this is what the mood stars are made for

Exactly. I have no idea what percentage of the story I discovered, but the game conveys the feeling of running out of time and being helpless so intensely.

Nice one, especially for only 6 hours of work. Also, the music fits in really great.

Sorry for not giving you "humor" stars ;-)

Very beautiful experience.

Nice entry with great mood, a longer version would be nice. But what happened to the other game you started?

What happened to your other game rxi? :<

@loxo, @MrMow

Unfortunately, with only about 6 hours remaining, I realised the game I had started had no direction, I couldn't think of what to do with it. It was relatively pretty but unfortunately not much else.

Instead of just giving up I decided to make a small game in the 6 hours. I think it was the right choice because I'm fairly certain if I continued with the first game it wouldn't have offered much more than was shown in the .gifs.

I don't know what I'll do with it, but hopefully it won't just end up rotting away, even if it just becomes learning material for those interest in how it was made. I'll likely write a post about the things I tried in both games and my experience in starting from scratch at such a late point in the competition. I also recorded a timelapse which contains the making of both the games, though I haven't uploaded it yet.

I appreciate that posting the gifs did imply that that game would be released and uploaded once the competition had ended, and I understand how that may have been a bit annoying to anyone looking forward to what the images may have alluded to. I'm sorry if anyone feels let down in that regard.

I liked the ambiance but I'm still a bit confused about what I was supposed to do.

I got lost after the "treated like dogs" text

Unfortunately falls into the "pretentious non game" category which far too many LD games are doing recently. But mood stars exist for these sort of games!

This doesn't pass as a game to me. A circle slowly moving to text paragraphes. A handful levels of greyness. Broody chiptune.

I know game jams are the place to express your minimalistic, artsy side, but this pushes it too far.

I don't get it. I've played four times seeing if I missed something, but after the initial text fades away nothing else happens until the timer runs out and the screen reds out. On my first play, I managed to locate another small paragraph, but that's the only time.

Very good! I missed a line I couldn't find in the middle of the text, but then I looked at the source code to read it. Very moody! Nice music

After trying 3 times, I couldn't find anything but the text at the beginning. I must be missing something. I'll check later to see if there's something obvious I'm missing.

Very moody, which is something I like! I loved the music, it was prob. what 'made' the game for me.

It was a bit too cryptic, but the text was nice even though it was quite hard to find them all, I had to open up the source-code to make sure I had found them all.

Given the time you spent on this, I'd say very good work rxi, and keep it up!

Metal Atrophy's comment fits my experience pretty well: "I don't get it. I've played four times seeing if I missed something, but after the initial text fades away nothing else happens until the timer runs out and the screen reds out. On my first play, I managed to locate another small paragraph, but that's the only time."

Then I checked the source code, and, uh, I have to admit that the story is too cryptic for me to understand. I do know how short 6 hours are, though, and for that it's pretty well done.

PS: I miss your lovely pixels!

well it looks nice and has a nice mood but I just don't understand how to play it.

I don't understand. :(

Very soothing

Chilling. Had to tear the source apart to read the words, but none-the-less nice for 6 hours.

As everyone has already said, this is a wonderfully moody experience. Very much enjoyed what it was.

I liked it. ignore the haters.

Very nice mood, the music was great too! I don't really get the story though and there weren't a lot of gameplay elements, but the overall game was pretty relaxing! :)

(You're very courageous to start another game so little time before the deadline, I hope you make something off the other game. :) )

Great experience, it gives a great vibe

All the mood. All the audio. And also all the humor because of the comments.

But seriously, great job on this. You nailed the sense of subdued urgency. Don't know if I ever got all the text, but I'll try again later.

beautifull music and story, which fits the theme well if i understand correctly...would like to have seen some depth in interactivity as well, would call this more art than game..

I think I missed some of the text boxes, I only got 4 or so. I did another playthrough where I went straight up and only got the first text box. So until then, I assumed you were spawning them in whatever direction the player was moving, in some clever way.

I had the honor of witnessing the death of the game that got scraped, too bad that one didn't make it. This is good for what it is done in 6 hrs :D

The music is really good, and I think it looks really well composed and has a good simple art direction. I wasn't really sure what I was doing, as I kept cruising around and seeing nothing. From other comments there were other text boxes, so I guess I'm out to search for them! After trying two times, I ran into nothing!

Interesting submission. Shame that it's very hard to find the rest of the story and make sense of it.

oooo. the heartbeat is my favorite part, or at least i think i sounds like a heartbeat. it goes nicely with the music and mood of what is being conveyed here.

Really great athmosphere, however I couldn't find out where I had to go....

This has a really great mood to it! Could have done great with more hours!

I must admit I struggled to find all the text, but I liked the idea and the music was beautiful

Relaxing, but confusing because I don't really get any indication which direction to go into. Or at least I did not notice any.

I played 5 times and only found the second text once. A pity as the mood is great.

The idea of telling a story in minimalist fragments is very appealing, if, sadly, a bit impractical and not always workable. The graceful music, intriguing opening paragraph and austere colour palette set up a perfect mood, but finding another paragraph just felt too infrequent. For 6 hours, though, it's pretty damn incredible.

Nice music and mood! :)

Starting the game, I had no idea what's going on.
I was stressed, the audio and heartbeats didn't help much either. Oh, there's a wall of text here! hmmm, now I'm not only stressed but also puzzled and afraid, where is this wall of text going, what am I doing? Why is everything red? time's up.

Let's try again.
Still no idea what's going on.
Ok, so the paragraphs appear close to each other so you can actually read them semi-consistently. Still no idea what it is about but I feel the helplessness well.

If games are considered a work of art that tries to incite emotion in the audience, yours is a great success, the combination of audio, wording and general atmosphere makes it a unique experience.
If games are seen as entertainment, or things that attempt to amuse, it's clear that yours doesn't even try.

Thanks for making this, it was interesting!

Very nice and great mood! I didn't really understand if I got it all, but I think that's the point. :P