Keep It Alive by Deadwave Games

[raw]
made by Deadwave Games for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

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Keep It Alive - by Deadwave Games

CONTENT WARNING: Death: of children and animals, Blood, Murder, Body Horror, Swearing.

An interactive horror story.

It has music - so get those headphones on!

Apologies to any non-English speakers, there's quite a bit of reading - so if you struggle, maybe skip this one, but thanks for stopping by.

Please, if you could avoid any spoilers in the comments, we'd really appreciate it!

Ratings

Overall 228th 3.984⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1258th 3.3⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1053th 3.371⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 661th 3.922⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1345th 3.531⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Audio 91th 4.172⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Mood 6th 4.594⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 37🗨️

Feedback

curtamyth
21. Apr 2020 · 08:12 UTC
Scary! The music really added to the experience. Someone show this to Stephen King and he'll start making interactive fiction. Very well done.
DemKimos
21. Apr 2020 · 08:16 UTC
I did not look at the horror warning before starting. Thankfully, I played it during the day; quite disturbing :sweat_smile:. I like the way you pace and get the player moving.
Fazy
21. Apr 2020 · 08:51 UTC
Wow! The writing and mood is excellent, also supported by a fantastic choice font and visual style.
And the way player progresses through the game works so well, adding a lot of suspense and tension.
As someone who occasionally enjoys the musical works of Myrkur, Chelsea Wolfe, Vàli and similar, I have to say I loved the music, it fits so well.

And it is freaking terrifying. I hate it, in a good way. I was horrified by the inevitability, the choice to make it that way really works.
To be clear, I found the game so terrifying that at some point I almost could not keep going. I do not read horror stories and I have to say that this felt a lot more scary than Amnesia. I did manage to finish it but oh gods.

Extremely well done horror text game, simple but so on point. Much better than the same story in static text, the game format helped so much.

Notes: I had to look away from the game and the music ran out. I think the music running out did hit the mood but writing was so good I still felt it strongly.
bigsylvain
21. Apr 2020 · 09:39 UTC
The soundtrack was awesome! (I let it play in the background even while not playing :D)

I also really liked the few artworks, it fitted nice in the story.
ed3187
21. Apr 2020 · 10:34 UTC
@fazy Thanks so much for the feedback, we did experiment with looping the music but it didn't quite work either
KynanTokoro
21. Apr 2020 · 14:01 UTC
The atmospheric sounds were super cool. tough I had hard time reading, since English is not my first language. so I gave up ....
Le Slo
21. Apr 2020 · 15:37 UTC
Both the soundtrack and the writing were super well tangled. It's a shame that once the song ends it doesn't loop, so the mood is a bit killed. Also I figured out that the choices weren't really choices, just an illusion of choice, so they weren't really adding anything. Please keep writing and making music!
Raivk
21. Apr 2020 · 15:40 UTC
That mood.. Nailed it ! Really well made. Well written, good audio. Won't spoil anything for newcommers so won't say much more, but yeah cool entry.
WilhelmStein
22. Apr 2020 · 09:06 UTC
Excellent mood and sound design!
Haro Games
22. Apr 2020 · 09:44 UTC
Amazing game, i'm not a fan of text-based game but this one hooked from the start to the end with an interesting story, great music and cool art. Good job !
SkelleRoznik
22. Apr 2020 · 17:00 UTC
This is awesome! So atmospheric, so interesting, so scary! I love it. Amazing job.
PonyPen
24. Apr 2020 · 10:45 UTC
Cool atmospheric soundtrack! The game was well written and you totally nailed the mood!
SaltFactory Studio
26. Apr 2020 · 02:19 UTC
Not only that the soundtrack in the background is impressive, but also the storyline. Really well written that just makes the reader wanting more after every lines. Combined with the music that slowly pushes you along, this makes a great horror reading experience. Amazing work!.
kiddychris
30. Apr 2020 · 17:46 UTC
Amazing! The music is sooo atmospheric! The story is great. The only thing – in my case music ended much earlier than I finished the game (maybe I read too slowly), but the soundtrack was so good that it would be nice to listen to it throughout the whole game. Anyway thanks for the game, it was a real pleasure to play!

BTW: are there different engings? I'm asking because there were different options sometimes
Nathalia Hohl
01. May 2020 · 22:23 UTC
That was an amazing experience, the mood was spot on. The soundtrack helped a lot in achieving this.

My only complain is that sometimes music was too loud and I had to turn it down a little and then the ambient sound was too low.

The writing was really good. Please keep exploring this genre.
divadyugi
06. May 2020 · 18:26 UTC
Amazing game. The music creates a great atmosphere for the story, and the story itself is very good too.
hgcummings
07. May 2020 · 15:17 UTC
Oh wow, this was great. Not the kind of game I normally play but this was really compelling and kept me hooked until the end. The writing is very good. Excellent mood too, and the minimal graphics were really well done.

It did seem a bit light on interactivity for interactive fiction. When it offered choices they didn't seem to impact the story much (I replayed it to confirm this, but even on first playthrough it felt like the story was quite on-rails). Obviously that's quite understandable for a jam game, but if you're planning to expand on this it would be great if the story could branch a bit more.