You're a new hire for a company that claims to help people by being able to remove trauma. However, they don't just remove it, they harvest it. Is it safe for your mind to be exposed to these signals?
Unfortunately I did not have enough time during the jam to make this (babies.. life.. woe) so it is now being released late under extra because I really liked my theme idea and wanted it to be a thing. I also wanted to demo a new mechanic (perspective) which I think is weird and fits my dream-esque vibe I was going for. The game is very short and lacks depth. I had a lot more planned, including polish, but I just need to get it out since I'm already days late. I may revisit this.
I hope you can appreciate what I was going for regardless.
Impressive work! I'm amazed by all that can be done by pygame :)
L
LDJam user 012 Jan 2023, 13:49
An interesting game concept with a lot of aspects to improve on. If you had more time to work on it I'm sure it would be amazing. The best part of this game is definitely the sound effects and music.
I'm glad you still submitted this! I loved the art-style when moving through the hallways. Just like Avi, I'm impressed you managed to do all this in Python. Nice!
Wow!!!! The sudden 2d-3d change was breathtaking! The lens language of that scene was sooo great!!!!
But personally speaking the texts, including the notes and dialogs, were not working so smooth as the visual language did to me. I'd prefer more implicit and context-driven texts, which contains more "meaningless" (to the players) and "wired" (but real in the characters' context) information, than just showing the settings.
Quite disturbing if I'm understanding it correctly (and maybe could do with a content warning as the suggested trauma could be quite upsetting for people).
Not sure if I was doing everything right; when I put the trauma into the machine at the end I got the grey image of a person and then the game abruptly closed. Was that supposed to happen, or was it a bug?
It's an interesting idea; I was getting "Faith" sort of vibes from the shifts in perspective for the 1st person segment. Worth expanding to explore what happens when that trauma was implanted into someone else.
@amkingtrp unfortunately I did not have time to do what I wanted with this game. Basically originally there were supposed to be a lot more clients. As you progressed you basically would have had manifestations of "burn ins" from your brain being exposed to the signals of the people's trauma (creepy stuff progressively happening in the background). The ending is my least favorite part about this. It's supposed to signify that even after you harvested their trauma it's still in your mind now, driving you insane (something like that). Also there were supposed to be aspects of the company you work for being shady, hence them *harvesting* it and not just removing. Along with the mention of being able to print on other people's minds (basically psychological warfare I was thinking).
But thanks for playing the game! Faith was probably a subconscious inspiration for the perspective segment, because it just came to me but I do love faith. It was more supposed to simulate the "on rails" aspect of dreams. How you're not usually in control of your movement (can only walk forward towards the fear, can't walk.. etc). The role of you is basically exposing their buried trauma since to scan the signals they basically have to relive it, hence their apprehension during the procedure.
You've got a good concept to start with and I'm interested to see where the story goes. It's a great start! There seems to be a problem with the full screen display, where the text goes off the screen.
Oooo this was unsettling, I will be honest I didn't expect to be spooked by the initial art style but the muffled voices, dark screens and really dreamlike, sort of shifting trauma-scape was really unsettling, fantastic mood. I really wanted to see more from this I loved where it was going! I think the lack of music and only occasional sound effects really added to it. It would have been so easy to just have the 3d area be a cutscene but having you actually push forward was just rough in the best way, really forcing the player to go towards the danger.
I think the length of the game does make it hard to stay scared I will say, and as you have mentioned the ending is a bit unclear. I also will admit trauma is always a very sensitive topic, so I would have liked a bit of a content warning, and if you do take it further it would be good just to do some research and not cross any boundaries. This was an interesting short experience though I'm glad you submitted it in extra!
Comments14
This is the most memorable game so far!
But personally speaking the texts, including the notes and dialogs, were not working so smooth as the visual language did to me. I'd prefer more implicit and context-driven texts, which contains more "meaningless" (to the players) and "wired" (but real in the characters' context) information, than just showing the settings.
Not sure if I was doing everything right; when I put the trauma into the machine at the end I got the grey image of a person and then the game abruptly closed. Was that supposed to happen, or was it a bug?
It's an interesting idea; I was getting "Faith" sort of vibes from the shifts in perspective for the 1st person segment. Worth expanding to explore what happens when that trauma was implanted into someone else.
But thanks for playing the game! Faith was probably a subconscious inspiration for the perspective segment, because it just came to me but I do love faith. It was more supposed to simulate the "on rails" aspect of dreams. How you're not usually in control of your movement (can only walk forward towards the fear, can't walk.. etc). The role of you is basically exposing their buried trauma since to scan the signals they basically have to relive it, hence their apprehension during the procedure.
Here’s the start of your game if you wanted to re-watch initial thoughts youtu.be/gfUiPVIkyL0?t=6116
Loved the dreamlike effect of the 3D section, great work on the mood!
The switch from 2D to 3D was a really nice surprise. After reading your comments I'd definitely love to see where you take this concept.
I think the length of the game does make it hard to stay scared I will say, and as you have mentioned the ending is a bit unclear. I also will admit trauma is always a very sensitive topic, so I would have liked a bit of a content warning, and if you do take it further it would be good just to do some research and not cross any boundaries. This was an interesting short experience though I'm glad you submitted it in extra!