Get Outer My Space

Get Outer My Space is a cozy farming simulator set in an asteroid belt, created for the DeepWellDtx x GGJ Mental Health Game Jam 2022. Terraform asteroids, plant and harvest your crops, and create a floating farm in space!

We took inspiration from the keynote discussion on therapeutic games to make a relaxing sim with soft pressures and no loss state. We tried to incorporate the game jam theme by writing a narrative based around self-care, boundaries, and the healing power of solitude, and by adding rest and recharge as a core part of the gameplay loop.

The player starts the game with a handful of seeds, and is encouraged to explore and scan the asteroids around them. Every asteroid is different and will yield different amounts of fruit, and different fruits require different amounts of water and soil.

Once you find a good asteroid, you can spend your ship’s energy to terraform it. Don’t worry if you run out of energy—the solar panels on the ship will recharge it for the next day!

Once you’ve run out of energy, you can choose to end your day. Time will pass and your plants will get bigger, and your character will get some much-needed downtime. You can read a book, water your indoor plants, or go on a space walk.

When your plants have fruited, you can harvest the fruit. More fruit will grow on the tree until the asteroid runs out of soil or water.

Every third day, the space farmer’s market comes to town. You can sell your fruit and use the money to buy seeds, books, or upgrades to your ship!

Controller Controls

Left Stick: Move

Bottom button (A on Xbox controller): Select/Confirm

Right button (B on Xbox controller): Cancel/Boost

Left button (X on Xbox controller): Lasso asteroid

Top button (Y on Xbox controller): Hold to end day

Start button: View inventory

Keyboard and Mouse Controls

WASD/Arrow keys: Move

Space: Select/Confirm

Shift: Cancel/Boost

E: Lasso asteroid

Q: Hold to end day

I: View inventory

Roadmap

As with any game jam game, there's a lot we left on the cutting room floor. If we were to continue this project, we'd add the following features:

1. Satisfying sounds for all player actions.
2. Asteroid spawning—asteroids that aren't terraformed or tied to a terraformed asteroid will randomly drift out of the sector, replaced by new ones.
   
3. More leisure activity options, including the option to collect more books and indoor plants at the farmer's market.

We would also want to incorporate the following purchasable tech progressions:

1. Asteroid chaining, which would allow asteroids to share water and energy
2. Energy harvesting based on the fissile material found in each asteroid—would allow for things like self-terraforming.