I felt very confused and sort of frustrated while playing this game, but I realize that may be the point, and exactly the emotions you are trying to convey. An interesting experience for sure!

I like how the mechanics interconnect. It's very easy to get trapped in a downward spiral, but it's never impossible to climb back up. As long as you make sure to rest and get your energy back, you can take advantage of the opportunities on your way to reach success. (This is a commentary on the game and not on life as a whole, but I guess it could work either way.)

Thanks @mao yep, it seems like you really got what I was going for. The mechanics reflect life, and they are all very interconnected.

It is interesting the curve of the connections that you want to go in descending order to upload, I was curious to enter the data before entering

The downward spiral is vicious. Nice game.

Very interesting concept.

Sometimes it looks like the opportunities/obstacles spawn following a pattern, maybe this should be "more random".

I can't say this was very fun to play, but I’m not sure how much of that was on purpose. The strong gravity, quick exhaustion rate, and slow acceleration on the player makes it seemingly impossible to stay airborne for more than about five seconds at a time, so every time I tried I basically spent the entire game at Rock Bottom. I was able to jump up a level every now and then, but couldn't figure out how to stay there.

Even when I tried with the easiest settings on (that's what I assumed the start screen was controlling), a single wrong move would shoot me all the way to the bottom and then I could never get enough energy to escape. I appreciate what that communicates about the spiral of depression, but I'm not sure if you were specifically going for that.

Very interesting take on the theme. I like how you are practically forced to hit rock bottom at least a couple of times by the difficulty of the game (or life itself). This is a great job, although I can't say I had a good time playing it (it hits really close to home). Great experience and very well done execution.

@evan-minto I'm sorry you didn't have fun. The challenge is on purpose, but it is possible to have a very good successful life even when you start with lots of issues, it's just very difficult. This is basically the point. I definitely wanted the feeling of how some big issues can really send you spiraling, and I wanted it even harsher if you start with depression or anxiety (to be fair to the life experience).

I guess if I was trying to get the mechanics to reflect life itself then I wanted them to be more dark souls difficulty than 1-1 Mario difficulty because it's a struggle to stay happy and successful in life. Or at least that's how I felt when making this game.

The (hopefully) uplifting part of this game is that I promise you it's possible to succeed even with major depression/anxiety and a bad/late start in life.

Really cool! I liked how quickly things could go down hill, but also how it was possible to still recover. I think you did an excellent job in creating this experience.

Interesting concept, but hard to play ! When you're on the bottom, it's quite impossible to get up...

I think this is a great game. It's probably a little too hard to play at first, but with some practice I bet it's a lot easier. For a jam, I think it's great. I love the unique take on the theme -- it's quite refreshing!

This game gives off the "I needs a hug" energy. Who needs a virtual hug? :hugging: Free virtual hugs !!!

I liked the dynamic music.

TIL: crippling depression is crippling

It is very interesting. Never played anything like that! I think you are spot-on with how the game works. Once you hit rock bottom it seems practically impossible to climb out (I thought it's actually impossible but I discovered later that I was wrong - just like in life, I guess). So, huge kudos on game design! A really though-provoking concept.

The programmer art is indeed atrocious - I won't lie. But the audio creates a nice atmosphere and after a time you get so focused on the mechanics that you stop noticing the art :wink:

My first tries in this game were as atrocious as the art :wink: . I spent whole life with zero good days - that must be some kind of record! But after I got the hang of juggling the energy, hang ups, opportunities and movement, I managed to get quite a bit of good days, even when setting a pretty shitty starting conditions.



If you would like to continue working on this game, I have some ideas to share. Would be cool to fill those areas with some kind of collage of photos. Like good times could contain some sort of good memories and rock bottom - bad and depressing pictures. Could be drawings instead, or you could go for realism. Also, you could alter ambient lights to warmer colors near top and maybe darken the "mood" near the bottom. Another idea I have is having some dynamic element, like anxiety or depression could actually be a "seeking" enemy, that follows you when you are near, and if you cross path with it, you lose your energy and such. Anyway, programmer's art should be a separate nomination I think xD

Here's my best run:

Also, thank you for playing our game in your stream!

I think, the problem with people spending too much time in the rock bottom may hide in one's inability to release all desires for a while, centering yourself and recollecting their life's energies ;)

Thanks @voidsay for the virtual hugs. Yeah I can very low often. Certainly when making this game I was in that kind of headspace. And yeah, just like the game, it's really easy to quickly lose years seemingly powerless to escape rock bottom.

Sounds like you got exactly what I was going for with the game though. Awesome.

@fabula-rasa Awesome, sounds like you totally got what I was going for. I wish there was something I could do about the art. I'm so bad at it that it would probably take me like 10 hours to make some mediocre replacement assets. Also I'm not sure what kind of post LD life this game could realistically have, considering it is kinda high-concept.

Still at the very least I'm really glad people are getting what I intended out of it. Thanks so much for your feedback!

@civmaniac Great ideas. Yeah there's definitely some ways to make this feel more polished with the right art assets and maybe a few effects on top. The pictures thing is an interesting idea too, I wouldn't want to make the screen too busy/overwhelming to look at so it would be a balance to strike for sure.

I really appreciate your enthusiasm. For sure a part of me wants to expand on this, I'm not sure which direction or how exactly. So I value your suggestions.

This jam game has something quite interesting to say, which in itself is an accomplishment so congratz on that. Gameplay feels kindda rough and unbalanced at times but I think that's the point, which is part of the message of the game. Obviously gameplay could be polished and visuals could be improved, but that's prob nothing new for ya.

Modelizing life and it's hard aspects ain't an easy task and trying it in such a short amount of time is quite impressive, good work.

An interesting concept! The programmer art might not be good, but it's workable. I'm not an artist myself, so I know how difficult it is to create something that at least doesn't hurt anybody's eyes. ;)

At first I found the game unbearably difficult - any single mistake send you straight down to the rock bottom without a chance to get out. After a few years I've managed to get out for a bit, before falling back down. Few years later, I've managed to reach the good times and spend the rest of my life there. Which is why I was surprised when the final screen told me I was a failure full of regret, despite having 17 years worth of good times. Perhaps that's something to tune a little bit.

Overall, it's a nice idea. I like how it shows that, while difficult, keeping the hope alive is always possible. Hang in there, you'll get out of this. :)

@lcstark Thanks. Yeah sorry you found it a bit unclear. There are good times and bad times but then there is also spending time growing and succeeding (the right side of the screen) and looking back toward the past and being unproductive (the left side of the screen), there are lines on the screen that are supposed to help indicate this. The idea is that there can be happy people who never push themselves, and unhappy depressed struggling people who still seem to be outwardly successful.

I suspect that even if you recovered and got out of the bottom, while on the bottom you spent a lot of time being dragged into looking backwards and regret (left side), and I didn't want the game to erase that part of your history. You can balance it out but if you spent 10 years in wasted life even if you recover you will probably have some regrets.

I don't think the game would ever call a person a failure though, ha, it'll just tell you if you didn't have much time being successful. But again, just like life, it's ok to not be super successful, the important thing is you recovered from a rough start and ended up with 17 good years, and even without being a mega success that's pretty good. :)

Hello darkness, my old friend... What a depressing game, much like real life (it's hard to rise up from rock bottom, but at least you can't go lower). Very nicely done! I like how the music changed as your life was happy or sad. The theme was not represented very much though.

I'm not trying to take the issues like depression and anxiety lightly in any way, and I know it depends on many subjective factors, but still, I feel like you aren't giving them a representation they deserve, as this game makes the issue very binary, as if taking for a fact that people are victims of all of their circumstances, an that striving for a "success" and "opportunity" in life (whatever it may be) is the only feasible mindset there is. That's why I'd much rather see the game present, or at least hint upon some alternatives, so as to at least address the most stereotypical issues and self-destructive patterns that people repeat without a second thought, over and over, just because they've been programmed to do them by our society. Of course, anyone can get unlucky and fall to a rock bottom without having the energy to get up, but that doesn't automatically mean that most people aren't responsible for this happening to them. For example, the difference between a wasted life and a successful life may disappear the second one changes their semantics within their own belief system. However, there isn't any general solution that applies for everyone, so all we can do is to analyze the most obvious patterns, and to at least try to prevent those :) It's honestly scary how easily people can get stuck in a pattern just like this game visualizes, falling prey to entropy by chasing impossible expectations, deprecating their self-worth along the way :) Nevertheless, there are also actual physical issues of depression and anxiety, which aren't as simple as "being down" from having "wasted your life" (and if you apply a bit of critical thinking, you'll find out that the current medical system is flawed and broken, as they only research pills that cover the symptoms instead of healing a root of the issue, which can be even as simple as nutrition, including a belief that we need carbs to survive, which is further propagated by illogical expectations that people are capable of objectively researching conflicting nutritional studies). There are even some "substances" one can use to explore these unconscious states of mind, though they carry a risk of opening a mental wound you didn't know you had, and can also very well destroy your life if you underestimate them and then give up. I think this game is doing a disservice to such people by using these two conditions of depression and anxiety interchangeably, as if this was their real meaning, because there's a really huge lack of awareness in this regard within our society. On the other hand, the analogy of good times providing better opportunity of further good times, and vice versa, can often definitely feel just like you described it (and I believe our society should strive to explicitly address this, as it's insane how little can sometimes be enough to save a person's life, yet such people completely disappear from the frequency of successful people due to a default human nature) :) Either way, good job making a nice representation of how many people feel during their lives, I'm just suggesting for next time to also add a little bit of advice along the lines of "it's not that simple" ;)

@scsc No representation of life and mental health is ever going to fully cover all it's nuance. That said I do not use depression and anxiety interchangeably or lightly. In addition to the obvious effect of depression pulling you towards regret and anxiety slowing you from success, they have other subtle effects on the mechanics.

Yes some of how you feel about life can change when you reframe it but you can also think of the reframing itself as moving up or to the right. How you gauge your success in the end is also a function of the total time, so even if you "waste" the first 10 years you can still get a pretty good summary "in the end" because that will only be 1/4th of your life.

I very much don't think of depression or anxiety as a chemical thing. It is almost entirely a consequence of experiences and perceptions. That's why I'd never put things like pills in the game being the thing that gave you a boost.

In some ways they are "simple" but in no way are they anywhere near "easy". Dealing with them is the most difficult thing there is in life and I wanted a game to show that. Depression comes from being stuck in the past, full of regret, having no hope, and no purpose. It is very hard to be depressed but also have something you are passionate about waking up and doing each day.

Similarly anxiety is all about fear and uncertainty, there is so much to worry about, so much unknown and so much you feel obligated to take care of. But it is very hard to feel anxiety if you wake up each day feeling peaceful.

So peace and purpose are kinda the "solution" to anxiety and depression, and in that way it is "simple". But finding that peace and finding that purpose and overcoming all the beliefs and experiences that hold you back is insanely difficult.

I tried to use loose terms in this game. I'm not saying "successful life" is fancy cars, or tons of money. "Success" is whatever that means to you the player, same with "good times" and same with "bad times". They are what you define them as.

I hope my explanation helped justify some of the elements you might have taken issue with. I am very very appreciative of your feedback, and am glad you were able to connect with the themes being expressed in the game.

Hey thanks for playing my game, i figured i would try to get a review in for yours before the deadline! I liked the game a lot but, like others have said, its difficult. Perhaps thats analogous for real life ;) If you're in the Green Zone its very easy to stay there, and if you're in the Red its very hard to get out. Cool concept! I dont really have any feedback because it seems like the game servers its purpose but perhaps make it a bit easier to transition by reducing how quickly you get exhausted.

@joe40001 Yeah, it's definitely a viable perspective that reframing itself can work as moving "up or to the right", it's just that the triggers may completely change their nature, e.g. one can go from looking for external success to looking for new values of internal success; or maybe to strive to detach from any such values at all. Still, looking at it as having a good summary of "3/4 of your life" may deceive you, because you may realize at any moment that what you've considered "good" is suddenly worthless, and so your summary flips from one minute to the other; and that means the opposite can be also true ;) Either way, it's our purpose to define our own purpose, so everyone has to decide for themselves; and our spiritual growth probably requires some suffering.

I don't want to hold a long discussion that's off-topic, but there's one thing I have to seriously disagree with: depression and anxiety most definitely can be chemical things (which I think can even cause each other.) That doesn't mean they have to be always "treated with chemicals", but it does mean that solving the underlying issue isn't always enough to flip the switch in your brain. Once your brain enters the circuit of anxiety, being unable to turn it off is quite a physical issue. Same is true for depression, as that neutral feeling of being capable of "waiting" through time can be also lost, and it's up to your brain to slowly decide that it accepts you as not being depressed. Basically, you can enter these states by a simple belief, but you may not find a path back. As a simple example, if you were threatened to do something dangerous, you wouldn't be able to stop your racing mind and you'd probably instantly develop insomnia along with physical anxiety symptoms and several health disorders, which would worsen every day; such results are documented. And literally, don't underestimate that if you start being worried about having to heal it, the worry itself can perpetuate it, making it impossible to solve. It's incomparable to just being anxious of future in general. Luckily, our brain usually always eventually returns back to the neutral feeling, but it can literally take months. (You can even find opposite examples, e.g. people who come to a realization that convinces them that they'll be better people from now on, yet very soon they fall back to their lazy routines. So maybe our brain is also just too lazy to stay depressed.) Some people aren't that lucky, and just like any other chronic illness, they will just decide to get on pills and cope with the side effects for the rest of their lives. It's interesting that the drugs from your doctor can even "cause" the paradoxical depression or anxiety, e.g. when you abruptly stop them, which is very dangerous; try to tell those people that it's not chemical ;) As I was saying, it's cruel that some people may develop these chronic issues even from simple things like bad nutrition, never realize it, have their lives destroyed for no good reason, and get on pills because they have no other choice anymore. This is one of the reasons why I believe that it's very dangerous to assume that your definition of depression or anxiety is the "real one". We literally have several issues named using the same label, most likely more than I know of, and people don't even realize it. Plus there are both substances, and also techniques like meditation, which are both very beneficial in some circumstances, yet if you mistake the meanings of those words, it can be life-threatening. Sorry for the long post, I hope some of it will be useful to anyone; I think we software developers are especially capable of using our research skills when it comes to our health, and we will be the ones to develop technologies to address these issues of "lack of information". My idea is simple: try to separate those definitions, that's all :)