A downloadable game for Windows

Buy Now$4.99 USD or more

Launch into space and fight your way through procedurally generated systems of ever increasing danger. Explore the galaxy as you travel, all the while maintaining your jump fuel and oxygen reserves.

Deeper Into Space is a single player, 2D space survival/shooter, with rogue-like elements, for Windows.

How deep into space can you go?


Deeper Into Space is in  development, and as a result is likely to evolve with player feedback. The game is an entirely solo project, so player feedback is vital to the future development of the game. If you purchase the game now, all future updates will be free!


Follow me on twitter for updates on the game: @JRoberts_Games


Currently, the player can fight their way from system to system, levelling up their ship as they progress. Right now there are 16 different enemy types and one Boss enemy. Bosses are optional enemies and can usually be avoided if you don't have the guts, but they offer great rewards if you can take them down. At the moment you can progress for as long as you can survive. There is no 'end'. 


  • Multiple weapons, equipment and enemies. Unlock new weapons and equipment: The more you play, the more you unlock!
  • Procedural  levels.
  • Permadeath.
  • Stat tracking.
  • Local high scores.
  • Gamepad support.



  • More content! Weapons, equipment, enemies etc.
  • Different 'zones' with different planet types and enemies.
  • Random missions to complete to earn credits. These will be simple tasks; destroy all enemies in the system, visit every sector in the system, jump to the next system within a time frame etc.
  • More rare, unique enemies and bosses that will drop credits when they are defeated.

Purchase

Buy Now$4.99 USD or more

In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $4.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:

deeper-into-space-win.zip 452 MB
Version 0.3.22a

Development log

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Comments

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I hope this guy's ok. He hasn't even made a tweet in 3 years...

Kinda sad cause i really liked this game and it hasn't been updated in so long

Hope you are doing well.

I really like this game.

Any chance of this getting updated again?

Any chance we'll be able to rebind keys?

Or is it a way to rebind through options.ini file?

(+1)

It's not currently possible to rebind keys. I will be looking into implementing it in the future.

I charged through to the 28th system while the stalker and 2 turrets were attacking me. Then this happened.

Thanks for the report! Will be fixed in the next update.

(2 edits) (+1)

I'm a beta tester and thought you'd like to see my notes. Deeper Into Space has a very intriguing gameplay loop! I love the smooth effects and the attention to detail, though I also think a few things are holding it back from being superb, namely the random weapon accuracy cone.

Menu:

  • In menu navigation: it would be nice if space bar doubles as Enter when it comes to menu selection
  • Right after dying: the ambient music cuts out, and then resumes when the Game Over stats show (instead of just continuing all the way through seamlessly)
  • When unlocking items, as the unlocked item is manually typed out, character by character on-screen: it would be cool if typing sounds and backspace sounds would be added to accompany it
  • At the Game Over screen, moving the selection from "Main Menu" to "High Scores" fails to create a menu sound

Controls/UI:

  • Pressing E did nothing for me; I always had to right my ship manually using the booster whenever I got stuck (which happened on nearly every single planet)
  • Auto-sort the inventory whenever stuff gets collected, so that identical copies of objects are adjacent to each other
  • If you entered the jumpgate with the map showing on the HUD, it'd be a nice touch if the map continued to display on the HUD when you start the next sector
  • There is currently no clear indicator as to when oxygen depletion is occurring or not, in relation to planetfall; I can't tell which planets are reducing my oxygen or not, or where the boundary of no-more-loss is (maybe show the leftmost 1% in the HUD oxygen as continuously flashing a mild red when it's being depleted)
  • Dedicated toggle key for Aim Assist, like G?
  • Oxygen tank description should say: "Fills 02 to max" to be clearer to maximize it only when you're almost completely gone
  • Oxygen tank to buy at the store for 50 scrap says "5 oxygen" but the oxygen warning measures the level in percents, so maybe it should say "5%"
  • Temporarily light up the floor of a store (with a sound effect) to indicate that you've successfully landed and Shift's options have expanded
  • In the Archive, be able to hold W or S to then initiate a slightly faster, continuous scrolling through the list (like ¼ sec of time spent per item before moving onto the next one)
  • Show a warning/reminder when trying to boost while in combat mode
  • A note saying that your ship exploded because of lack of 02 would be helpful. (And maybe not exploding at all and instead just stopping and fading to a black silhouette of an asphyxiated ghost ship…)
  • When holding Shift: lightly glow the square in the bottom-right that you're currently in, for faster identification (considering how your ship is yellow, and one of the planet building colors is also yellow, which could potentially lead to confusion about where you exactly are if you paused, returned to the game later, and forgot, if you were docked at it)
  • When selling at a store, require a second right-click within 1 second of the first right-click to confirm (so you don't accidentally sell an oxygen tank, etc.)
  • I have no idea of how to check how many skill points I have to spend apart from docking at a yellow building
  • "JUMP POWER AT MAX" sounds like nothing happened because it's already maxed out. Clearer wording could be "JUMP POWER RESTORED"/"RECHARGED"
  • Instead of reading "All un-saved progress will be lost" when exiting to desktop, it'd be more helpful to see something more like "All progress since the start of this sector will be lost"

Sounds:

  • Needs different thud sounds against:
    • asteroids
    • purple space constructs
    • planets (including landing pads) when not facing right-side-up
  • When ending a boost, the sound effect abruptly stops instead of having a "power down" tone
  • Add deploying & retracting sounds for landing gear
  • Add two different sounds when changing flight modes
  • Add enemy thruster sounds
  • Separate sounds for fatal hits versus postmortem explosions
  • Add a recharge sound when you gain jump fuel at an oxygen station
  • Add a sound when Aim Assist locks onto/loses a target
  • Add a sound when opening and closing the Shift menu
  • The hypergate jump sound could be grander/longer
  • Combat music should immediately stop at the moment when you enter a hypergate, not when the screen fades to black
  • The laser weapon should emit a continuous "bzzt" sound whenever it's hitting a target
  • Sound upon detection/map-marking of the hypergate

Combat:

  • The music could dynamically change faster when getting into or out of combat; occasionally it took several seconds before it kicked in during combat with an enemy, which seemed awkward
  • The first combat tutorial should mention the spread of the starting weapon's accuracy, and that auto-aim is optional but enabled by default
  • Combat flight mode should not auto-disable when you accidentally enter a planet's gravitational pull while there is still an enemy nearby
  • Enemy fire could be more dynamic if it had a randomized, short delay of time between shots, after each shot's minimum reload time (to make their shooting more unpredictable and harder to time)
  • Anything that could differentiate mines from asteroids (unless that's intentional), like a red dot in their core as is commonly depicted in games
  • It'd be more interesting if destructive enemy fragments gave off a random amount of junk than only 2 pieces
  • An enemy with a jump signature spawned inside a planet and couldn't get out
  • It doesn't make sense that enemies attacking a distressed ship deal damage to it, while your shots clearly hit the ship but do not. Your shots should either also damage the ship, or pass over it as friendly shots that don't collide.

Difficulty:

  • It's extremely unfair for enemies to always have pinpoint precision but for your shots to have a wide, inaccurate cone, no matter how well you aim. Skill versus random chance is the biggest factor that makes or breaks players' perceived fairness in games, and subsequently their popularity. I would strongly suggest applying the same aiming setup to both sides, whichever that may be.
  • It would really help with the game's difficulty if mines were not friendly to enemies, and friendly fire is active; either/both would be a great reward for tactical players
  • If an O2 canister is guaranteed to be in any system entered with low O2, then it would be nice to have a reminder line like "O2 detected in system" when starting in it
  • I personally think that you'll have to choose between planet- forcing-combat-mode-off versus allowing-enemies-to-attack-while-you're-docked/trying-to-dock; we can't have both, as it's just unfair to make players fight when they can't even go into combat mode.
    • If combat is prioritized, then it'd be a nice touch if, when enemies are present, planet buildings turn a flashing-red and stop responding to your docking + you can stay in combat mode.
    • Otherwise, enemies need to be programmed to avoid planets' gravitational pull, and/or friendly buildings could be equipped with defensive turrets (which would, of course, be the nicer alternative).
  • You should be able to shoot down SAM missiles, including with a scrape or two of the laser, and/or they should have fuel; they seem to have infinite fuel…
  • To potentially help maintain community interest, you could follow Noita's structure: after many, many sectors, have a major final boss + a final score, and with each New Game+, increase the boss's health.

Graphics:

  • It could be a really worthwhile touch to add a central, rotating turret on top of your ship & every enemy, which would explain everyone's 360º fire. Otherwise it looks odd seeing shots come out of no particular exit chute from your ship/enemies' ships while the stationary, crate-guarding laser turrets clearly have pointing barrels (for example).
  • Color red (or something else) the damaging particles from enemy explosions, because they otherwise look too similar to collectible scrap and unfairly hurt first-time players trying to get them (which is what, uh… I did 😅)

Really great work thus far but I'd say if there was any one thing holding me back, it's the inaccuracy cone of the starting weapons (at least, in comparison to the enemies' accuracy) that discourages me from replaying the game much. Hope this helps! I also have a list of screenshots noting typos in the menus and elsewhere that I could share if desired.

(+1)

Hi KeronCyst, thank you so much for sharing your notes. Some excellent insight and suggestions. 

I have seen some dislike for the starting weapons accuracy before, so I agree this needs changing. I was already planning on making weapons more accurate when you are stationary (to make shooting loot boxes easier) but also enemies more accurate when you are stationary too, as I want the player to keep moving during combat, not become a turret.

Some notes: 

- You need to hold 'E' to re-right your ship on planets.

- While mines don't track enemies, they will explode when enemies collide with them.

- Enemy missiles will explode after 4 seconds.

As I said, a lot of great suggestions. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. If you wouldn't mind, could you e-mail me the screenshots you mentioned? JRGames.feedback@gmail.com

Thanks again! 

Hmm, even after holding E for several seconds, it still did nothing. Also, the enemies are already insanely accurate in predicting where you'll move next so I don't think being stationary would be a problem. I'll get in touch!

(1 edit)

I reinstalled the game and it's still bricked. Possibly just got my progress deleted...

(3 edits)

I just got past system 11 for the first time and the screen froze on the loading screen for the next system. I tried to close the game with the task manager but that made the whole screen completely white. I couldn't open anything or interact with anything at all, so i had to shut down my computer and turn it back on.

Edit: The game shows a never ending white screen when i open it now. Audio is still there but i can't play anymore.

(1 edit)

Hi Magenta. This issue has come up before. Unfortunately I have been unable to recreate the problem my end, and as it's a crash with no error message it's very difficult to determine what the problem is, but I am investigating. 

It is possible to make the game playable again if you delete save_data.dat from: c: Users > [username] > AppData > Local > Deeper_Into_Space.  Sadly that will reset your progress I'm afraid. I'm sorry there is not a more agreeable solution, but as I said, I am looking into it.

<update>

Hold up. If you haven't deleted your save_data.dat just yet, hold off from doing it. I'm pretty sure I have (finally) found the issue and fixed it. A patch should un-brick the game, and while you will lose the current run, all your unlocks and stats will remain. I'm going to do some more testing to make sure and hope to get an update out tomorrow.

Alright thank you!

I've lost so much progress because shooting a shielded chest has a 50% chance of crashing the game.

(1 edit) (+1)

Hi Magenta Lizard, thanks for the report and sorry you are encountering this problem. I am investigating. Could you please tell me if a crash report appeared after it crashed, and if so, copy and paste it here the next time it happens? Also, do you remember what weapons you were using when it happened?

Has anyone else experienced this?

(1 edit)

I just shot one with the small quark gun and it crashed.
It's been doing this with any gun as far i tell and shielded enemies seem to be unaffected.

(+1)

Thanks for this, it was very helpful. Think I found the problem, I'd left in some redundant code that was conflicting with the new code.  Hope to get an update out some time tomorrow (Dec 1st).

Thanks!

(1 edit)

soooo, after I finished level 9, I jumped to the next level, whereupon it crashed. After I restarted the game, I only see a white screen, and I have to close it through the task manager...does anybody have a solution to it?

and i hear the backround music

Hi kurtistkurt, thanks for letting me know about this. I'm hoping the latest patch has resolved it. If you still get white screen on startup deleting save_data.dat should make it playable again, but will unfortunately reset the game to a fresh install. save_data.dat is located in c: Users > [username] > AppData > Local > Deeper_Into_Space.

(+1)

Yes, the new update worked, thank you ^°^...but another thing i saw is after i fired about 1 min with the railgun at a heavy drone, i didnt hit once (and i even aimed =) so i dont to if it was just bad luck...an extra for the railgun could be a little bit homing)

Ok excellent, thanks for letting me know. I will investigate the Railgun issue.

okay, every time i get so a certain level (i think 10) the game crashes (and with that the save) after that i cant start the game any more

This happened to me today when i was about to get to system 12. 

(1 edit)

In some games the mining scaner doesn't work...to be more specific, it doesnt work if you buy it, but if get one out of the lootbox it works....

the game is really hard and after my first games i thought it is way to hard but as i get new things it gets a bit easy. The only way i see to win the game is to have early on the minig laser =)

thx for your game =)

(1 edit) (+1)

This is really fun!

<edit>I suppose that I should include some more actionable feedback, and more info

I like roguelikes, and enjoy the difficulty of fighting different opponents. I have only made it through a few warps (<6), so I can't comment on the later game, but the difficulty does seem to scale well so far. I hope that it keeps getting harder as you go deeper.

I don't know how deep the tech tree goes, but I want it to be deep enough that you can power up a lot, and fight really powerful opponents.

I would also love if there were different styles of fights - swarms of small drones, huge single ships, space amoebas that try to engulf you, or kamikaze fighters that blow up on contact.

Labeling things when you hover your mouse over them might be nice too - something like "loot crate", or "warp station" would be enough - like in diablo

Finally, I would like to level up my ships air scrubbers to reduce my oxygen hunger rate</edit>

Launched the game and the main menu was running very slowly, something like 3fps, and keyboard input was delayed.  I have a pretty strong computer (16gb of RAM) and I think it might be an issue with rendering in 4k?  I have no idea.  Anyway I tried lowering the game resolution but could not find an option for this.  The game looks cool and I want to play it but I cannot at present because of this issue.

(+1)

Hi  Alterae, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I believe you are correct and I am working on a fix for this which should be available in the next few days.

Good to know, thanks!

I look forward to that.

Patch is live - 0.3.8a. Please let me know if you are still experiencing problem. Thanks!

(+1)

I am no longer experiencing the problem.  The main menu works fine now.  Though the game as a whole seems to have some scaling issues in 4k, it is perfectly playable.

Hi! Just got the update today, and now I have an instant crash at startup. Here's the log :

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event0
for object oJellyMovement:

STRING argument is unset
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
called from - gml_Object_oJellyMovement_Step_0 (line 3)


Any hint? Could play with the previous version on a Win10 64 Thinkpad laptop, can't with the last update on my desktop (6600k, Geforce 1070, Win10 64)

Thanks for the report, I will look into it. To be clear, this was on starting the game, or launching your ship? Does it happen every time? And have you previously played on your desktop? Thanks a lot.

Anybody else experiencing this?

Starting the game, can't even reach the title screen. Happens everytime, even after uninstalling/reinstalling the game.

Unfortunately I didn't played the previous version on this desktop. I'll try to play the crashing version on my laptop where I already played the previous one, and keep you informed. Thanks!

(+1)

Thanks for the reply Skizomeuh. New build is available. Should be fixed. Please let me know if have any more problems. Thanks again!

(+1)

And I confirm the game is working now! Thanks a lot!!!

(1 edit)

Received this crash.. I believe I got into a fight and started shooting the mining beam.  Pressed shift and tried to select pew pew without ever stopping shooting the mining beam.

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
FATAL ERROR in
action number 1
of  Step Event0
for object oInventory:

Unable to find any instance for object index '305' name 'oInventory'
############################################################################################
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
called from - gml_Script_scr_utility_glow (line 27)
called from - gml_Object_oInventory_Step_0 (line 186)

(+2)

Hey Roldy, thanks for the report. I finally managed to recreate this crash. It actually occurs when you select an inventory item just as the inventory is nearly fully closed. You have to be pretty frame perfect to do it, so for now, just being careful will avoid the crash. 

It will be fixed in the next update, along with some other fixes and some new gear!

Did the Prospector item break in last update.  I've played a few games since update with prospector and havn't seen any asteroid indicate it has minerals in it.

It shouldn't have. The crash was just a typo in the archive code, so nothing changed with functionality of the items. Maybe you've just been unlucky. I will check it though.

It's still working. If it's a previous run from before the patch it's possible something has gone wrong though. Dropping it and collecting it again should fix it though.

(1 edit) (+1)

Hmm.  I've played about 10 games after the patch and Prospector hasn't highlighted any asteroids.  Randomly shooting asteroids I have gotten minerals out of them that the prospector had not marked.  

I'll redownload and see if that changes.

(+1)

RNG at it's finest.

(2 edits)

I have a question about the green currency at the start of the game. How do you get it? What is it even called

They are Credits, a rare currency. You collect them from certain tough enemies. I plan on adding more ways to collect Credits in the future.

Oh I see, it would be useful if there were more of those types of shops that use that currency, because the only one i've seen are at the first planet your ship spawns in on.

(1 edit)

Game crashes when shooting loot boxes

Edit: Fixed in v0.3.6

Got same crash and error.


Shooting a loot box that had a shield around it.

(+1)

Thanks for the reports! I've fixed this. Small update coming later today

I'm wondering what you do with refined metals.

Sell them. I realise at the moment it's more profitable to sell unrefined ores. I've adjusted this and hope to get a small release out later today. 

(2 edits)

Enjoying the game so far.  I Enjoy the difficulty level and learning curve.  Gameplay is discovered and seems there to be much to discover in the world as well. 

I like it.

So far my best run was about 5 systems in, 3 upgrade points and a score around 1900.  Fun.

Hi Roldy, thanks for the feedback, glad you like it!

Discovering game play is a big part of rogue-likes and I intend to add some secrets and more points of interest over time.

Your progress and score is pretty good for early game! Nice!

I can never afford any purchases in the shops, I saw that you can mine when desperate for cash. Where are the mines

(1 edit)

Mine asteroids.  O2 is what you want to conserve.  If you can find a planet with a ring of asteroids then a good tactic is to stay in the atmosphere and shoot the asteroids without depleting O2.  I mining laser makes this 10x faster.

(+1)

Good game, except very unbalanced, or at least leaves a very bad aftertaste of work being done almost for nothing. Enemies can spawn out of nowhere and give nothing after you defeat them (even though they might take out 1/5 of your health which is almost a fortune to repair), prices in shops are just not worth it and the overall difficulty is crippling. I have found myself looking at the map and seeing red dots and straight up running from them because I knew I would lose more than what I would gain. And this could have been fine if the maps actually contained loot - you can spend half of your oxygen flying around searching for something just to find nothing except a mine, which conveniently doesn't show up on the map so you can bump into one without knowing. This level of difficulty is also further supplemented with repetitiveness of the battles and them happening non-stop, leaving you no room to breathe (heh, get it?), which all sums up to what I would actually call almost darksouls-like.

TL;DR: Good game idea, but poorly executed balance (from my perspective at least).

Also a large thing to note is that it may be a good idea to add more mechanics related to orbits and stuff, but that's optional I suppose. I came here for a 2d space exploration with orbital mechanics, but did get the charm of 2d space shooter. Even so, orbits and gravity playing a larger role would be very nice.

(1 edit) (+1)

Hi Anton! Thanks for playing, and while I'm sorry you didn't have a great time, I'm grateful you took the time to give this feedback. I always meant for the game to be hard, but findng the right balance is tough, so feedback like this is important, especially for an early access game like this.

The game is a balancing act of leveling up, searching for loot crates (there is always at least one in each system, currently) and deciding when to move on to the next system. 

Your feedback has given me some ideas and I hope you come back to the game in the future!

(1 edit) (+1)

Yes, of course, I expect the game to improve greatly over time. Also I did in fact find crates in each system eventually, but it often provides only scrap (and only a small amount of it). The hull is also a massive problem as it can expire at about the same speed as oxygen does, but the repair kits only fill 20% compared to full fill-up of oxygen.
I did not try how hard it would be after a decent amount of hours into the game when the ship is really upgraded, but as far as I know it won't help with the oxygen issue.
I guess just a bit more generous loot from the boxes and enemies as well as less expensive prices in the shops should solve the issue up to a decent level.

Crashes when trying to "drop" a saved dude while docked at a planet

(1 edit)

Thanks for the report. I'm looking into it!

[FIXED in v0.3.6]

(+1)

I'm loving this game so far. The ship handles great, graphics are nice, and the QoL things like "F" mode and the map are really helpful.

The problem I'm running into is that I don't know how to reliably earn currency to buy O2, and it doesn't seem possible to just refill the O2 while on the planet. Mining is very slow and earns maybe 60 credits, not enough to refill the O2 that I used during the mining trip. Not sure if I'm missing something (maybe something to add to the tutorial), or mining is just really slow at the start.

(+2)

Hi Deathray, thanks for the comment and I'm glad you are enjoying the game!

O2 is the main motivator to drive the player forward, and the O2 canisters are the main way you should be looking to re-fill. Buying O2 from a station should be a last resort, or a stop-gap to finding a canister. So, once you have explored a system you should be looking to jump to the next. Look for loot crates (white squares on the map), these are where you will find the canisters. If you are low on O2 when you jump in, there WILL be one somewhere in the system.

I'll look at the wording of the tutorial and also look at adding a general "this is your goal" tutorial to make things clearer. 

Hope this helps, thanks for playing!

Hi,

Neat game. My ship is wedged between a boulder and a planet: https://imgur.com/a/c4te4vW. It seems like this can happen pretty easily. Bug?

Hi jaargon.

You should still be able to destroy the asteroid and free yourself. Also, if you get stuck on your side on a planet, holding 'E' on keyboard or 'A' on X-Box controller will re-right your ship automatically, which should also free you if wedged.

The game saves after you leave a system, and before you enter the new one. So, as a last resort, returning to the main menu and continuing your game will only lose your progress from when you entered the system to when you got stuck.

Hope this helps. Thanks for playing!

what game engine and language did u use to make this game?

The current version is made with Gamemaker 1.4, so the language is GML. However, I'm currently porting it to Gamemaker 2 for the up coming update.

(+2)

Will it eventually be on Steam? Will purchasers (here) get a Steam key? Thanks for making this!

(+1)

I would eventually like to get the game to Steam, but not until it is in a more complete state. itch.io keeps a log of every purchase, so if and when it does make it to Steam, sending Steam keys to people who have already purchased here should not be a problem.

Thanks a lot for playing!

(+1)

Sounds great. Thank you!