The "sequel" I was waiting for. For me the cuts between the scenes, the silence, the sounds, they are so much well placed, the mood could not be any better, this requires a good touch and the one that never was has it. If this is a trilogy I just hope that maybe the character can move on, but yeah, it is hard. (You try to change the channel but you just can't, things hit us deep in the heart) }
The art is perfect by the way.
And one more thing, for me it seems that the pills seems to be there to show that you are feeling shit, and ok, but I don't know, I feel like the pills should be an instrument to get better and that there is nothing wrong with them, but I'm thinking I'm complaining too much just because pilss saved my life. But is not for everyone and every damage, so I understand...
Just to finish: art as hell, we need more games like this.
ps: Why the hell aren't you running for mood?

It's so sad that it didn't launch on my computer! Screenshots looks very interesting and artsy.

@ijona Some people are having trouble launching the game. Have you tried launching it on compatibility mode?

Technical issues aside, this is a gem! Really unique art, great mood. I would really love to play a full post-jam version. Great job!

Luckily I had no troubles with the game! Except I didn't understand how to brush my teeth...it just sorta happened!x)

I feel like I understood the metaphors you were going for (mostly). I particularly liked the bit in space with the planets drifting by being potential mates and the asteroids being people that come into your life for a little while but ultimately drift away, with those asteroids lingering for a longer time as the character grows past his lonliness. It felt really empty and melancholic, but it was visually appealing and I could feel the subtle progress.

I didn't quite understand the game after that. What did giving the 'noisy' moon to the other planet mean? And what's the boot camp all about?

Incredible piece of art.

I saw the screenshot and knew exactly what to expect. It's a testament to how unique and memorable your works are!

This is his previous work in case anyone else was wondering:

[Forever Someday](http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-36/?action=preview&uid=110418)

I think the best way to approach this piece is to simply enjoy the experience without trying to attach meaning or thinking too hard on the underlying themes.

I had technical issues when starting the game, all I had was a black screen and audio playing. I was running in Windows 10 and ran the game in compatibility mode for Windows 7 which fixed it.

Wow. A real piece of art. Lots of metaphors, it was fun interpreting what you were trying to convey in each scene. Very polished and well put together. My only complaint was without V-Sync the tearing during the "Morning" sections took me out of the game. The planet bit also seemed to go on a bit too but those are my only complaint on a pretty special experience. Nice work.

Great game, kept me entertained all the way. Nice job! Keep'em coming

I get that this is more of an interactable art piece than a 'game', but it was a little too abstract to figure out how to proceed. I got to the earth in space section and it kind of just sat there. I don't think that was the end, but I'm not sure what to do next.

I get black screen on Windows 10 x64. There's sound and I can interact with game (by randomly clicking and hearing sounds), but no visual. :worried:

I view this as an interactive piece of art. That was absolutely no fun during the "game" and that is a great drawback to me in this event. Anyway, the style is superb and the execution puts you in the right mood for the reflections and wonderings.
In short, 10/10 for an art exhibit but, for me, definitely not a game.

@lawrence I don't know why windows 10 users are having this problem. But to solve it, just run it in compatibility mode.

@jusw85 Thanks for your feedback! Really nice to know that you have played Forever Someday too!

An amazing experience. The graphics, the sound, the music, everything was well place to tale a great, but sad, story.
I had to run it in compatibility mode too (win 10 here), but no other issues.
Again, great job!

Wow, amazing. The game didn't really fit the theme in my opinion, but the visuals looks so good, and the everything fit so well together, the music, the art, the colors. The scene where the guys does his morning routine the second time really hit me emotionally. Great game!

Interactive story type of game might not be my thing, but I really really enjoy this game. The mood, visuals (those surrealism art-style <3), musics are really great. And I love how the game can tell a deep story without using block of texts/paragraphs/etc.

The story kind of lost me after a while, but this was pretty much perfectly executed. The graphics and sound, as well as the general presentation, were extremely well done!
Good choice of style, and again, great execution!

The only thing I encountered that seemed like a bug was that during the later(didn't test it at first) "morning routine" scenes you could click on things out of order. It didn't break anything but was a little jarring.

What was that? I am confused. Man, I don't really know what magic you used but this was really interesting experience. I am surprised how well you did in causing emotions. I guess that among other things it have something to do with those great graphics and incredible selection of music! Well done!

My only suggestion would be to shorten space part of the game, some parts of it felt quite long. But overall the game was pleasant surprise for me!

Thank you for sharing this experience with us!

This is a wonderful followup to Forever Someday and the presentation is just as excellent. I love the use of color and the audio matches the tone perfectly. As for feedback, I have very little, but if I had to nitpick, I did notice in the space section that some of the stars look a bit squared off. When using the glow effect, make sure to make the size of the sprite bigger than you need it to be so that the glow doesn't get cut by the edge of the sprite. Great job all around!

Also, for people who had it launch as a black screen, in addition to the solution in the description, you can press alt+enter. This will switch the game to windowed mode and make the game appear normally.

Excellent. And well done. :star:

I've played Forever Someday! I know you <3
Amazing, nihilistic, emotional, realistic, stylized. Wow. I'm more than a bit impressed

Black screen with music, no game for me ;(

But I liked this music though!

-m

@christina-antoinette-neofotistou That is really nice to hear! Thank you so much! <3

@mamoniem You can solve this by running the game in compatibility mode.

I think this was more of a Turner Prize entry than a Ludum Dare one. It was very good at evoking feelings of mundanity and hopelessness. Also, it did shock appropriately near the end, contrasting greatly with the repetition of the earlier sections. It profoundly affected my wife: she says that this conveyed feeling very strongly and she feels quite shaken by the experience.

That was very surprising experience. Good job

So the only experience I had was a black screeen, a non-stop tone of what I'm assuming to be an alarm clock at very loud level and a audio track that seems to loop (almost).

Great game, odd and surprising! Well done.

The highest I've rated anything across the board so far and my favorite game of the jam! Phenomenal art that really spoke to me! Great use of music also!

Fantastic experience, top marks all around.

I loved this. Completely different, surreal and emotive. Add some more in-depth and compelling gameplay and you've got a great game!

With my own experience of depression, I'll admit the ending was shocking and sad. I'd expected 'Are You Ready Yet' to mean facing the world again.

I guess for a character living in a surreal world of his own making, perspective is hard to achieve. Especially when depression taints how you see perceive *everything*.
Every time it's happens to me, things feel completely hopeless. There's 1000 'reasons' I can't achieve something, or do something ... and every time afterwards I realise how completely, utterly wrong I was :slight_smile:

Waking up from the haze of depression is like a desaturated picture coming alive with incredible colours you've forgotten for so long. The world is beautiful and magical again. Not as shocking as the ending here, but there's plenty of surreal experiences in meditation and therapy. (Plus some opportunities to add gameplay with the exercise!).

I'll be looking out for your game next year see where you go :slight_smile:

This was so well done - the aesthetics and music/sound were perfectly executed, and there was just the right amount of interactivity to take you through the experience. I thought a lot about what different images meant, and even if I'm probably missing a lot, it was an engaging experience to think about. Really impressive and unique.

Very intriguing entry! I found the graphics style you chose pretty unique and the surreal representations of faces coupled with the cardboard cutout aesthetic fit perfectly within the mood you were going for. The music was also very good at setting the tone. There isn't much in terms of gameplay I can critique since it's a storytelling experience mostly, but what was there worked well enough. I only have a couple issues. Firstly, some of the scenes dragged on a little too long without much happening both in general and in terms of interactivity for the player (particularly the space scenes). Secondly, and this is very minor, it did probably take me longer than needed to figure out how to brush my teeth (the most challenging the game got in terms of gameplay lol). Anyways, symbolism wise there's most likely a lot to discuss since it seemed pretty heavy in that area. I'm not the one that usually formulates grand theories about these sorts of experiences but it did get me thinking about what you intended by a lot of the things. I particularly found the space scenes fascinating. Could the two moons symbolize him and his girlfriend and how she now seems unreachable almost as if they are literally a world apart? Could the giant planet that makes one of your moons fade away be depression, or is it just the reason your girlfriend left; perhaps another man? This would make sense because after the smaller moon leaves you it and the other one start orbiting in unison rather than never being able to reach each other like they were previously (obviously symbolizing that your partner has moved on with someone else and they're happier). Does the following scene symbolize literally feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders without your girl there to support you? And does the clock that appears just imply that under depression time becomes meaningless as you have no control over it (notice that no matter if you spin clockwise or you spin counterclockwise everything plays out the same, indicating that you can't bring things back to how they were, nor can you move on). Does the scene with the soldier training simply show how time withers your outlook on life? (notice how the chief of training is literally time itself, which could indicate that time under depression simply cements your decision to end it all). All these questions are fascinating and what's even better is I don't know if I'm completely on the mark or totally missing the point. Great entry nonetheless, and apologies for turning this into an English essay :D

A really well made experience that feels and looks great.

Truthfully i didn't get all the symbolism in this game. But it doesn't matter much since the general direction is more clear (and you said it in the description).
I already had a feeling how the telephone scene would turn out, it was very relatable.

I am a sucker for surprises and this game really delivered there, and it was a fun journey to go through.

The art is nice, the whole concept very refreshing from other titles and the music really good.

It was fun just listening to how the music would progress when the planet was floating around.

The gameplay bits are minimalistic here, but it doesn't need to be in focus for this game.

Overall it comes down to, yeah it's still a fun and enjoyable game. And that gives it a reason to exist.

EDIT: It's also a great unexpected spin on the LD Theme , that alone deserves extra points :)

As with the prequel, this is a fantastically puzzley/emotional interactive experience. I don't have any quibbles with it up until the space section, where I got stuck in the Venus encounter with no idea how to continue.

As always, incredibly well-polished otherwise, with a unique aesthetic the likes of which I don't see anywhere else in LD. Nice work! :thumbsup:

I really really liked this. I liked the minimalism of the interaction and how it forces you into feeling there are no choices. You created meaning and told a story through gameplay brilliantly in a really short space of time. Great effort.

Legitimately the best LD entry I've played thus far. Really well done!!

As everyone has said, excellent graphics, very unique concept, the music was on point. It was an awesome little project to get lost in for a while.

I did run into a similar startup problem and getting to the Earth section, I wasn't sure how to proceed, other than that though, that was awesome. I look forward to more of your work in the future! Keep up the great work! :)

I love these kind of semi-interactive moody and artsy experiences, very well done, wasn't really sure if I'm going into right direction with the space scene, but I guess that was kindof one of the points. Kudos!

Very nice graphics. I think the space scene was a bit too long for me, but overall great game!

Cool stuff, although I think it might be a little too close to *Forever Someday*. I like the use of repetition, especially the daily life sequence, to bring attention to what's different. The fitness sequence was really special, too, requiring multiple clicks to proceed the story. Generally speaking, I find these interactive parts that attempts to match the player's action with what's going on the screen to be the most effective parts of the game (e.g. clicking really, really fast is like exercise to your fingers).

At the same time, some timings and cues could have used a little work. For example, I had a hard time figuring out what I was supposed to do with the toothbrush, since there's no visual feedback when waving at the mirror. I also thought the space sequence was too long as well.

This looks awesome! Any chance for a Mac or web build?

Completely inaccurate, earth does not have two moons.

I was sincerely feeling sad when there was only one toothbrush. This subtle thing really got to me in that moment.

The pill on the other hand was not subtle at all and the experience for me went downhill from there.

The space scene is still running in the background while I type this. What am I supposed to do here or what is supposed to happen. The tempo of the game was being set by me in the first part but now it seems like I just have to wait. Only after reading the other comments here did I find out that I am supposed to just wait for things to happen. Right now the screen got smaller and there is a planet with one moon there and my small moon is noisy. Someone said I should "give the noisy moon to the other planet" but how would I do that? At this point the game breaks down because it does not allow me to do anything.

OK, now this is really making me upset. I went back to the game and fiddled around some more and I don't know how or why, maybe it is just that my mouse moved or something, but now the noisy moon is with the planet. I am going to continue this review when I am done with the game or when I hit a show stopper again.

Yeah, well, did not make it. But I finished the game.

The graphics are really cool, I like your innovative art style.

The music fits the mood really well, good job!

As for the "gameplay" or rather the experience, you got me hooked at first but the end did not hold up for me, it was too abstract for me. As I said before the relatable tootbrush scene really made me feel the sadness, more of this subtle way of creating emotion would have done more for me than what actually followed. I only got the planet and asteroid idea by reading other peoples' comments here.

Overall this game really sticks out, this is not your hastily throw together jump n run or shooter game. This is something special. Thank you very much for creating it, I will check out your "Forever Someday" next.

Completed in ~10 mins. I did a video record of a gameplay, but decided not to publish it (or should I?).
I think I got all the aspects of the story and it's sad.

The only technical problem I noticed -- vsync is disabled, so side scrolling causes some visual artifacts with vertical lines.

Thank you for the game. :blossom:

The story is very powerful, and the way it is told. The graphic style and the music are great. I think the scene of the toothbrushes is very relatable. The space part was a bit long imho and i wasn't sure what i was doing (in a gameplay sense), but overall i enjoyed the experience. Good job man

Awesome graphics and idea, but not so much of a game as it is an experience obviously. Some images were a bit cliche but all in all this was a pretty nice piece of interactive art. Some parts felt like they took forever but once you got used to the waiting without having to worry about moving forward, it was alright. I don't necessarily see this fitting very well with the theme, but art is all about taking some liberties, after all!

*This is not a traditional game*

I agree. In fact I'd go one step further and say that is not a game at all. You said it well yourself, it is a *Narrative experience*. That's all you need! *Narrative experience game* has a redundant word in it.

Basically this is a video where you click to move the video forward, so ah, a mix between video and novel. You got to keep turning the page. Turning a page is interactive sure, but the content (story) is not. It is linear, always the same, with a whole bunch of clicking between the pages for good (bad) measure. You might as well remove all clicking and make it into a video, would something of value be lost?

Just some thoughts on specific use of words. The word *game* has already lost all meaning apart from *anything interactive*, but there is no need to actively drive it to the ground when a more specific alternative exists.

Cheers!

The collage art visuals and music really suite the narrative.

I can definitely empathize with this experience, its personal and universal.

Well done!

Finally I managed to launch the game, and it's great! I got a little confused about what to do in the part with planets, and as for the rest, the experience was smooth. The visual style is excellent, which is obvious, but it's not the main advantage of the piece. The thing I liked most is the feeling... well, that there is no bounds and I can't guess what the gameplay would be like the next moment.

Very interesting style - great graphics. 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=IFwNYcB13dA