Deep Breath by Saltysa
Deep Breath is an ambiant platformer, where we tried to reproduce some aspects of schizophrenia where you go deeper and deeper into hallucinations! We're really proud of our musics and our layer system.
We truly hope you'll like it, and make it to the end as there is an happy ending!(and sorry the game is harder than we thought)! You may need to set up your keyboard in AZERTY sorry (28/04: Fixed to QWERTY) To make the game a bit more ergonomic we also added the space bar to jump. If you're stuck somewhere : you can press R to respawn.
The game can be finished in around 10 minutes but is pretty hard...
UPDATE : After a good night of sleep and a couple of hours of debugging, we are releasing a corrected version of the build! As specified in the rulebook, we only corrected some near-gamebreaking bugs or things that were there but not showing for some reason... No extra content/mechanics were added. What's been corrected: - Realignment of some platforms/enemies - Dialogs with PNJ now correctly displayed - End cutscene is now correctly triggered
End notes:
All assets, codes, visuals, musics and sounds were created by us during the Jam, with the exception of two text fonts: - MadJoe by 160 Studio - https://www.creativefabrica.com/designer/160-studio/ref/236320/ - OpenDyslexic - https://opendyslexic.org/
Our team: We are Andzura, Heo, Saltysa and Scratch! We pretty much shared most of the work without clear distinctions, except: - Saltysa did all the visuals - Andzura did the cool-as-hell disturbing remix of Scratch's song - Heo taught us everything about Git and its complexity (and we didn't listened... Sorry Heo!) - Scratch cooked (mostly, and with the help of the others, but it was his recipes)
| Link | https://drive.google.com/file/d/14-Ji89pf7je5M3z8PGctXBHvy3eZdv0i/view?usp=sharing |
| Link | https://andzura.itch.io/deep-breath |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deep-breath-3 |
Ratings
| Overall | 762th | 3.6⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1174th | 3.175⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 330th | 3.763⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 357th | 4.038⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 273th | 4.256⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 335th | 3.8⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 338th | 3.962⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 44🗳️ | 60🗨️ |
The game was pretty hard, mostly because I didn't bother with changing the keyboard layout, but it wasn't punishing so dying was never really that much of a deal. Overall this is a great game.
The only issue I had with it was the bug or glitch which kicked you off a moving platform and you couldn't really get back on it.
We'll keep on working on this game outside of the jam to add features we didn't have time to implement and fix a couple of bugs :)
@adonisdevs Thank you for your nice comment! That's definetely something we'll have to improve upon
@erilhir Thank you so much for playing! We really wanted to communicate those emotions so your comment means a lot to us
I think the level design is great, but if the player would jump just a little bit higher some frustration at hard jumps could be avoided. At some points I wished that I could switch to an higher level faster, though I get that the point is to calm down, so I wouldn't change the breathing time to much.
I'm also very impressed on the result of the layer changes in the dialogue. It's crazy how one's perspective can change/manipulate the perception of meaning and intention. Definitely food for thought!
I played the WebGL Version and the controls seem to work on my QWERTZ keyboard layout. Though I feel like "W" is a bit unergonomic for jumping. Midgame I switch to my steam controller an mapped the controls to it, which helped me a lot. While writing this, I checked if you had controller support on my XBox controller and I noticed you can move and jump with the default Unity layout (Left-Stick + Y [though A would fit better, imho), but I couldn't switch layers. I'd love to see this with controller support to explore a longer journey :slight_smile:
@ansick @learus We fixed the controls : it should be easier to play now
@merlinnsound Each layer changes the level : it can make platforms appear or disappear. You also have to keep an eye on ennemies, as their behaviour change depending on the layers. You'll have to change layers in order to advance in the game. We still have a few bugs (collisions mostly), sorry about that. We can't really fix it as it's not really gamebreaking so its against the jam rules but we'll keep working on this game outside of the jam
@hybitous Thank you for playing: I'm glad you liked the game! I agree that the jump on W isn't the most practical : we'll keep working on this game and we'll probably add controller support :)
I only got as far as the town because I fell down the hole and was just stuck off screen at the bottom, couldnt see the character. The qwerty/azerty problem is still there in the windows version too.
I would be interested in playing this again when some of the bugs are fixed, it certainly has a lot of potential and you have done a great job with it.
The music and the esthetics were great. And the highlighted words were a really nice touch.
A few questions / remarks though :
- to get the cat picture below the village, you have to jump on a little platform : I tried with every layer but went through with each one ; not sure if a collision bug or I'm just missing something ?
- when meeting the girl at the exit of the village, she says she's got something for us, but...nothing happens ?
- I got stuck in a loop of death near the beginning of the game (the same @erilhir described sooner) : when you're at the highest level of anxiety, you can't get back fast to a lower level of anxiety. And the flying ennemy keeps rushing at you. Maybe respawning at a medium level of anxiety (and not the one where you died) would solve this issue ?
- The immediate death when changing layer and popping on an ennemy was really punishing. Maybe a few invulnerability frames when changing layer ? Or just preventing from switching layer if this leads to an immediate death ?
Really nice job 👍
We'll fix the problem with the hole in the village soon (since it stops people from advancing in the game it should be okay to fix it I think).
We really loved working on this game, so we'll keep on improving it after the event!
1. In the first scene, I died in high level of hallucinations, and the checkpoint was right next to a hand. This meant that every time I respawned, there was a flying hand right next to me chasing me. I didn't have time to breath to calm it down. I couldn't escape in time and then breathe. I had to restart the game.
2. In the second scene, I pressed 'Q' to go deeper in hallucinations, but it seems I was at a spot where a platform appears, so it pushed me down through the wall and left me alive out of bounds. I had to restart the game.
3. In the second scene, there were some stairs that go up. I kept climbing, and when I jumped up the map, It transitioned to a scene with the town. However, I didn't have height, so the character got stuck down the well or pit, a bit like #2, so I was stuck there and I had to restart.
I still find the game great in some categories, the music, art, and idea are really on point for the mood the game tries to give. I'm looking forward to these issues being fixed, because the game looks promising and I'd like to try the game without these frustrations. If there's more updates, I'll definitely come back to play again. Still, well done!
@ravengar : oops that didn't happen to any of us yet! We added a respawn function : you just have to press R to respawn to the latest chackpoint
@albertnez : Thanks for playing! I'll be adressing each point you made
1/ We changed the respawn point for this part : you should now be safe from this death loop.
2/ We added a respawn button! If you're oob you can press R and it should bring you back to the latest checkpoint 🙂
3/ We now kill the player if he's stuck at the bottom of the pit, so now you'll respawn on top of it
Thank you so much for your detailed review
@hamblock : We changed the respawn point for this area! You should be out of reach of the flying hand now 🙂
I totally forgot about Medievil but now that I see the game cover I'm almost certain I had this game when I was a child! Thanks for the trip down memory lane
I had a problem with it tho: I never knew how "deep" should I be to overcome each obstacle. I feel like there wasn't really any indication, specially later on.
I managed to complete it anyway. Very enjoyable game!
What a beautiful game, in all aspects!
What a unique way to bring up the theme, with nice mechanics, well explained, incredible graphics and a lot of heart! One of the most valuable experiences I had in this gameJam.
Thank you guys for making this great game, and share it with us.
At the same time, I felt that the fast moving enemies cut against the more somber mood of the piece. Things that move fast convey a high-energy feeling, but the rest of the atmosphere was more somber and melancholy, which feel low-energy to me. I think my entry had a similar issue; luckily, it's usually one that's not too difficult to tweak.
You've got a lot to be proud of here, keep up the good work!
Great entry.
I have some issues with readability (greyish-brown hazards on greyish-brown background don't stand out enough for me), and platforming (controls aren't tight enough for a platformer: the jump isn't particularly enjoyable, pressing E while moving makes you glide along the floor, etc.).
Good work overall, that's a cool jam entry that could be cleaned-up easily in the future.
5/5 graphics and mood, I absolutely love your style and your game atmosphere 💕
The game is full of good ideas and the main mechanic is nice.
The platforming mechanics could have been better, but that is very hard to do and almost impossible to get right in such short time.
Great job and thanks for the game!
Anyway, the game is amazing! The music a fantastic, and I know I already said it but it needs to be said again, the artwork is outstanding. I absolutely love the main character. Great job!
