It's always there by Mr MadCat

[raw]
made by Mr MadCat for LD31 (JAM)
A dark, sad and also philosophical game.

This is my first game jam without a team. I started by thinking about how to display a large area entierly on the screen while still having some level of detail. When I came up with the idea I used in this game I started trying to figure out the gameplay, since all games I worked on so far were purely (or mostly) gameplay driven games. But I couldn't come up with any good gameplay idea surrounding the screen mechanics. So I started thinking about the game in a more philosophical way. What can I see? How can I interprete it?
Well, the result is as said a dark and sad purely story driven game with three different and quite open endings.

Edit: This Spoiler.
[SPOILER!]
Since several people seemed to have trouble finding the different endings here is a hint of how to get them. At the end of running away, when the music stops, don't run directly into it. Maybe already slow down in the room before.
[END_SPOILER!]

I have almost no knowledge or experience with making music, yet I wanted to create all the assets for this game by myself. I even recorded the sound effects using some mythical artifacts lying around on my desk.

Game made in Unity using C#. 3D-Models made in Blender, Textures with Gimp, Music and Soundeffects using Audacity and MidiEditor.

Although I couldn't cover all I wanted to do (I had to cut out about a fourth of the story and rooms and couldn't do much polish), I am quite happy with the result.
Please let me know what you think about the game, what is good and what is bad.

Controls: WASD/Arrows to move, Space to interact.
And most important: m to mute the sound ;)

Edit: also made Linux-Build available. I had no chance of testing it earlier and I didn't want to share a maybe not working version. So here it is.

Ratings

Coolness 48% 1414
Overall(Jam) 2.83 802
Audio(Jam) 2.61 532
Fun(Jam) 2.32 939
Graphics(Jam) 2.39 869
Innovation(Jam) 3.00 524
Mood(Jam) 3.38 267
Theme(Jam) 2.96 890

Feedback

panda
09. Dec 2014 · 02:57 UTC
Very smart use of the theme! The story aspect fleshes out the game. The end is psychedelic!
I found myself sometimes waiting for the text to finish appearing. Perhaps it could come faster?
Taldius
09. Dec 2014 · 03:02 UTC
Nice game.

I didn't really catched the philosophy behind the game because I was running all the time from my shadow and didn't have time to read.

It's a little hard to understand how everything work, but the experience is still here, especially at the end when everything fall apart.
Wilou1428
11. Dec 2014 · 18:28 UTC
Nice mood!
regisRquoi
11. Dec 2014 · 18:34 UTC
Great efforts with music on this one. I would not say the music itself is great, but you make a great use of it! (which is quite better than just having a cool music and do nothing with it).
regisRquoi
11. Dec 2014 · 18:39 UTC
(raaahg, half of my comment has gone! Let's do this again)

I think you did something wrong with the theme. Well, the Idea is cool, but the resizing of the image is completely looking bad, and it's not good for your game. Theme is supposed to help your game, not the opposite! Anyway, I still felt like the game was changing the screen everytime I go through a door.. Maybe you would have need a transition effect between two rooms?

Good story telling also, for a game jam it's pretty cool! :)
hundredhundred
13. Dec 2014 · 11:46 UTC
The game had a very good scary mood to it! loved it good entry
🎤 Mr MadCat
13. Dec 2014 · 12:52 UTC
Thanks for all the Feedback.
@panda: The text probably might be better readable if it came faster. That's true.
@Taldius: Yeah, I guess that's a problem. Maybe it would have been beter if the gameplay had stopped at every room until the player could read the text. Although the best method would prabably be to have all the texts as audio ;)
@regisRquoi: The transition effect is a good idea. I had originally intended to do something like that, but I barely had the time to get the game into this state. Concerning the music, I know it's not great, it was the first time I tried to make music. I'm glad that you still liked how I used it.
skulioskarsson
13. Dec 2014 · 13:15 UTC
Well done
hogtrick
13. Dec 2014 · 15:38 UTC
pretty crazy game. I liked it. But didn't read all of the text because was running in the game ahahah
TyrusPeace
14. Dec 2014 · 18:13 UTC
Cool rendering effects, especially at the end. Before that point I was thinking the graphics were a bit rough/glitchy, but when it actually became part of the game and its story I really appreciated it. The music helps accentuate when things hit the fan but I was happy for that "m" key at other times.

Moody and insightful. Well done.
01rafael
14. Dec 2014 · 20:14 UTC
This game is really psychodelic! )))
HappyTransportGames
14. Dec 2014 · 20:17 UTC
It took me a while to understand what was "wrong" with the graphics! Then I saw what you did! Clever...
Nikteddy92
14. Dec 2014 · 20:29 UTC
Omg.. This is deep...
Nice game, well done!
snickersnacks
29. Dec 2014 · 04:12 UTC
This was a really cool story. I liked playing through it and felt like it definitely had a cool meaning behind it. Great job! You have a great storytelling ability. I love where it got all shaky.