTS

• You must collect both parts to fix your solar sail: a sail and a solar panel.
• If you help them, Cactus will give you the sail and Dandy the panel.
• As you collect the parts, your solar sail will be repaired.
• If you have both parts, you can go to the end of the town and fly away to win.

SLUDGE ENEMY BALANCE

• The sludge spawns are not balanced very well yet. If you take a while in the level, it becomes near-impossible to beat it because the sludge spawns rapidly. The best strategy is to reach and repair the solar cell as quickly as possible.