Sanity by JonRB
Lo and behold! The final product!
This is without exception the best game I've ever made (Which is a little bit depressing but hey, I've got something to better next time!
The theme threw me off balance a little, but I soon embraced it when I realised that I didn't have to do any sprite drawing.
As per usual, I ended up writing the music for the game long before I actually knew what I was going to make the game about. I was hoping to try and include a guitar piece (Being a learner guitarist, I'll take any excuse to play it. Unfortunately, while I came up with quite a nice solo, I couldn't play it fast enough to fit the music I already had.
* About the game:
'Sanity' is a dive into the mind of the narrator, whose mind was lost long ago. I tried my best with eerie music and abstract graphics to paint the insane mind.
You control a spark of conciousness - The last dregs of thought the narrator possesses. You must navigate the near-empty mindscape, trying to find the most 'comfortable' point on the screen using W, A, S and D. The closer to red your spark of conciousness becomes, the further away from your destination you are. But beware! Dark thoughts also roam the otherwise blank plains of the narrator's mind, which try and draw you into a false sense of security (You appear blue near them, as well as your true destination).
I should probably point out now that there's no end to the narrator's insanity. Later on in the game you will notice him beginning to question whether he will ever be reunited with his mind. I encourage you to post what level you can get to before the dark thoughts overwhelm you in the comment section.
I tried my best to keep to the theme of minimalism - You'll notice that the graphics are quite basic (Although I'm quite proud of how a few little basic things can add up to a quite nice interface. The gameplay is simplistic enough - Plough your way through the levels. The first few should be easy as long as you keep moving. There aren't terribly many features - Move, survive - And in fact I imagine that most seasoned game makers could probably make this in a couple of hours. But I'm proud of it, and I hope you like it too.
Special thanks to jelly (That's British-style jelly - The wobbly stuff in a bowl) for keeping me fuelled throughout the 36h of development.
This is without exception the best game I've ever made (Which is a little bit depressing but hey, I've got something to better next time!
The theme threw me off balance a little, but I soon embraced it when I realised that I didn't have to do any sprite drawing.
As per usual, I ended up writing the music for the game long before I actually knew what I was going to make the game about. I was hoping to try and include a guitar piece (Being a learner guitarist, I'll take any excuse to play it. Unfortunately, while I came up with quite a nice solo, I couldn't play it fast enough to fit the music I already had.
* About the game:
'Sanity' is a dive into the mind of the narrator, whose mind was lost long ago. I tried my best with eerie music and abstract graphics to paint the insane mind.
You control a spark of conciousness - The last dregs of thought the narrator possesses. You must navigate the near-empty mindscape, trying to find the most 'comfortable' point on the screen using W, A, S and D. The closer to red your spark of conciousness becomes, the further away from your destination you are. But beware! Dark thoughts also roam the otherwise blank plains of the narrator's mind, which try and draw you into a false sense of security (You appear blue near them, as well as your true destination).
I should probably point out now that there's no end to the narrator's insanity. Later on in the game you will notice him beginning to question whether he will ever be reunited with his mind. I encourage you to post what level you can get to before the dark thoughts overwhelm you in the comment section.
I tried my best to keep to the theme of minimalism - You'll notice that the graphics are quite basic (Although I'm quite proud of how a few little basic things can add up to a quite nice interface. The gameplay is simplistic enough - Plough your way through the levels. The first few should be easy as long as you keep moving. There aren't terribly many features - Move, survive - And in fact I imagine that most seasoned game makers could probably make this in a couple of hours. But I'm proud of it, and I hope you like it too.
Special thanks to jelly (That's British-style jelly - The wobbly stuff in a bowl) for keeping me fuelled throughout the 36h of development.
Ratings
| Coolness | 71% | 3 |
| Overall | 3.26 | 457 |
| Audio | 3.75 | 56 |
| Fun | 2.56 | 940 |
| Graphics | 3.36 | 336 |
| Humor | 2.00 | 714 |
| Innovation | 3.84 | 90 |
| Mood | 3.63 | 97 |
| Theme | 3.72 | 381 |
Great job with the atmosphere too!
Just make sure you correct some of the typos in the future. :)
I've fixed them and left the old source in the same directory as the game and new source.
You should use arrows on a keyboard because it's AZERTY friendly.
Locating the goal was difficult because those last few shades of blue are very hard to discern. I have no idea how you'd improve the mechanic without diminishing your treatment of the theme, though.
Thanks for this.
There are a few tweaks you could do.
It really annoys the player if every time he lose, he restarted the whole game. I'd suggest you to make it so that the player restarts only the level where he lost the game. :)
Asides from that, i really enjoyed your entry! And i'd play it if you ever intend to keep working on this :)
Big points for audio; particularly for integrating it into the actually gameplay mechanics.
The only thing I can think of that hasn't already been said, is that because of the sound mixing (lovely, by the way), I found myself working with echolocation.
When I noticed I was doing this, I felt really badass.
I must thank you for this feeling.