HeartBeat

co-authored: @mr-pyckle
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.57
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.87
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.27
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.90
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.36
Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.10
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.26
Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.15
// HEARTBEAT : You are... still alive... your heart beats every 10 seconds, you need to get back to reality !

// *You can play the game directly in Web HTML5* Here on itch.io

// CONTROLS : Arrows to move and jump / Arrow down to Interact / F = FULL SCREEN

// CREDITS : Original Artwork & Prog : Matthieu T. // Original Story : Dylan D. // Voice Over : Alex Anaya //Other voice : Dylan's team.

Update 1 : I updated the game back to the version that has a pushing box. I did take it out before as I thought the players will struggle to much, I just put it back in. Should be better according to feedbacks.

Game made using Construct 3. // Thanks to hcatarrunas for his support.

Comments55

Aaron Smith
Aaron Smith3 Oct 2022, 21:23
loved this. a bit...confusing as I worked my way through it, but the mood is wonderful and the execution is lovely.
BoxedMeatRevolution
BoxedMeatRevolution4 Oct 2022, 00:18
Very cool effect with the heartbeat. The story didn't make any sense to me though, did I fix a generator with a lunch?
Escarpoulpe
Escarpoulpe4 Oct 2022, 00:18
The art is cool but idk what i need to do it's a litle confusing
Lautilaj4 Oct 2022, 00:18
The art is really nice but i didnt understand what i have to do
Maxi Ruffo4 Oct 2022, 00:23
i dont like how work the controls in chrome. i press the down arrow and the website scroll down... maybe in the next time can use WASD... or both.
the art is so beautiful and cool but the game design is confuse... i dont know what do and just press down arrow all the time.
saintchristopher777
saintchristopher7774 Oct 2022, 00:23
Short, but very atmospheric. Is it okay to call it an artpiece? Really good art and sound design. Anyway it's quite lovely - I would love to see what you'd do with a longer timeframe!
LDJam user 237261
LDJam user 2372614 Oct 2022, 00:25
i liked the art and the sound design, it has a nice mood but im not exactly sure what the story was about
chromaphase
chromaphaseauthor4 Oct 2022, 00:26
As I see some of you are confused. The tray is used to reflect the light on the generator to kill the bad seeds on it. I'm aware it's an adventure game so it can be a bit confusing ;p
chromaphase
chromaphaseauthor4 Oct 2022, 00:28
When you play, press F for fullscreen. @maxi-ruffo ! it's in the menu and in the description ! @boxedmeatrevolution You did ! It's part of the game to find how to reflect the light on the generator.
bobo_oh
bobo_oh4 Oct 2022, 08:48
Wow, what an great game. I loved the format, the art, the narration! It's pretty short though, I wanted more! But still, amazing entry! congrats!
Zakroutil
Zakroutil4 Oct 2022, 08:55
This is a beautiful short game with such a great atmosphere! I didn't really get the story, but I really enjoyed the mood, also didn't expect voice acting :D Great work!
Tess4 Oct 2022, 12:29
The visual is AMAZING! Loved the artwork and the idea of heart beating every 10s. However, the gameplay was a little bit confusing and I'm still not sure if I survived or not :D Also down arrow scrolled my whole website which is little bit uncomfortable.
m110
m1104 Oct 2022, 12:32
I loved the voice acting, the creepy atmosphere, and the art style. I definitely would playtime the full game. :) Great job!
recyx
recyx4 Oct 2022, 12:32
This game is immensly beatiful! The animation between reality and the "upside down" is just so slick! Also the voice acting and music create such a gread mood... Good job!!!
Jonas Michael
Jonas Michael4 Oct 2022, 12:36
Nice atmosphere and graphics. I also enjoyed the voice acting and the simple controls. I didn't get the story, to be honest, and it was rather short, but it's a good game nonetheless!
CatelliB
CatelliB4 Oct 2022, 12:45
The artwork and mood are fantastic, I found it difficult to understand what I was supposed to be doing but I was just glad to be there.
LDJam user 236935
LDJam user 2369354 Oct 2022, 12:52
The art is cool and it's neat that it's got voice acting. It's a bit short and I'm not entirely sure I understand the logic of the puzzle at the end. Not bad, but I do feel like the dark world was just sorta there to waste a few seconds of your time rather than actually contribute to the puzzles or anything. Neat transition effect though.
Eugenik
Eugenik4 Oct 2022, 14:10
Wow So Good! 5/5.
Flamus4 Oct 2022, 15:15
Wow, the art, voice acting and everything is so amazing - everything fits together perfectly:)
Finn Pickart
Finn Pickart4 Oct 2022, 15:35
Great game.
It was a bit confusing at first but then I figured out what I had to do.
Pretty creative.
Love the thing with the dark and normal world and that you come back to the normal world every 10 seconds.
But I didn't really get the story.
Can you tell me?
nidjo1234 Oct 2022, 16:04
I quite like the look and feel of the game. If only it was a bit longer to enjoy it some more.
Pincushion4 Oct 2022, 16:26
Really short, but it's so well done. The fade in/out, sounds, voice acting all set a great tone. Spot on.
JuanRod707
JuanRod7074 Oct 2022, 17:00
Wow, very grim and immersive. Great job!
Chartle
Chartle5 Oct 2022, 03:29
Great atmosphere and mood, cool it had voice acting for a jam game! I was a little confused what to do, I think I ended up just spamming interact until something happened, a bit unfortunate. Art was amazing!
Andy Chen5 Oct 2022, 03:35
Awesome pixel art! Voice Act well done!
Heming Ruan
Heming Ruan5 Oct 2022, 08:02
I really feel the mood and enjoy the game, especially the heartbeat sound effect and special screen transition. Nice work!
Majadroid
Majadroid5 Oct 2022, 17:50
The artwork and sound design is great. It gives the game an unique character.
rascher
rascher5 Oct 2022, 19:35
The mood, art and sound is amazing, congrats!
AvaDazina5 Oct 2022, 20:24
I really loved the art and athmosphere of the game, but i didnt really understand the story. Also, the heartbeat effect is very nice.
JMad
JMad5 Oct 2022, 21:34
Such a moody little story. This was absolutely lovely. I loved the pixel art and sound atmosphere, solid entree.
chromaphase
chromaphaseauthor5 Oct 2022, 22:02
Hello guys I put a little intro sentence at the beginning, hopefully it would be a bit less confusing now. Hopefully ;)
Abdonatioera6 Oct 2022, 00:08
Loved the art and music, very atmospheric, and the constrained level design was great. A little confused as to the resolution of the story though.
LDJam user 271014
LDJam user 2710146 Oct 2022, 04:10
First game I've seen with voice acting - super cool! I really liked the overall atmosphere and mood. It's cool how the theme works from both a gameplay and a narrative context.
Hydezeke
Hydezeke6 Oct 2022, 04:10
Wow the graphics and ambience are really nice! It took me a bit to figure out that I was pushing the box (since I initially pushed it and failed in heartbeat mode). The voice acting and overall sound design was super great
Stealcase
Stealcase6 Oct 2022, 17:53
Really nice and polished! As others have said, very atmospheric.

There were some hiccups in the gameplay: I couldn't really tell smoothly what I was supposed to do initially: Both the window and the "lunch tray" (Not sure what it was) were not really understandable "solutions" to puzzles.

But you had great voice acting which was super helpful in telling me when I was going wrong, which smoothed over some of those pain points.

But overall a cool game!
dandeliondino6 Oct 2022, 18:26
Creative and creepy! Great atmosphere and the voice acting added a lot. To be honest, I'm not sure what the solution to the puzzle was, but I still won.
F1Krazy
F1Krazy6 Oct 2022, 19:15
I'd love to try this, it looks great, but the keyboard controls don't seem to work. I can click on the menu options, and those work, but when I start the game I can't move around, and pressing F to go full-screen doesn't do anything either. I'm using Windows 10 and Google Chrome Version 105.0.5195.127, in case that affects anything.
LDJam user 3016446 Oct 2022, 21:55
you should release this. i mean to make a full story and release it. works great. atmosphere, voices and mood are good match.
only thing i don't like box is moving soooooo slooooooooow :D
chromaphase
chromaphaseauthor6 Oct 2022, 23:27
@f1krazy Hey, Thanks for trying. It's very strange because the game works on every mac/win/chrome/safari, even old iphone 7 no updated... can you play my other games like Existence https://chromaphase.itch.io/existence because its exactly the same code for movement etc... let me know thanks !!
chromaphase
chromaphaseauthor6 Oct 2022, 23:29
@stealcase Thanks for the feedbacks, you can check my other game named "Existence" its more slow paced, I think the problem with heartbeat is that the 10s thingy makes it a bit stressful and we dont have time to think about the story/puzzle. It was to try something different but seems its really suffer from the urgency (both the jam urgency and the in-game urgency!)
chromaphase
chromaphaseauthor6 Oct 2022, 23:30
@nickpick Thanks ! Actually I know but my code skillz ain't good enough to make it faster, because I cannot really control the speed well, the push mechanic is kind of buggy, I tried to make it looks like less buggy tho, so itsnt blinking or jumping all over haha, but cannot change speed for now, I will work on this asap...
nullval
nullval7 Oct 2022, 00:19
really beautiful and sombre, I really liked the minimalist gameplay/controls.
I tried to play it one more time, and for some reason I was able to skip to the last puzzle :O
But bugs aside, it's honestly really impressive that you made all of this in such a short period of time, (also great interpretation of the theme :) )
Paul Avallone7 Oct 2022, 03:32
Super well polished game. I adore the pixel art and animation. I loved the pulse effect. Sound design and music set the mood so well. Voice acting was really good. The gravely voice of the main characters is perfect. Very noir like. The pushing was a little funky sometimes it wouldn't go and I think it should be allowed to be pushed much faster. I wish you could interact with the NPCs when they aren't there because I found myself just standing and waiting until a pulse happened again. I would love if you expanded this into full game. Fantastic job!
chromaphase
chromaphaseauthor7 Oct 2022, 08:57
@paul-avallone Thanks for trying the game, you can only push the box when you are in the dark world ;p I think the stress of the game mechanic isnt working well with adventure/story based game. I learnt ;p
OddSocks
OddSocks8 Oct 2022, 08:40
Beautiful pixel art. I got a little confused with the story, especially with how the sandwich did anything. But the heartbeat effect was great. Brilliant LD game :raised_hands:
chromaphase
chromaphaseauthor8 Oct 2022, 10:18
Haha funky ;p Its the metal tray used to reflect the light !! Thanks for playing.
Mortiss
Mortiss9 Oct 2022, 13:14
Nice short game, I really liked the idea but I wish the story could be a bit longer)
satacat
satacat10 Oct 2022, 23:19
art is so great – setting the right mood, wish the story was a little bit longer, but i did get the idea of the plot. really nice entry!
Martynas
Martynas14 Oct 2022, 07:54
Very immersive!
Aurel300
Aurel30015 Oct 2022, 13:36
The graphics, audio (+ voiceovers) were good. The idea of a person saving themselves in the limbo world (or whatever you want to call it) is interesting.

The theme was indeed there, but I am not sure if it supported the game or just introduced an inconvenience. Switching back and forth between worlds is cool, but more often than not I knew what I had to do and so the seconds spent in the normal world were just wasted. I guess it was time I could spend talking to people but that was mostly about getting some hints. (Nit: the indicator that you can interact with something/someone could be a bit more visible.)

I wish the overall game were longer. There were just two "puzzles", one of which was to open a window, the other to place the tray. The latter was stretched out to feel "longer" by having to fetch the tray from the other side of the screen... I guess making the gameplay more substantial and longer would go against the story you were going for, but I'm sure there are lots of cool puzzles you could go for with "one world influencing the other".
ShaunShepherd16 Oct 2022, 23:54
Great atmosphere, and the story is also engaging and the art is really good.

Would have been nice for the game to explain itself a little more and not have the characters tell me what to do. The nurse mentioning the lunch tray was a good clue. When you go over to the tray if it looked super reflective, I think that would have helped connect the ideas. Obviously, you can only do so much in a jam.

Great work!
OadT
OadT18 Oct 2022, 17:01
Fantastic mood you build up using the sounds and graphics! I'm impressed you managed to do English AND Frensh voice acting. I was shortly confused at the very beginning but quickly got the hang of it. Too bad the game dodn't go a bit longer, would have loved to see more!

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