SUB_SURFACE, a 2D browser game inspired by No Man's Sky and Subnautica, fused with some imagination of mine. You crash-land on a dead planet at the edge of a solar system, mine beneath the surface of four planets to repair and arm your ship, then fly through space dodging asteroids toward the black hole at the center, fighting past its guardian to find out what happened to everyone who lived there. ~4-5 minute playthrough, runs entirely in-browser.

Building the mining loop was the hardest part; getting digging, a fog-of-war light radius, and grid movement all feeling right together took the most iteration. Keeping the whole thing feeling like one continuous experience was also tricky: space flight, planet mining, and the boss fight all needed to hand off into each other cleanly without breaking anything that came before.

ORPH, the ship's AI and its dialogue (Undertale-style typewriter box, with its own portrait) carries the mystery of what happened to everyone in this system throughout the whole playthrough instead of dumping it all in one cutscene. Also proud of how the mining loop turned out: digging through a fog-of-war light radius to find buried ore actually feels tense, not just mechanical. And getting space flight, planet mining, and the boss fight to all hand off into one continuous ~4-5 minute experience, with minimalprior game dev experience going in, felt like a real accomplishment by the end.

Controls: arrow keys/WASD to fly and move, E to land/launch, left-click to mine (you can only mine blocks within one tile of your character), SPACE to shoot in the boss fight. It's a single continuous playthrough start to finish; no save/checkpoints, so best played in one sitting.