Angst by Silas Reinagel
*Angst is a 2D adventure-exploration game about fighting one's inner demons. *
Windows, WebGL, and Mac version available.
We released a post-jam version with critical bugs fixed.
Our interpretation of the theme is keeping Pauline's sanity/positivity alive.
https://youtu.be/xNG5-VZXkmg
A game by Enigma Dragons in collaboration with MLC (https://maxlouiscreative.com/).
About
This is a story of social anxiety and keeping Pauline’s sanity alive
Help a socially anxious lady to make it through a day at her office job without having a panic attack.
Learn how to fight your inner demons by finding healthy ways to discover comfort in a busy and crazy world! You'll encounter various demons inside her "mind forest", use the environment to push them away and get back to the office.
Once you have faced Pauline's demons in her mind and taken down notes into her journal, Pauline will finally understand how to make it through the day without any blackouts.
Can you find all the demons and items to fill up Pauline's journal? Hint: try "facing" your demons..."
Jam Notes
Naturally we ran out of time so here is some helpful info:
- Pills are really effective, but you can only use them once.
- All interactables can be more effective by pairing them with the right item in your inventory.
- Demons have weaknesses against specific items.
- Use your journal to track your progress.
During the jam our team created all of the following: - Music - Sound Effects - Character Art - Environment Art - UI Art - Coding
Controls
- Space/Return - interact
- WSAD - (move)
- ESC - pause
- J - journal
- SHIFT - run (with cooldown)
Installation Instructions
- Download the Zip
- Unzip to a folder of your choice
- Run
angst.exe
Source Code
https://github.com/EnigmaDragons/LDJAM46
Credits
A game by Enigma Dragons in collaboration with MLC (https://maxlouiscreative.com/).
- Executive Producer - Silas Reinagel
- Lead Game Designer - Max Louis (MLC)
- Lead Programmer - Noah Reinagel
- Lead Artist / Character Art - Ludmila Sosa (MLC)
- Lead Tester - Gordy Keene
- Animator - GraphicEdit
- Programmer - Jaroslav Vozar
- Programmer - Mark
- Environment Art - Youghurt (MLC)
- Music Composer - Amerigo Gazaway
- Sound Designer - Trevyn (MLC)
- Tester - Mustafa Contractor
Special Thanks to: - Cassie Conway for naming Pauline (On Twitter) - Elliott Cockett for the eyelid transition (MLC) - Ricardo Hoyos for post processing that didn't make it in because Unity broke! (MLC) - Rhianna Ford for helping with testing, dialogue and social media (MLC)
Soundtrack 🎵
Stream/download "Angst (Original Game Soundtrack)" on Bandcamp: - https://amerigo.bandcamp.com/album/angst-original-game-soundtrack
Update Log
- v0.1.2 - Initial Jam Version
- v0.1.3 - Critical Bugs Fixed Version
- v0.1.4 - Re-added some cut content. More bug fixes.
- v0.1.5 - Evolved the Office scenarios to be more aligned with the original vision.
| Youtube | https://enigmadragons.itch.io/angst |
| Youtube | https://enigmadragons.itch.io/angst |
| Youtube | https://enigmadragons.itch.io/angst |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/angst |
Ratings
| Overall | 672th | 3.725⭐ | 120🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1735th | 3.077⭐ | 119🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 541th | 3.645⭐ | 119🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1582th | 3.496⭐ | 119🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 186th | 4.396⭐ | 122🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 126th | 4.091⭐ | 118🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 96th | 4.226⭐ | 119🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 107🗳️ | 168🗨️ |
There are some small glitches here and there but overall this is a strong game with a lot of potential :) x
Gameplay-wise I didn't really know where I had to go in the forest.
What an awesome effort from your team.
Clearly well polished and a great execution of the theme.
@hoseccan Thanks so much! Really appreciate it!
Good job !! I love the ambiance
Got nuked by a demon about 1s after the transition at day 2 for an instant panic attack but other than that it's a good time, congratulation.
We actually had a user story for showing names and a highlight around the items, but sadly, it didn't make it into the jam version. We'll see about adding that in as a post-jam fix.
The game is well polished and the team did a great job in all aspects of the game !
Excellent job !
However, I had trouble with the controls, I found them imprecise & slow, the sprint feature was too restrective for my taste. So I think that with a little optimization on the movement system, it would be nicer !
But apart from that, really good work, your game reminded me a lot of Don't Starve, which is a good thing for me !
Music is great and so is artwork (loved the cat poster :D). Keep up the good work!
Sometimes I felt a little bit lsot with what to do next ( sticky notes in journal were almost unreadable), but I guess that's one of the traits of anxiety too.
Well executed game!!
would love to see what you do next with it!
Great job!!!
@ulcius Thanks so much for your great comment! We took a lot of inspiration from Don't Starve so I'm glad that comes across! Your comment about our art means a lot. We definitely will be adding more dialogue and context in our post-jam version, as well as the font size on the sticky notes, even if we just make it a tiny bit bigger! Really appreciate your feedback :)
@black-flag Glad you liked the atmosphere and dialogue so much! For sure - our intention is absolutely to balance the time spent in real world and "mind" forest - that was a "we've run out of time" thing! In our post-jam version, you'll see a lot more time spend in the office, as we agree it should be more evenly split. Thanks for letting us know about the cursor on web - didn't know that was happening so will definitely look into that. Thank you so much!
@devilqube Thank you so much - we really tried to make the audio set the mood so glad that works out!
@jamesolivermusic Thank you so much for all of your kind comments! For sure - in our post-jam version, we're 100% fixing up the office. We want Pauline to spend more time there too and for more "good" things to happen, so she's not constantly having blackouts. We ran out of time haha! Thanks again!! :D
@yeti-kid So pleased about your comments relating to graphics and audio! Means so much to us. It does - hopefully a lot of people can relate and that it helps people somewhat. It's a tricky balance to cover a sensitive topic. Thank you for leaving a great comment! :)
Jokes aside, very well done with the aesthetics. All elements have a cohesive style and feel solid.
The backgrund music is really nice and fits well.
I'd love to see a little more variety going forwards, rather than just exploring around and interacting with the right item. Obviously it's a jam game, and for the time we had this is a great effort; but if you keep developing it further, I'd love to have some minigames or just different encounters in the blackout sections.
Overall, great job! Would love to see more in the future.
I also included your game in my video. Hope you like it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93xk24_f670
EDIT: Looks like your version was SUPER bugged out, missed out on a lot, sorry about that! I think we've fixed all those issues now haha!
Art is gorgeous, music creepy, story engaging. Solid entry.
Cheers!
@marcusnystrand Haha yes, just like in real life ;) Thank you so much, so glad it feels solid even though it is quite buggy still! We're excited to make it even more solid in our post-jam version. Love that you enjoyed the music and think it fits - great to hear!
@tom-robson Your comment is amazing! Love how you feel like you could relate, in a good way! Oh for sure, we'd LOVE to introduce some mini games too! We want to have more of a story moving forward and see Pauline in different settings too. We have a lot of ideas up our sleeve and so happy to hear you see its potential! Thanks so much!
@taran-unraveler Totally fair enough! We wanted to keep it as real as possible and didn't want anything too crazy but can definitely see what you're saying. It's something we'll definitely bear in mind! Glad you enjoyed it, thank you!
@ryzy27 Thanks so much - "art is gorgeous" - wow!! Glad the story ws engaging too - it was something we were desperately trying to get across with such a short time so I'm glad you were engaged. We're working on making it even more engaging so that's given us a huge boost that we're headed in the right direction! Thank you!
@lairinlair Awesome, thanks a lot! Haha, we were definitely inspired by Don't Starve! Glad you love the soundtrack too :)
@kate90 Thanks very much! Agreed - we need to add more story parts in our post-jam version, we couldn't squeeze it all in before submission unfortunately! You give some great feedback, thank you! :)
Not sure if I missed something, but I was confused by the interactable items. Which ones could be picked up in the other world wasn't always obvious. But I'm also confused on how to use anything besides the pills. Like how to combine them for different interactions?
Minor issue, but some of the text went by too quick to read, though most of those seemed to appear twice.
Otherwise the game is really well developed for this jam. It would be interesting to see this concept developed into a full game. Nice job overall!
That's a good transition to some criticism:
- It seems like you "only" have one map that is recycled for each game play session. Would've been cool to start out with a smaller one and get bigger each day. That way, the player isn't overwhelmed with the sheer size of that labyrinth (I was, and didn't know what I had to do) and you have some natural progression in difficulty.
- It wasn't clear, what I had to to in the head space. Sometimes collecting coffee did the trick, other times I couldn't get out before the panic attack. A little more transparency would be nice to prevent player frustration.
- The web version was presented rather small and I wasn't able to read all of the texts. Especially the jounrnal was a problem that way.
- Since the maps are always the same, the initial fascination dwindles pretty fast. I lost motivation at day 3 because I thought, that I've already seen all the game has to offer game play wise. It wasn't clear how many days there were or if it even has an end.
All in all, a very good entry! Very polished experience, great art and eerie mood! Good job
@randomhuman Thanks for your comment about our art! Totally agree, we wanted to add more elementsin the office, and plan to in our post-jam version, just ran out of time! We are also going to be making it so the mind forest map is much smaller to begin with, so that it's less overwhelming and it's clearer what to do. The goal is to fill up your journal to beat your anxiety which we need to make clearer too! So glad we communicated the struggle of anxiety well, it was a difficult balance but so glad you appreciated that! Thanks so much!
@thecritterscove Brilliant that you loved the mood, atmosphere and visuals, woohoo! Seems like you found it intense too. We're adding a slight glow around the interactable items in our post-jam version to make it more obvious. We need to make the "recipes" a bit clearer too i.e. if you find the water bottle, it makes pills more effective. It is in the journal but could be more obvious for sure. Text we are also fixing, glad you pointed that out! Thank you for all of your feedback!
This was my first jam and the scope was a little too big (we ran into a 3 hour bug wall of death for the final stretch lol). This saw us cut our smaller map from the intro, cut the office interactions out and stopped us from getting a fair bit of content we wanted in. That being said, I think now we have seen people play, we've learnt a lot about the gameplay and how we could now direct it to be more fun!
Again, thanks for your review, you are spot on! Wish we had one more day to make this really something!
Art sound and mood were fabulous of course, the concept is there and I eventually understood we are searching for coping mechanisms for pauline depending on the emotions she's struggling with. The gameplay needs small tweaks for empowerment! Perhaps item highlights in the UI when enhancers are present, halos around pickups in the world, "GPS" arrows to important items when close enough/ after a certain time spent struggling, a bit more run speed and stamina for sprint... I didn't understand the purpose of eyeglasses, icecubes, water bottles... but now reading comments and descriptions these might enhance other stress/para/humi fighting items however I didn't feel they were effective during my quest.
The art is really good (remembered me Don't Starve which I think it was a huge reference) and the way you guys approached the theme is very nice. Congratulations!
There certainly needs to be tweaks for empowerment, I love that you have used that word. Great review thank you very much!
Other than that, what you made is incredible :D
- Mood setting that blends perfectly between audio, graphics + processing visuals
- Proper and clear design with no obvious bugs
Great job on completing this game :)
I liked the various gameplay elements and how they were implemented, and can definitely see the potential. It would be nice to have more/equal content in the office environment, as all that constant diving in and out of the inner landscape was weirdly disorienting and enhanced the general feeling of helplessness as the player. But hey, it's a JAM entry, and none of us ever have enough time to implement all the things we'd like. Overall, it was beautifully designed, and the core idea shows great promise. I look forward to seeing further developments!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oKXYWHr9JA
@savvu Haha my girlfriend literally screams when the different demons appear lol. Slenderman was 10000% one of our inspirations! Glad you spotted that! Thanks so much for your incredibly kind comment, glad you enjoyed!:)
@vesper Hahahaha I love this comment so much!! Sounds like you were totally immersed which is exactly what the aim was. For sure - we are in the process of creating more in office content - we did create it but didn't implement it in time! We also want to add some happier aspects to Pauline's life so that it's more realistic. Thanks so much, totally overwhelmed by your kind words! Saved and shared them to the team too. Thanks!
Really wonderful atmosphere in her inner world!
But onto the game! The concept is really cool. I loved exploring the dark, twisted forest as a representation of dealing with inner demons. The graphics were also nice and the music was very pleasant. Together they created a very nice atmosphere. Overall a very nice jam job! And I won, defeated my demons and everything :)
I didn't like two things. The walking animation - it was very stiff, like our heroine has no knees whatsoever. And the notification sound that was constantly playing in the office. It was confusing me very much, as it felt like this notification is for me (the player) but it wasn't. For the first minute or so, I was frantically looking at the screen and everywhere to try to establish what kind of in-game event is notifying me so much :laughing:
Also, it felt to me that the description of pills is misrepresenting their effect a bit. From them being "so very effective" I figured that taking them will just take me out of my headspace imediately. But it doesn't work like that. But that may be only me ;)
I noticed quite a bit of performance problems in the forest, in the web version on full screen. In windowed mode it was much better but in fulls screen forest was "hitching" all the time. It was like the movement was going on frame by frame practically. There were also some problems with layering/colliders and I was walking on top of things I shouldn't be walking on. Like this:
So pills are the most effective item in the game at pushing back demons, however, they only work at 80% effectiveness if you don't have water. If you take them when holding water, you'll get a 20% added bonus to make it 100% effectiveness :)
There are a few elements in the game like this, that would have made for interesting gameplay. It's a shame we never managed to get the explination/tutorial into the game to help new players realise that!
Again thanks a lot man! :D
That was fun! Cool entry :smile:
Though I have to admit I was a bit lost on the gameplay. I never really understood what some objects in my inventory were, and if what I was doing was good or bad ^^ Some sort of tutorial would really help to enhance the experience with your game which, to me, has a lot of potential! :smile:
That being said, I really liked the idea and could definitely relate. Very original and fun to play, great job!
I must admit it wasn't exactly clear to me how to escape though. I clicked on some "normal" items and sometimes that worked but sometimes it didn't. :thinking:
I found that collecting the items relied on RNG half the time, as it took awhile for me to find a book that finally got rid of my Humiliation bar (which was confusing because I thought MP3 player + headphones helped mainly with that, which didn't work if I recall correctly, and I thought that "good vibes" related to the motivational posters).
I think a nice little addition to the HUD in the evil realm would be a stamina bar, just so the player could tell when they depleted their sprint.
I also found it odd that drinking coffee did not affect my paranoia bar, even though it suggests it would. I'm not too sure, never saw paranoia go up when I drank coffee.
Either way, you guys did a spectacular job on this game!
I have some suggestions for improvement: the font size of the post-its in the journal should be bigger. The movement was very frustrating, because of the big collision boxes.
It was repetitive after some time and it wasn't clear what you have to do. From a gaming perspective this was annoying. But I think, this also has a point, because if you suffer from a mental illness you feel like that very often. Like being stuck in a loop. I have no idea how you can solve this dilemma.
Congratulations to this game. It's brave to make a game about such a difficult topic and you did an amazing job!
@sticmac thanks a lot for playing! You’re totally right with everything you say! :D
@mykola thanks for the feedback! Interesting that you had performance issues, that may be related to using the web edition. Thanks a lot!
@wdebowicz haha wow thanks so much! Really glad you enjoyed it.
@winniehell thanks for playing and the feedback! We’ve since added a glow to items that you can interact with as it was confusing to tell the difference with the office environment items.
@sharbelfs this is true. Although confusing, what I find interesting is that most people get the idea after a while. This is common of course in games, however I think we need to make it feel more intention so players know they feel lost at the start, but that will change as they develop as a player.
@jontherealjon thanks so much! We actually removed the stamina bar as it seemingly took away from the minimalistic vibe of the UI. We have since decided with the feedback, that wasnt the best call and will be putting one back in. I think you’re the first to really see the issues witb the game mechanics. They are all coded in, but we had to plug in the numbers to variables so fast at the end that they arent really setup properly. The effects you talk about had since been fixed in the version we are working on.
@merlinnsound oh how interesting! It would have been great to have a clinical QA on this game like yourself to check our interpretations on mental health issues - a luxury beyond scope of a game jam. Thanks for the feedback and foe playing! I’d love to gear how we did on the mental health education front?
Story-wise, you took on something very challenging, and I personnaly think it came out a bit short. Trying to tackle the subject of mental health in 72h is definitly risky, and while I applaud the attempt, I thought it was somewhat clumsy. I suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, and playing the game made me more and more unconfortable as I continued playing - to the point I even got a bit angry and anxious. While it is true that even the most minor thing can trigger one, I disliked the shortcut of the character not being able to go through a single thing and blacking-out all the time to serve the gameplay. It is just a very personal opinion, not really well explained, and maybe it just isn't a game to be played by people who do suffer from anxiety/PAs, but I thought I would share it nonetheless.
This game was the very first attempt by our lead game designer to create an emotional journey, and since he doesn't personally suffer from anxiety/PAs, it was definitely a little bit of a reach. There have been some people who it did resonate with, and some people who have experience that said this wasn't quite what their experience is like. We definitely want to learn anything we can to make a better game like this in the future. Do you have any suggestions for ways to approach the topic in a more nuanced or realistic way? Was it just the unpolished-ness of the office scenes that bothered you, or would there be some other ways to improve the game feel and representation?
The only clear advices I could give might be : 1. Make the story more.. blurry? Leave things to the interpretation. Don't say "this is pills", "this is humiliation", "those are blackouts and panic attacks", etc. 2. Have a more balanced life "cycle", not three seconds in the office then everything in the forest - it can be interesting to have two very differently paced gamephases, would serve the story and subject at hand better too. The dark forest as headspace with darkness closing in isn't a bad metaphor, either.
Also, nice interpretation of the theme. I like that you explored a concept like this in a game bcs its connected to reality.. Reminds me kinda of Molleindustria's 'Everyday the same dream'.
Collisions are a bit annoying and gameplay feels a bit repetitive after some point... :sweat_smile: but other than that I think this is an amazing entry! Great job!!
As already mentioned your team is just the biggest I have seen in any game jam so far and this is clearly visible in your game too. You can see all the work that was put into the game.
I played the 0.1.3 version for the sake of the jam, because the 0.1.5 post jam version might have stuff in there that would falsify my rating
Let's talk about the parts I liked about your game.
The music is awesome. I really like the menu with the sliding animation. Might steal this for a future game ;)
The controls in general feel good and I love that you put a sprint button in there because the normal speed gets boring after a while.
The graphics are also very nice. I like the office scene a lot with all the animations going on and the sound in the background.
I also enjoyed your take on the theme and the point that you focused on a very important topic. Anxiety. It is very important to show people who don't suffer from anxiety how it feels for people who does and the game medium is really awesome for that.
However. I was really confused by the mind forest part. I was just wandering around, not really knowing what to look for. The only thing that I was sure was really good was coffee, but I only found 2 during the several trips I made to the forest. I was not sure if it was good to go to the forest, why I got out of the forest at some points.
The monsters/demons were also a little confusing. Some of them cause a direct panic attack, others just increase the stress. The shadow ones do nothing or basically just show the paranoia.
I was not sure what the glasses, the sugar cubes and one other thing (can't remember what it was) was doing. I was checking the journal and there was no useful information about them.
I made it to day 4 with something like 8 blackouts and 3 panic attacks. No idea if that is good or bad.
But. As I found the book for the first time which is great for paranoia (if I remember correctly), the game jumped to the end screen. That was a rough and completely unexpected end :D
The forest also gave me some walking simulator vibes which in general is ok, but there was just no clear goal in which direction I have to go and the story was only progressing in the real world. So it was a little boring to wander around aimlessly.
The forest background/ground also was a little weird with the the character just running over the printer and plants and stuff, but that's ok for a game jam game.
Overall, I would say that it's a nice game, with some points that should be clarified to the played better.
Unfortunately I could not progress after day 3. It told me to look for something on my desk, but there was nothing to interact with? Maybe I was just too dumb.
Anyway, what I thought was kinda strange is that sometimes you get a very clear hint on what to do, like "drink some coffee". On the other hand I was sometimes running around completely unknown to me where to go or what to pick up and interact with. But maybe that was part of the game?
However, I enjoyed most parts of it and think, that the level of detail is amazing for a jam. Good job!