Her Bedtime Stories by Emiliabea

Sensitive content warning: Trauma, Sexual Coercion
About
Her Bedtime Stories tells the story of giving in to thoughts related to trauma, through the visual device of a platform that is constantly sinking deeper into a mine. Your role is to observe and help when you can.
Some Bug Fixes:
- Shouldn't skip dialogue anymore
- Music bug, doesn't loop on top of itself
- The ending is not a flash anymore
- letters disappear when they need to
- some more i cant remember...very buggy indeed but I appreciate everyone who took the time to let me know what was up
| Link | https://emiliabh.itch.io/her-bedtime-stories |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/her-bedtime-stories |
Ratings
| Overall | 615th | 3.688⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1714th | 2.632⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 387th | 3.688⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 270th | 4.104⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 485th | 4.042⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 563th | 3.583⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 44th | 4.458⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 20🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
One complaint/comment-- the interface makes it really easy to accidentally skip important dialogue by clicking too quickly. (I probably missed 25% of the speech bubbles by accident, including the very last one.) Might be worth patching that before the gamejam is over.
Otherwise, nice work!
(found a visual bug, when typing, the N didn't fade away when I typed 'STOP')
The only issue I noticed, was the final screen flashes very briefly and then suddenly goes back to the main screen.
The gameplay is just simple enough to let each message/part sink and the art is perfect.
Congratulations and thank you.
I wasn't able to complete the game because when I did get to the section to pull the hand away, after doing so nothing happened - I'm wondering if this might be because I did so before the dialogue showed up? I would have loved to finish up the game, but wasn't feeling up to delving into the material from the beginning again, given it is quite a heavy theme.
Regardless, from what I played it was a very beautiful and deeply though out game. Thanks for the change of pace and the careful thought evidently put into your project. ☆☆☆☆☆
Using the mechanics as a way to tell the story through small interactions is a really powerful tool, and I kind of like what you tried to do in this area (i.e the high "fighting off" countdown to express the protagonist's apparent helplessness, drawing the curved line to represent the unproperly set boundaries...), but my only gripe is that the execution could have been a bit more impactful, as there was a lot of potential here.
Overall, it remains a well made, and refreshingly meaningful submission. Good job.
I always thought games can be a medium for expressing our thoughts, feelings; conveying messages. "Her Bedtime Stories" is an example of that. This game has a powerful message.
I would have loved having to draw the line with the mouse, and maybe having to type no and stop a bit more. I would also have liked to click more during the fight, as it wasn't really long enough to make me feel tired. i would also have made the numbers go up for the amount of effort you have to make to fight back while still being unsuccesful.
But overall, I really liked this game, and I think it sadly resonnate with a lot us : thank you for making this. I also want to thank you for the happy ending, reminding us that we are still allowed to experience happiness even after such a traumatic event