The March to heaven by damakuno
Synopsis
It’s the year 2022. Despite modern advances to healthcare, there are still some things that modern medicine can’t cure. Your sister suffers from one such condition and their body is gradually shutting down. They can be preserved for a short while using life support devices, but their demise is inevitable...
Description
A visual novel with sim elements, juggle between managing stress and earning enough cash to pay for hospital bills, as you make different choices throughout the day and progress the story~ The game length isn't very long, you can play it in one sitting, hope you enjoy the game~!
Concept Art

Screenshots

| Link | https://damakuno.itch.io/the-march-to-heaven |
| Link | https://github.com/damakuno/ldjam50 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/the-march-to-heaven |
Ratings
| Overall | 109th | 4.057⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1016th | 3.074⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 901th | 3.088⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 33th | 4.403⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 29th | 4.649⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1031th | 2.31⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 62th | 4.271⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 48🗳️ | 51🗨️ |
Rate my game pls too
loved that it wasn't just reading and I had to actually juggle things and get perspective. I hope to see this become its own thing or see other games by you guys! good job!
I really like the game it feels very solid - all the details are thought of. It's very well made.
Is the game linear or are there multiple possible endings? Like how much you've managed to communicate and how well you accept as a result of it?
The art was great, and the game was very polished visually. I assume the music was borrowed from somewhere since you opted out of Audio, but the choice of music was good and went well with the mood of the game.
The story, while short, was powerful and bittersweet. It touched not only on coming to terms with death and loss, but also with the physical and mental toll being a provider or caregiver can be. You can work all day to try to pay medical bills, but that just means you are more stressed out and have less time to spend with your sister. The writing was simple but powerful.
I will say that it would have been nice to have a bit more agency over the story. It felt like there were a lot of dialog options, but the story didn't really chance course until the very end based on your choices. Although obviously there's only so much you can cram into 72 hours.
One final note, looking at the credits, I'm impressed that you had two artists on the team (one for UI) and had everything come together so smoothly. The UI and illustrations were so cohesive I wouldn't have guessed there were two separate artists, so great work there (and of course for @damakuno bringing it together with code).
I also remember Moonshot Battles fondly, although I didn't play it until after jam rating closed. That one similarly has a nice bittersweet story.
Good luck for the rest of the rating period and in all your future creations!
I absolutely love the art, and I didn't expect the dialogs to be so well written and to almost make me cry at the end. Thank you and great job!
https://youtu.be/7bpS9mbzmSM?t=358
One of the bigger problems I see in visual-novel-y type games that covers these resource management of keeping a single person alive is the inherent stress level of dealing with limitations. In that sense, I was pleasantly surprised at the relatively few numbers and ease in getting what I assume is the intended ending. I think this was a good choice: the general cutesy aesthetic implies that while a heavy topic is being covered, it didn't want the player to come away feeling down. It's quite a difficult balance to pull off, and I think it's done pretty well here.
Other compliments that comes to mind is the UI. While I think some of the graphics could have been more clearer, the general layout was easy to read, and friendly for experimentation. I didn't really have trouble figuring where my character's stats were, and was able to make informed decisions. I think the only thing that wasn't really well translated was the passing of time, and more importantly when the day ended. This last part, of course, is important for me because it's when I had to pay my bills.
If I had to be critical about one thing, it's that I didn't like how verbose the ending was. I confess I lean towards more abstract and observational stuff, so a lot of explaining "the moral of the story" came across to me as rather preachy and unnecessary in my opinion. Perhaps adding an epilogue for our character was an intentional choice, but for this player, it didn't feel like it added anything to the story: the journey the sister goes through is enough to infer what happens to our character. ETA: now that I re-watch my stream, I think the other part this ending dialogue stood out like a sore thumb is the fact that most of the game's text is driven via spoken dialog. Having a narrator suddenly talk about "and here's the moral of the story" feels like quite a change in narrative style, and, well, I don't like it.
Well, that's enough rambling for now. This was a surprisingly heartwarming experience, a nice warm light to a dark time we live in. Thanks for submitting it to our stream!
I will say that it would have been nice to have a bit more control over the story. It felt like there were a lot of dialog options, but the story didn’t really chance course until the very end based on your choices. Although obviously there’s only so much you can make in 72 hours.
One final note, looking at the credits, I’m surprised that you had two artists on the team (one for UI) and had everything come together so smoothly. Great work overall, and congrats for finishing the Ludum Dare!