We Come In Pieces

by notalobster

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.03

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.47

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.13

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.08

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.00

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.32

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Overview

There have been flashing lights in the sky, and strange signals getting picked up on your radio. You're certain the cause is aliens, and the world needs to know. Upgrade your antenna using pieces of junk to unravel the mystery behind these alien signals and get the message out to the world.

Instructions

Your objective is to find all 12 alien messages. To get a new message, you need to get the correct combination of stats (Range, Quality, and Stability) on your antenna, which you can get by adding junk to your antenna to change its stats. In short: Earn money, buy junk, add junk to your antenna, and intercept alien messages.

Earning Money

There are two main ways to earn money.
1. Publishing new Alien Messages - When you receive a new alien message, you will also receive an amount of cash for publishing it. You'll receive more money for more interesting messages.
2. UFO Sightings - You can click on a UFO to take a blurry photo of it. Pictures of UFO sightings sell to the press for $20 each.

Buying Junk

From the Junkyard tab, you can click on a piece of junk purchase it. The piece of junk will appear on your desk, where you can click and drag to reposition it.
If you ever find you have too much junk, you can drag additional junk to the trash can.

Adding Junk to your Antenna

From the Antenna tab, you're able to add or remove pieces of junk from your antenna. If a piece of junk is on your desk, you can click and drag it onto the antenna. To remove a piece of junk that's on the antenna, click the piece of junk and it will move back to your desk.

Finding Messages

Your radio will tell you what your antenna's current range, quality, and stability stats are. Additionally, it will tell you if your stats are okay, too high or too low to receive the next signal. When all 3 stats become okay, you will receive an alien message.

You may need to add or remove items from your antenna to get the correct stats. If you ever need more space on your antenna, you can purchase an upgrade in the shop.

Good luck, alien researcher!!

Comments13

Xahon21 Apr 2026, 05:49

I didn't understand what to do :(

Reed Molbak21 Apr 2026, 05:56

I like the concept, and the art is well done. Getting the pieces to "stick" to the antenna was really finicky, and I started feeling like the game was mostly trial and error waiting to find good stuff in the junkyard b/c at one point I got stuck with some stuff on the antenna that pushed some stats really high that I couldn't get rid of.

lectvs21 Apr 2026, 05:59

Cool idea! Took me a while to understand that a "high" stat meant "too high" and I needed to balance them better :smile:

mattlevonian21 Apr 2026, 06:17

Agree with other commenters: I initially thought "high" was good! A little feedback there would improve the usability :)

gryxitl23 Apr 2026, 02:27

Had trouble playing, but I love the concept

GoogleFrog24 Apr 2026, 04:37

Nice game, I liked the puzzle of trying to match the values. I only made it 8 or 9 signals in though because I hit a bug that permanently stuck a few items to the antenna. The stuck items were too low-value to make up the requirement, so I could not continue.

PokeyDem27 Apr 2026, 02:36

Very interesting take on the theme. Graphics look nice and coherent. But it needs a bit of polishing and debugging (items sometimes get stuck on the antenna)

Gecko6429 Apr 2026, 11:38

Really enjoyed the art and the bit of the game I think I figured out. One big issue is that I really had no idea what I was doing for most of it, otherwise good job :)

ImNotVegan1 May 2026, 15:41

i dont see the link

remusnomos6 May 2026, 18:13

Neat pixel art, and I liked the antenna upgrade mechanic. Although I didn't quite get what the other junk was used for. Some feedback on the alien messages would be helpful, since I wasn't sure if I received something or not.

Jajo7 May 2026, 13:44

optimising the signal as gameplay is a really good interpretation of the theme and you pulled it off well, though I will say the UI was a bit of a pain due to lack of feedback, but that isn't a huge issue.

CreeperXD7 May 2026, 14:49

Figuring out combinations of junk to get to the desired values is very satisfying, especially if it involves those that subtracts some instead.

The hitbox of some of the junk seems a bit weird, like the one for mailbox, where the box is not registered at all. Would be nice if the hitboxes adhere to the sprites better.

Unfortunately, when I had 9 signals published, there is a bug where some items on the antenna just could not be removed, and I could not continue from there.

ouhiiiii7 May 2026, 16:30

Concept is great. It could be better if give ok a green color. And items are stuck somewhere, so it's hard to get 12 messages.