Split-Minded by FarawayVision
Screenshots

Controls and Things to Know
- Use W/A/S/D or arrow keys to move in the top-down shooter view
- Click to swing sword in the top-down shooter view or move forward in the visual novel view.
- Don't worry about dying during the top-down segments. The story will still continue.
- (as a matter of fact, you might want to die deliberately to see more parts of the story!)
- Both of the heroines / romantic interests also have their own mini-routes and scenes.
The Game
This game is intended to be a fusion of a dating-sim / visual novel and a top-down shooter in the style of Hotline Miami.
Essentially, you play as a voice within the head of a typical VN main character.
To sum it up in terms of more well-known things: imagine Doki Doki Literature Club + Hotline Miami + Inside Out (or Everyone Is John)
Unfortunately, as a voice within Kei (the main character)'s head, you're not alone, and even worse the other voices are willing to use force to take control of our poor MC.
But maybe, if you can keep control, you can help the main character find love...
...or you can just let the others take control and see what hilarious and/or horrifying antics they get up to while in control.
Details
I'll admit, I kinda...sorta... ran out of time at the end.
But I have 90% of the game, at least. And a good chunk of what I have is good. So I'm proud of that.
I'll be honest, there are probably a bunch of game-breaking bugs in this game. I'll squash em as I find em, and I'll try to keep the changelog to a minimum:
Bugfixes
- 1.0.2:
- fix Voices still having collision when dead
- make sure all Voices have targets when combat starts
- make it much easier for the player to survive in combat
- fix some script typos and misspellings (in tags and filenames and etc)
- 1.0.1:
- fixed other voices not being able to damage the player (whoops)
- 1.0.0:
- initial release (Ludum Dare 41 deadline)
Ratings
| Overall | 893th | 3.125⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 911th | 2.917⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 451th | 3.521⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 302th | 3.94⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 588th | 2.87⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 533th | 3.354⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 20🗨️ |
The art is great. Did you make it yourself?
The levels on the right hand side didn't match the environment of the left but other than that - nice unique idea!!
I got most of my background art from the [Ayaemo Creative Institute website](http://ayaemo.skr.jp/materials.html) (you might want to use google translate if you can't read Japanese-- I can't) or from just doing google image searches.
I made all of the other art myself, such as the top-down shooter tile/character/weapon sprites.
The fight for controls were pretty easy. With fine tuning it would be nice if each one had their own fighting style/weapon to make each encounter a bit different from each other. Well done getting this far!
I really appreciate the combat sections, not just as a good use of the theme, but as a "break" from the standard visual novel gameplay. However, I think they became quite repetitive towards the end of the game and I wish there were just a little more variation.
This game only needs some polish and some more content on the sword-fighting sequence to be on the shelf. I would really like to see how it turns out! Usually visual novels' pace are a little slow compared to most other genres, but this could bring a nice little mixture in there.
Great content you got here. Good job!
I also just found that writing this much content takes a lot longer than you expect. Don't beat yourself up for not finishing, you've demonstrated an interesting and fun variation on the visual novel theme and a pretty novel way to explore the idea of compulsive behaviour.
I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.
I hope you continue with the project.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape