PLEASE NOTE: This game relies on WebGL to render correctly, and will look terrible without it. Please use Firefox or Chrome if possible. Safari will also work, but you must enable webGL under the develop tab. If you're unable to use those browsers, please download the Windows/OSX executable.
The Ones You Love is a game about a few very important 10 second moments within a single day (and one a few months later). Within those moments, will your actions save a life, or end one? If you change your choice in the past, how will if affect the future?
Controls: M to toggle Music. The mouse does everything else. Click to move and interact with people and objects.
The game shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to complete, but just in case you get stuck, here's a walkthrough:
I love how the game deals with everyday family issues and makes you think about how we should appreciate the simples moments we have with our loved ones, which we often take for granted. I also like how you get to change what happened, and the audio cues. Great work!
Really good work. The story was well thought out, and I liked the various deaths everyone had. The link to the theme was a bit weak but well implemented. All in all really good work!
This was excellently put together. Your twist on the theme is very original, and the game mixes a good message with a great presentation; art, music, the works. :)
Nice puzzle although there's not much about feedback for each action, only text. But I can feel that I should take my action more carefully. Good game, and I love when you put that wall-clock in every place :)
I really enjoyed this :) And I'm a sucker for a happy ending :p I think you may have forgot to embed the font used on the menus :p Fantastic game though, got 5 stars overall from me!
That game!!! Man, very moving story, it is also very long, a lot of work out there, congrats! Really really like the take on the theme also. Back to the future!
My setup doesn't support WebGL (I went and double checked after playing the game) but the game looked the same as the screenshots when I played it and seemed to run perfectly fine. Perhaps you were mistaken?
The game concept felt very interesting. Really good use of the theme. I enjoyed how it let the player essentially travel through time and space to these very specific moments, a unique mechanic and interesting to see all these tangent snapshots and how the effects of some events would influence others, I think this was executed incredibly well.
I also liked the important message you were pushing throughout the game: ice cream solves everything.
Overall an enjoyable experience, really nice work!
Thanks for the info. I'm really surprised, and I'd be happy to be wrong about the game requiring webGL. If you don't have webGL enabled, the game will default to Canvas2d, which makes the sprites look terrible due to scaling issues. If you happen to see this comment, could you let me know what version of the game you played, and if you played the web version, which browser did you use.
Nice game! Wish I could fast-forward conversations though. At least the ones you already heard. At first I wasn't completely sure of what to do so I kept getting the same long sequence over and over again.
The story is certainly touching and immersive. Well done.
Hm, the Mom got burnt to death, and then voila, she's still in the kitchen the next time I go in! @_@ The pixel art is very good in this! Pretty spectacular stuff for 48 hours!
Each time you replay a room, it's the same 10 seconds being replayed, so it makes sense for the mom to be fine when you replay the kitchen. If you play a scene after she gets burned, she's dead..
I love this kind of games that makes you stop and think. The "click everything" kinda gets in the way of story and immersion, but this is just nitpicking. Absolute awesome entry!
I loved having these windows into time and seeing how changing those little things made the story unfold in a different way. Having the "result" scene unlock immediately, leaving me anxious how it would happen, was a pretty good choice.
Two things that bugged me a bit: - The ingame "premonitions" when he referenced stuff happening in the future, like "I think this charger will be important later" or "I should heed the advice of a mother" before she could say it to him. Everything else could've been just done in order without any premonitions and those break the immersion a little. - The 10 second limit. I know it was the LD theme and all, but I am not sure the game is better for it. It's always just a single action I need to take, and after 10 seconds I'll click back on the room anyway to search for that, so why the break and the extra click in there?
Apart from that I loved it. Great concept with a solid implementation, excellent writing and fitting music - good job!
(By the way, was it a conscious choice to leave the other parent, wherever they are, out of the picture in the end? Having them not included there makes me think they aren't loved. Just a curious note, it has nothing to do with the game per se.)
Hi TobiasW. Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, it is appreciated. Regarding the two items that bugged you:
The "premonitions" - I definitely see your point, and I had the very same thought as I was writing out the gameplay. There are 2 "flavors" of premonitions to consider. One is the premonitions within the story. There are 2 of them, but let's discuss the one you mentioned regarding the phone charger. When you first play the game, if you were to click on the chest of drawers in your room before seeing the fire in the kitchen, you wouldn't even notice the phone charger. I did this because I wanted the player to get the charger only after they understand its importance. So, when it's time to go into the past and actually get the charger, I felt like I needed something to push the character to actually find the charger in the drawers instead of passing it by. The premonition was a quick and easy solution. The other flavor is the text that appears during the selection screen. This is mainly used to help give the player hints as to what they need to do next. Perhaps the game would be more fulfilling without it, but in Ludum Dare, with players usually only giving each game a couple minutes of play time, I want to ensure players wouldn't get stuck, and quit prematurely. If I were to develop this into a full game, I would most likely cut the hints on the selection screen.
The 10 second limit - Yep, I have to agree with you that it ends up hurting the gameplay more than helping it. I had originally planned to have more things happen in sync with the 10 seconds (like in the hallways when your sister is pacing back and forth), and the player would need to perform certain actions at certain moments within the 10 seconds. However, I ran out of time, and had to simplify things.
Regarding the lack of a father, I had considered adding him (my original notes actually have him in the garage), but cut him because I wanted the family, specifically the sister, to be a bit more unstable with having 1 parent. This is somewhat common in literature except the mother is usually the one missing. The reason he isn't mentioned, and doesn't have a portrait was because I didn't want the player to think it was somehow possible to "unlock" him, or a room he was in. It also strengthened the idea that your character should be a role model to your sister.
Again, thanks for the thoughtful comments/feedback/review. I'm very happy that you enjoyed the game. I'm also happy that you realized that last scene was far into the future, and could go there to see the results of your choices in earlier time periods. I've watched a few people play through they game, and they tend to miss that game mechanic.
Really great! Though a bit confusing, I really enjoyed the gameplay, and the way you used the theme. Just wish I could have more time to read everything.
After i understood this time-shift mechanic it was quite interesting! Saw your Post Mortem before playing this - awesome job especially in the amount of time you crafted this!
Comments65
Good work.
I got lost after dealing with the charger...
I also like how you get to change what happened, and the audio cues.
Great work!
as i got the good ending straight away.
Good job.
This was excellently put together. Your twist on the theme is very original, and the game mixes a good message with a great presentation; art, music, the works. :)
I'm stunned. All hats off!
Man, very moving story, it is also very long, a lot of work out there, congrats!
Really really like the take on the theme also. Back to the future!
My setup doesn't support WebGL (I went and double checked after playing the game) but the game looked the same as the screenshots when I played it and seemed to run perfectly fine. Perhaps you were mistaken?
The game concept felt very interesting. Really good use of the theme. I enjoyed how it let the player essentially travel through time and space to these very specific moments, a unique mechanic and interesting to see all these tangent snapshots and how the effects of some events would influence others, I think this was executed incredibly well.
I also liked the important message you were pushing throughout the game: ice cream solves everything.
Overall an enjoyable experience, really nice work!
Thanks for the info. I'm really surprised, and I'd be happy to be wrong about the game requiring webGL. If you don't have webGL enabled, the game will default to Canvas2d, which makes the sprites look terrible due to scaling issues. If you happen to see this comment, could you let me know what version of the game you played, and if you played the web version, which browser did you use.
I'm running Chrome, specifically this version:
Version 29.0.1547.57 Built on Debian 7.0, running on Debian 7.1 (217859)
Uploaded a screenshot of how the title screen looks in the browser:
http://i.imgur.com/dI6ay6B.png
And a screenshot of what Chrome has to say about my lack of hardware acceleration:
http://i.imgur.com/KIFvhv6.png
Thanks for the info. I'm still not sure what to make of i., but happy the game worked for you! Hopefully others in the same boat will be able to play.
Thanks again!
At first I wasn't completely sure of what to do so I kept getting the same long sequence over and over again.
The story is certainly touching and immersive. Well done.
The pixel art is very good in this! Pretty spectacular stuff for 48 hours!
Each time you replay a room, it's the same 10 seconds being replayed, so it makes sense for the mom to be fine when you replay the kitchen. If you play a scene after she gets burned, she's dead..
By being minimalistic the graphics let room for personal interpretation, thus the game get's even more connective.
Two things that bugged me a bit:
- The ingame "premonitions" when he referenced stuff happening in the future, like "I think this charger will be important later" or "I should heed the advice of a mother" before she could say it to him. Everything else could've been just done in order without any premonitions and those break the immersion a little.
- The 10 second limit. I know it was the LD theme and all, but I am not sure the game is better for it. It's always just a single action I need to take, and after 10 seconds I'll click back on the room anyway to search for that, so why the break and the extra click in there?
Apart from that I loved it. Great concept with a solid implementation, excellent writing and fitting music - good job!
(By the way, was it a conscious choice to leave the other parent, wherever they are, out of the picture in the end? Having them not included there makes me think they aren't loved. Just a curious note, it has nothing to do with the game per se.)
The "premonitions" - I definitely see your point, and I had the very same thought as I was writing out the gameplay. There are 2 "flavors" of premonitions to consider. One is the premonitions within the story. There are 2 of them, but let's discuss the one you mentioned regarding the phone charger. When you first play the game, if you were to click on the chest of drawers in your room before seeing the fire in the kitchen, you wouldn't even notice the phone charger. I did this because I wanted the player to get the charger only after they understand its importance. So, when it's time to go into the past and actually get the charger, I felt like I needed something to push the character to actually find the charger in the drawers instead of passing it by. The premonition was a quick and easy solution. The other flavor is the text that appears during the selection screen. This is mainly used to help give the player hints as to what they need to do next. Perhaps the game would be more fulfilling without it, but in Ludum Dare, with players usually only giving each game a couple minutes of play time, I want to ensure players wouldn't get stuck, and quit prematurely. If I were to develop this into a full game, I would most likely cut the hints on the selection screen.
The 10 second limit - Yep, I have to agree with you that it ends up hurting the gameplay more than helping it. I had originally planned to have more things happen in sync with the 10 seconds (like in the hallways when your sister is pacing back and forth), and the player would need to perform certain actions at certain moments within the 10 seconds. However, I ran out of time, and had to simplify things.
Regarding the lack of a father, I had considered adding him (my original notes actually have him in the garage), but cut him because I wanted the family, specifically the sister, to be a bit more unstable with having 1 parent. This is somewhat common in literature except the mother is usually the one missing. The reason he isn't mentioned, and doesn't have a portrait was because I didn't want the player to think it was somehow possible to "unlock" him, or a room he was in. It also strengthened the idea that your character should be a role model to your sister.
Again, thanks for the thoughtful comments/feedback/review. I'm very happy that you enjoyed the game. I'm also happy that you realized that last scene was far into the future, and could go there to see the results of your choices in earlier time periods. I've watched a few people play through they game, and they tend to miss that game mechanic.
The story was really well done and it's nice to see what would change depending on your actions.