Crazy game my guy, would love to hear about your artistic process!

This was 100% deeper than I expected it to be. Great job guys

!Wonderfull storytelling! Gj guys!!!

Well done, guys! Deep game!

Awesome guys! Really... <3

Great entry guys! I loved the art style.

I really liked this one! The art was nice and polished and served it's purpose very well. The music was good, but while I liked the super hero-esque score at the beginning I found it just a touch unfitting towards the middle of the game. I am definitely glad that once things started getting darker the music switched up. The gameplay isn't too much to write home about since this is mostly a storytelling exercise, but I do like that the QTEs were forgiving, since it's annoying when story-based games throw in needlessly long and drawn out ones. The story was nicely done and quite touching so good job on that front. Overall, really good entry!

Amazing pixel art, music and concept. Went a little too fast from the spandex action flick to a deep and dark tone, but it was a nice fall into the depths of a hero's mind. I got stuck in the "Q" QTE part though, was that on purpose?

@sir-daniev, sorry for that. There is a know bug that stuck players in the snow storm QTE if it started when another snowstorm is in progress.

Incredible game, unexpected use of the ludum theme, and the gameplay is very varied. Good job!

I... Wow. Hands down, the best game I've seen on Ludum Dare 39 so far. You managed to perfectly execute an amazing story, and convey it in a way that can only be done in a video game and you avoided the pitfalls of a walking simulator as well! Congratulations, you have a masterpiece here!

Very good work on the pixel art and the music, that was a different game than my expectation.

Good job with the pixel art, only problem i had was progressing through the "Q" storm. Other than that, awesome work!

Excellent game! Really sticks to the theme. I'm willing to see a sequel, i need to know more about the story.

I'm speechless! One of the best games i have seen on this ludum. The pixel art is really beautiful, the mechanics are fun and i like how they change through the game, but without doubt what makes this game special is the storytelling. Love the evolution of the hero, and the story is so emotional. Very original way to use the ludum's theme and the idea was perfectly executed, so great job!

Great artwork and atmosphere. Personally I'm not a fan of the QTE gameplay but the I enjoyed the storytelling and artistic aspects.

Beautiful visuals and a nice experience

**Positive things :**

- The graphics are really good, especially like the title screen animation and the degrading cape :)
- The music fits the mood perfectly and is really well made
- The action controls feel great and responsive
- The storytelling through gameplay and short flashbacks

**Negative things :**

- More of a preference but not the biggest fan of QTE either :/

Other than that really great entry with a strong mood, and quite an interesting take on the theme,

Well done !

The art is awesome, sound is great, really want to get to the end to see the rest of the story, but I am unable to get through the "Q" snowstorm no matter how hard I press :( Hopefully someone puts up a youtube playthrough?

First emocional narrative game I play in this jam. I admire your bravery. I loved the story even if at the beguinning I found the mechanics repettitive (then I understood that there wasn't the main element). I love the way you treat power as a theme, the details and oc, the animations! Astonishing! Well, done, good luck!

The game has strong points in the "art side": precious pixel art, good "dynamic" music and a very interesting narrative.
But the gameplay doesn't complement well the art: the quick time events don't work very well, especially because they change the button layout, at time without any indication, and the game also has some bugs (I lose in the "dance dance revolution part and the game respawn me in a buggy state)

Amazing, story! Amazing mechanics, and amazing music , I'm not fond of pixel art but you have spent a lot of time and love in this game Good Job!!

Great JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. Wow. Wow. Left me speechless.

Likes:
- great graphics, really beautiful and expressive style
- lots of sound, music, oh my
- great story progression.
- that was dark and grim and still colorful

Try Differently:
- can't think of much; the game seems to play itself more or less, but it feels interactive enough to matter.

Overall:
- one of the two deepest, most meaningful games I played so far. This one is probably at the top, really.
- extremely well done.

Cheers! Thanks for sharing this with us.

Great storytelling which is something most of the other Ludum Dare games lack. One of the best games to convey powerlessness. The music and audio complemented the game.

I uploaded my gameplay of this game on youtube, you can find it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ1RmVno74w

Thanks for being part of the stream :)

A really good job with the storytelling, backed by great graphics and audio. Loved the use of multiple game mechanics to keep things interesting throughout. A fantastic entry!

Best game I've played this Ludum Dare. Taking into consideration that you were 5 people making this though, I'll be a bit extra harsh and picky.

The controls at the first level are not very intuitive, and it's not easy to understand when the enemies are holding me. Also, sometimes when I was caught, my character stayed in the running sprite. Lastly, the part where occasional wind slows you down is mostly just an annoyance. Mid-air my character's movement speed decreased and I failed a jump I would have made otherwise.

Aside from that, absolutely stunning game. I loved the way it started out as a simple fighting game but ended up as a heartbreaking story. Music and graphics really elevated it. Impressive to see how you can tell such a good story without having a single word being spoken or written.

Wow. This is great.

Incredible. The best part was the audio changing as the story progressed, I'm really impressed.

Art: stunning
Sound: Great
Mood/Story: Fantastic

I think the weakest bit of this game is the actual gameplay. It felt like you just wanted to tell a story with little bits of interlude with the quick time events. I suppose that is the nature of quick time events though.

Overall it is an amazing product, and if there was a bit more gameplay it would be a top contender for favorite of the jam for me.

broke my heart in the good way. </3

Hands down the best Ludum Dare entry I've seen this time around! Outstanding artwork, gameplay, atmosphere, story, and audio! Really has everything going for it. You should all be very proud of what you've accomplished in that time span! I was really impressed with the amount of art that went into the game

Holy crap thats good. Absolutely love the art and those animations. Music sets the mood perfectly, changing as you progress and for a game that takes five minutes to play the story really hits you in the feels.

Excellent work.

That plot tho :'(

Sad plot.

The pixel art in this game is one of the best I've ever seen. The mood and the story are excellent and the title is also beautiful. An awesome experience.

Awesome art style, strong story and great music. i think gameplay could be improved to the point where the game changes its key-layout and actions/mechanics at every stage, a bit more consistency would serve the game well. wonderfull experience.

great game, you did a good job

I loved the art. Great game!

Although I didn't find this 'fun' (I think keyboard Quick Timed Events are a no-no), everything about this game was really great, well done. Did it have controller support?

P.S. I think homophobic eskimos are now my new favourite game enemy of all time

We streamed your game with Danae plays on Twitch. :) Here's a link:

[Danae streams Ludum Dare 39: Day 1, part 4: Pain That Binds Us](https://youtu.be/Dywcua-3b8U?t=1m19s)

This was an enjoyable (although sad) story presented somewhat interactively. It was indeed mostly just a walking simulator, but oh well :) The graphics and audio worked nicely, the story telling was minimalistic, but it accomplished its goal. And again, why opt out of Humour? It was a bit funny at times :) Good job!

Amazing game and story!

It is much more deep that one would expect from the screenshots. I like what you did with the theme and how the story unfolds to the ultimate twist. The art is great too!
I like QTE when they are use to tell a good story, like in your case. I think the gameplay is just perfect for the experience you're trying to accomplish.

Great work!

I disagree with a lot of the QTE comments here, I think you used them nicely. Each time you varied it up, it matched what was going on anyways so great job on that. The feeling of powering down was pretty apparently, so you really hit the theme on its head. FWIW, the very first idea that popped into my head for this jam was a game about a character in My Hero Academia that undergoes a similar process.

This was one of the best entries I've played this LD. Besides the gorgeous pixel art, I'd like to highlight that whoever did the music and sound effects did an amazing job, and carried alot of the narrative on it's shoulders. It's the same melody, but takes on appropriate tones depending on the context. Without the music, I think this entry would've lacked the X factor.

Good job!

Woah.. didn't expect this. Interesting take on the theme and very polished all-around. Great entry!

Wonderful wonderful graphics, fantastic mood and setting, lovely story telling. Fantastic work team, really unexpected as well which is such a great thing. Everything is really well made, top notch work guys!

And to answer the question on my jam page, I just used FLStudio(9) with the VOPM plugin. With that I have some Genesis/MegaDrive sound patches that were ripped from the .vgm files along with some drum/prec samples ripped from some titles. Then I just quickly compose some tracks using the pattern editor, which works for LDjam games :) Hope that answered ye question :)

That was... unexpected, although I'm not sure if I followed the story correctly. Very pretty game and the music really set the mood. The QTEs were also pretty interesting to play unlike in most story/walking simulators, although I'm not too sure if they really fit in with the sombre theme (doing DDR to a sad BGM is not DDR).

Everything about this game was just awesome! Graphics were nice, the changing of the music fit so well. The theme was perfectly matched in a unique way, so nice job!

That was incredible. Playing this game was truly a joy. A stunning experience that got deeper and deeper as I went along. This is everything that I'm looking for in games writing smashed together into a beautiful tapestry. The overall length is the only indication I could find that this was done in only a weekend. I cannot praise this game anymore. Fantastic.

This is an incredibly moving interpretation of the LD39. The powerful narration is brilliantly served by a marvelous pixel art and a beautiful soundtrack. The music expresses by itself the progressive loss of power of the hero going from an heroic theme stolen from a Marvel movie to a very sad one. I feel like the all-muscle guy from the beginning is who the main character wanted to be to save his beloved one.
After such a powerful experience I am a bit ashamed to complain about the controls which are too close from each other. Arrow keys would be a better choice for movement. QTE are good but as I have an AZERTY keyboard... switching to the English mode was not a good idea. Nevermind. It was one of my favorite game of this LD39.

Okay starting with the things I don't like. I don't like the beginning of the game, the quick time events to get free are too repetitive and it's very frustrating to just get free only to get directly grabbed by a guy from behind. Also I saw the background having visible seams. Next - it's fine to not tell me how to jump but make sure I can see when I'm supposed to jump. The first opening in the ground was hard to see and additionaly there was a branch in the foreground to cover it even more.
Now to the good stuff: graphics and sound are great. Especially the pixel art and animations. Story and how it relates to gameplay is awesome. One suggestion: when you lie on the ground you could disable the ability to just hold forward to move. So you would have to press forward again and again after some cooldown to really show how the hero is struggeling. I especially liked the jumping part - that is one point I would try to center the game around.

One big last critique point is that the game is a bit too buggy. I saw it crash on stream but on my first play through it played fine. However after restarting the game (I wanted to check if I got the story right, so good job on this part, really!) the game broke after the first memory. There should at least be checkpoints to fight this which shouldn't be too hard to do.

All in all a really nice entry with potential. Greetings from germany!

Good every thing in this game! One of the best games!

What a great little experience, suuuuuper moody. Great job!

Really excelent experience and creative presentation!

Maybe I'm being a little picky but I think it could have been a little more focused? Like, you see a lot of movies where the hero stops at nothing to reach the person they love. In this game it felt like he was basically giving up on her before he'd even reached her? Like, if there were cues in the environment that showed she was dieing like blood or something I might have bought it a bit more. But that's probably just me being overly critical cause I think I over hyped myself a little after seeing it on itch.io!

I really enjoyed how the mechanics change as you get weaker, really awesome game!

Could we possibly get a Linux64 version?

Although I am not a fan of the game mechanics, I love how you turned the theme into a story and subtly presented it through gameplay. I wasn't expecting this before playing but it really exceeded my expectations. The art and music were excellent too. Overall, I enjoyed it a lot.

Wonderful way to tell the story. I'm really impressed. The mechanics were a bit simple but otherwise I think it's a real masterpiece, GREAT WORK!

Great storytelling and art ! Very moving story on a delicate topic. I feel a bit sad now. Well done.

Nice story.
This simple lineal platformer is so good. Animations, awesome music, the perfect parallax effect, all the art in general... so nice.

My only complaint is that quick time events are a bit long and irritanting.

Very good job guys :)

Enjoyed the way you used the theme and how the game progressed with opening up more of the story as the player lots more and more power. Thought it was a interesting touch. The pixel art was nicely done and the close up photos worked well at conveying the story.

I really loved it; on the whole, if it was fleshed out, I feel like it could be a hit. I'm not sure what I was supposed to take away from the story, but I think the story was about the process of grief for the main character. Comment on story: felt a bit predictable, especially with the screenshot (saw it on itch.io). That's not a bad thing if it still leaves me with emotion, which it kinda did.

Lovely art, interesting story. I included it in my Ludum Dare 39 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk2ETXlss4Q