You Only Die Once by Arkrothe

[raw]
made by Arkrothe for LD28 (JAM)
A text-adventure in which you face insurmountable odds as you try to survive, after a shipwreck has stranded you in the sea. There are multiple endings that can occur depending on the decisions you make.

Press left click to proceed in the story, and to select from the options (Text that appears in the lower part of the screen.) when they appear.

To play the windows version, simply extract the archive and run the exe file. If the game does not launch then you may need to download the XNA framework redistributable from here:http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20914

Added web port for the game as well. Also, It's my first Ludum Dare game, and I hope you find it engaging :)

Platform: Windows,
Library Used:XNA Framework.
Music is taken from here: http://opengameart.org/content/seashore-peace-ambiance
Fonts are used from the XNA starter kit.
Writing, coding and design are by me.

Ratings

Coolness 79% 2
Overall(Jam) 3.18 221
Audio(Jam) 3.00 232
Fun(Jam) 2.79 294
Graphics(Jam) 1.79 532
Humor(Jam) 2.08 338
Innovation(Jam) 2.53 385
Mood(Jam) 3.85 33
Theme(Jam) 3.18 145

Feedback

ApoorvaJ
17. Dec 2013 · 09:10 UTC
Excellent game. Cements a sense of hopelessness because of the false choices (I couldn't find a happy ending). Simple yet effective audio. 5/5 stars for mood.
Diptoman
17. Dec 2013 · 09:11 UTC
Not bad, but the ending(s) were kind of abrupt, prolly needed some more buildup to connect. But otherwise, nice!
Nichii
17. Dec 2013 · 13:24 UTC
I laughed alot at this game, especially when I am trying to be very stingy XD Great text adventure game there!
X-0r
17. Dec 2013 · 13:43 UTC
I think I died 5 times or so (but only once per try^^). Needed to check all the endings ^_^ Sharing, not sharing, stabbing before resting, stabbing right after, stabbing myself... I believe things like that show, how complicated it is to have a story with open endings... It's not possible to survive, right?
fullmontis
17. Dec 2013 · 13:47 UTC
Crashes on launch for me, any idea on why this happens?
Gungnir
17. Dec 2013 · 14:00 UTC
Nice to see another text driven entry out there. Music really carries the atmos well. Love how different the paths were - convincing. Was there a way to restart in game?
🎤 Arkrothe
17. Dec 2013 · 17:17 UTC
@fullmontis: If it's crashing on start then please try installing the xnafxredist that is mentioned in the description and then trying again. I will also be releasing a web port for it soon.

@Gungnir: No, i'm afraid there's no way to restart it from within. When the gameplay was finally completed, i was too tired to add a menu system :/

@X-Or: Survival matters not, what matters is how you choose to die :P
Korwegian
17. Dec 2013 · 18:07 UTC
Great game. YODO
javifugitivo
17. Dec 2013 · 18:18 UTC
Fantastic text adventure game, very original!
Nelien
19. Dec 2013 · 13:25 UTC
Brilliant graphics! Oh wait.. No, that was just my vivid imagination ;). But honestly, the writing really makes the places take shape in my head, great work! Could've been a bit longer though!
tobbez
19. Dec 2013 · 13:33 UTC
Would have been nice if there was a way to restart the game. Nice short story, good music.
Ekilibr
20. Dec 2013 · 12:26 UTC
Love the mood and the narration. But the zone to click on isn't exactly on the text, which makes the experience less immersive. Great job anyway !
bitserum
20. Dec 2013 · 12:27 UTC
Great game. We made the similar idea. I really like how you realized yours. Good job.
Almax27
20. Dec 2013 · 14:09 UTC
Fantastic mood and story, simple yet elegant. I take my hat off to you sir.
🎤 Arkrothe
20. Dec 2013 · 14:41 UTC
@tobbez: That's definitely needed as there are multiple endings, but I didn't get a lot of time during the jam due to life getting in the way, and barely completed the game as it is.

@Ekilibr: I had written a terribad piece of code for wrapping text, and couldn't use rectangles for checking mouse input due to that, so had to hack that too :P

@Nelien: Well, it is the world's most powerful graphics processing chip :P
JacksGamesSucks
21. Dec 2013 · 12:28 UTC
great. i like the story.
kibertoad
22. Dec 2013 · 17:17 UTC
excellent writing, loved the endings. finally a text game with practical decisions.
unity seems like a bit of an overkill for a text-only game though.
MaTX
23. Dec 2013 · 20:57 UTC
Neat game there. I don't get one thing, though. Was it made in XNA or in Unity? Or did you make the Windows version in XNA while making the web version with Unity?
🎤 Arkrothe
24. Dec 2013 · 14:53 UTC
I had originally made it in XNA as I do not remember javascript/html very well, and did not want to try something new as I had other things happening over the weekend as well.

Ported it after the jam to unity for the web player, as I could use the same c# scripts with only small modifications for displaying text. And yes, I had not planned to make a text game, but that was the only decent idea i could think of with the theme, so :P
psc1997
27. Dec 2013 · 13:04 UTC
Wooow! Really great game :)
Music is very climatic. I very like it! And interesting story ;)
Overall good adventure text-based game ;)
Tex Killer
27. Dec 2013 · 16:53 UTC
Interesting text-based game, but I think it could use some more variety... from what I saw, it has like 3 endings or so, and all of them very similar.
Cake&Code
06. Jan 2014 · 19:45 UTC
Really well established mood. I generally like text adventures, so I enjoyed going through this and getting immersed.