Sanity Is Reality by MCHS productions

[raw]
made by MCHS productions for Ludum Dare 49 (COMPO)

Sanity Is Reality is a game in which your existence (and to an extent your reality) depends solely on your mental health, all else secondary.

In most games, you stop existing when you die, or in other words, your existence is tied to your physical health, by those standards, you are long gone. Here, your existence is anchored to your mental health. If you go insane, you, and the world around you, will collapse.

Ratings

Overall 417th 3.15⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 404th 3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 300th 3.25⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 256th 3.6⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 440th 2.905⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 330th 2.929⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 159th 3.5⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 16🗨️

Feedback

megamasterx
05. Oct 2021 · 15:59 UTC
For a compo game this is pretty intriguing. It's unfortunate that it's throwing virus warnings, unfortunately YYG's [article on the matter](https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/articles/360031016592-What-to-do-if-your-game-is-false-positive-detected-as-a-virus) is not very helpful... I hope people give this game a shot! Congrats on clearing the compo.
Oliver Richmeier
06. Oct 2021 · 11:55 UTC
Interesting theme. Game is simple but well balanced, and the audio sets the mood quite well
Nafe
06. Oct 2021 · 12:05 UTC
Interesting little mindf**k of a game. I think I will hear that tune in my dreams tonight haha. What's your highscore? I had fun! :)

Also just as an FYI, even when using 32x32 sprites like your game (and mine), you can use draw HUD instead of draw as well as setting Anti-aliasing to off in your fonts and get text that is much much more clear. <3
PBG
06. Oct 2021 · 12:12 UTC
Cool idea! I like the idea of the physical game you are playing being secondary to a more strategic, cerebral idea. I didn't quite get what the gimmick to the gameplay was, though, since my physical health would loop back to full if it hit zero, and i could recharge my "sanity" just by touching the green spheres. I liked the idea, and the visuals were nice and cohesive. Nicely done.
lukeoco1234
06. Oct 2021 · 12:21 UTC
Fun game and the idea and mood were great. Found you lost health a little too slow. With such simple mechanics it would probably be nice to move through the stages a little quicker to keep it fresh. The actual gameplay and mechanics were great. The movement of the enemies felt good and was unique enough that it wasn't too easy to predict. Great stuff!!
Mouf
06. Oct 2021 · 12:59 UTC
The music is horrible ! xD But that's what make the mood ! There is quite things that need improvement but the idea is good
Hélicule
06. Oct 2021 · 13:17 UTC
A really simple yet intriguing idea. The theme is probably stuck in my head forever tho :')
Harmadillo
06. Oct 2021 · 17:24 UTC
nicely executed game. I thought the initial period with just the green buttons went on too long. It got more interesting with the additional buttons and exploring what they did. Plus the colour/background changes that went with it.
LDJam user 269161
07. Oct 2021 · 10:28 UTC
Nice 8-bit Game! My Highscore was 59!
JUSTCAMH
08. Oct 2021 · 15:01 UTC
Hey matey, thanks for submitting your game to the stream! It was a ton of fun, good job with your game! Here's a link to the vod if you'd like to rewatch; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1170771627
caudatecoder
08. Oct 2021 · 15:09 UTC
Pretty cool concept and implementation!

It looks very simple but it's surprisingly good at making the player feeling insecure and paranoid. Really good take on the theme!

I recorded my playthrough of your game. If you would like to see how a first-time player interacts with your game -- check it out: https://youtu.be/cXpAExWjwSw
mvasko2
08. Oct 2021 · 19:24 UTC
I like the idea of putting mental health over physical one.

However, I didn't really understand the basic mechanics. Does interacting with the monsters drain your sanity? Or do the monsters hurt you physically, but the result is you losing sanity instead of death?

How do those green and red bars relate to that? And what about those circles? I get that you need to pick them up and they replenish the bar if you pick the right color, but the rest is a mystery to me. I think some more explanation of the mechanics would do a lot of good.

The gameplay itself is not a lot of fun for me. I am missing some game mechanic that would spice things up a bit. Walking around the map (even if you are evading monsters) gets boring after a while.

The music is a bit repetitive and the 8-bit style is slightly too aggressive for my ears.

I like the way the world crumbles as you take a lot of mental/physical damage from the monsters, well done!

There's a lot of potential in this idea, and I'd like to see it developed a bit more. This is a promising start.
LDJam user 0
15. Oct 2021 · 01:12 UTC
I'll be honest, when I first started playing I thought this was just gonna be you avoiding some "Bad thoughts" or whatever the circle guys were. But once the "Insainty" effects started coming in I started warming up to the concept of the game. If the extra mechanics came in around, score 5 or so I think it'd give me a chance to get a bit more hooked on the game, because it took far too long for me to start seeing interesting things begin to appear. Overall, the concept has potential, the gameplay just needs to be expanded into more than "Run and grab"
pauljohnprogramming
17. Oct 2021 · 02:10 UTC
I agree with a lot of the comments here, the game has a lot of neat content under the surface. And it gets surprisingly scary. BUT, it takes way too long for any of that stuff to trigger. Players can comfortably get to 40+ score with their health maxed out, and it takes about 40 seconds of deliberately touching the basic ghosts for anything to start happening. Think about it like this, if you have a bait-and-switch esque game, you can't have 80% of the time be the "bait", especially when it is very basic and the "switch" has all the content. I recommend highly increasing the sanity drain over time, and making the thresh hold for when things start to happen at 70%. These two changes should ensure that players encounter the meat of the game, and engage with it for most of the play time. Very cool concept.