Starship Breakers: Alpha

Patricia stopped climbing after suffering an injury at a local tournament. She’s now studying in Iceland and needs money. One day, she finds a shady gig about playtesting an action escape game and finds herself trapped in a fictional spaceship.

She must escape using both her wits and her agility…

Starship Breakers: Alpha was originally written for Battle Action Fantasy VN Jam 2025 as a prologue to a bigger story, inspired by puzzle anime Phi Brain, that would feature an expanded version of the escape game. However, due to its lack of supernatural elements, it could not be submitted for that jam, and was instead submitted for Josei Jam 2025.

It can be enjoyed as a standalone story.

Josei Jam 2025 submission page

• Download and run the executable matching your platform (Windows, macOS, Linux)

  • We recommend to download the latest version for the best experience

• Currently, only mouse is fully supported, with additional keyboard/gamepad bindings for some actions

  • Mouse is required to navigate in some menus
  • Gamepad bindings are shown at the bottom in the menus when gamepad input is detected

• Visual Novel phase controls:

  • Advance dialogue: mouse primary button click, Space or Enter
  • Toggle auto-advance mode: click Auto or press A
  • Skip: click Skip or hold Ctrl/PageDown (set Skip mode to Everything or Read only in Settings > Text)
  • Rollback: mouse wheel up or PageUp
  • Pause menu: mouse secondary button click or Escape

• Puzzle phase controls:

  • Click on an object to interact with it. It will automatically do the correct contextual action (look, take, use, place item)
  • Pause menu: mouse secondary button click or Escape

The latest version is still incomplete, and will end soon after the first puzzle.

It currently features:

• 7 scenes (out of 13)
• 1 puzzle (out of 2)
• 20 minutes of play (out of expected 30 minutes)
• 3 finished background, 2 unfinished backgrounds (3 more backgrounds expected)
• 7 BGM (out of 10)

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Changelog

v0.5.0 - 2025-07-02 - July update 1 (post-jam channel)

• Art

  • New sprites: Patricia sprites with different body poses, facial expressions, sweat and sunglasses, used throughout the scenes
  • New sprites: Original Patricia’s father sprites to replace proto silhouette
  • Misc animation & transition improvements

• Audio

  • New BGM: Title, Phone Call, Stress v2, Contemplative Choir & Sci-Fi
  • Improved BGM: Apartment
  • New SFX: Smartphone ringtone

• UI

  • Title: Splashscreen showing Josei Jam 2025 banner
  • Settings: Option to change font to Inter
  • Staff Roll: add free assets, longer display time, play BGM
  • Fix final fullscreen text showing Waiver text if read previously

• Story

  • Misc script improvements

Known issues:

• All the issues from v0.4
• You can change font to Inter, but it will apply the same font weight to all text, making headers look thinner than usual
• BGM and SFX still need volume balance
• Linux build shows black texture instead of empty avatar faces
• macOS build has not been verified

v0.4.0 - 2025-06-29 - Jam release (jam-release channel)

• First prototype release with working puzzle
• First 7 scenes
• Puzzle 1
• 3 finished background, 2 unfinished backgrounds
• 2 BGM

Known issues:

• We don’t support saving & loading nor rolling back into/out a puzzle. The puzzle may not be properly initialized, pieces won’t be reset, etc.
• Aspect ratio other than 16:9 may mess up with the menu UI, in-game UI and break puzzle UI
• Linux build shows black texture instead of empty avatar faces
• no macOS build

• komehara: Writing, Puzzle design, Programming
• Mongoose: Art direction, Background art
• Ecchymog: Character design
• Zwaany: Character design (Tracey)
• MadScientist: Menu UI
• Marionette: Puzzle UI, Additional graphic design
• Maxime Campin: Music
• Athmane: Sound design
• Alex: Proofreading

Playtesters

• Rythen

Fonts

• Rajdhani by Indian Type Foundry under SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1
• Inter by Rasmus Andersson under SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1 (part of Naninovel framework)
• Game of Squids by Darrell Flood

Ambient

• Escape Game Corridor1: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/set-of-ventilation-sounds-52435/

Sprites

• (jam release only) Dad silhouette by RAIT Visual Works: https://witching-metal.itch.io/character-silhouettes-bureaucrats

SFX

• (jam release only) Smartphone Ringtone: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/90x27s-rampb-guitar-loop-171092/
• Smartphone Call End: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/cell-phone-hang-up-100514/
• Climb Ladder Slow/Fast: https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/metal-footsteps-14727/

Game engine

• Unity 6000.0.48f1
• Naninovel v1.20

Writing

• Obsidian with plugins:

  • Smart Typography by mgmeyers
  • Better Word Count by Luke Leppan

Art

• Adobe Photoshop

Audio

• Cubase
• Logic Pro