FOUND STRUCTURE

Something is here that shouldn't be.

You fly a small module through a dead world of green vector lines.

There's no map, no story, and no explanation.

Thrust drains your energy. Drift replenishes it.

One hit kills you.

Your ship never improves.

Sometimes you find a temporary shield or extra energy.

But there are no upgrades and no unlocks.

The only thing that gets better is you.

This isn't some bullet hell experience. Sometimes it can be. But mostly this is slow, heavy, thoughtful, quiet.

The greatest danger comes from what your own momentum has commited you to...

How To Play

Keyboard/gamepad:

Rotate — Left & Right arrow keys / d-pad or thumbstick

Thrust — Up arrow key / right trigger

Fire — Spacebar / X/A

Pause - Escape / Start

Menus are keyboard-only in this version. Full gamepad support for menu navigation is coming soon.

Progress is saved automatically in the browser at each checkpoint. Once you have completed the game, you have the option to restart from any checkpoint at any time. 

About the game

• Line-drawn, green on black, in the tradition of Battlezone and that 1970s vector feel, and classic arcade cabinets like Asteroids and Lunar Lander.
• Software modular-synthesis original soundtrack, produced in VCV Rack Free.
• Plays in the browser. No install, no account.
• Checkpoints. Death is cheap. Progress is not.
• Ironman mode (no checkpoints - death is death) coming in a future update.
• Continuous updates
• In development since 2023.
• Mobile version in development for iOS and Android.
• Future versions will feature an expanded world.
• Free forever as a browser game on Itch, with as many updates as the web platform will comfortably permit.

The structure is before you. Nothing is expected of you.

Technical Info

FOUND STRUCTURE is made with the Godot Engine. 

Web builds are tested on hardware from 2015 and later, including laptops with integrated graphics.

Google Chrome is recommended on older machines. Chrome holds a higher and steadier frame rate than Firefox. The difference is in the browsers and can't be fixed from within the game.

Firefox and other browsers work fine on newer hardware, from around 2021 and later.

If you still have trouble running the game, confirm hardware acceleration is enabled in your browser settings.

Game version: 1.0

Developer: John McNamara.

Acknowledgements

Most graphics in the game are antialiased polygon shapes created in Godot using the plugin AntialiasedPolygon2D (Calinou), MIT. 

Gameplay

100 seconds of the game in action, captured in the Godot editor window. I had to turn off a lot of the lighting effects to get the game running well on web. Volcanic glow turned out to be a particular issue for browsers.

The hashtags 'kosm' and 'stardrifter' refer to previous names the project has had over the years. I'm working on a 'how it started, how it's going' video overview of the game's many different eras.