The Struggles Within
This project was developed for the GameDevTV Game Jam 2023. The theme was "Life in 2 Dimensions"
Description: We all have our inner demons with that we struggle with from time to time, but the message here is that it is okay to reach out and seek help when you are struggling.
Please help Jacob on his emotional journey by fighting his powerful inner demons! (3 different cutscenes and 2 playable levels).
Choose your powerups wisely (boss level will be affected based on your choices) ;)
Make sure to push through to the final boss and enjoy the final cutscene! =)
Cutscenes - Sit back and enjoy the show, you have no control.
Gameplay - WASD keys to move. The character will automatically shoot where you are aiming your mouse.
This game was built with few different concepts of "Life in 2 Dimensions" here is some examples:
- Grey vs Color: This comes from the mental health side of things where you feel like the World is very grey when you are having a hard time. Color is in reference to feeling a lot better.
- Cutscenes vs Gameplay: The cutscene story is the main concept, with the character struggling with his mental health conditions and subsequentially having to fight his demons inside his head, which is where you will be teleported to a 2D roguelike Action. The character experiences a short but powerful journey as he realises it is okay to seek help.
- RPG Cutscenes vs Roguelike Gameplay - We chose this to help the players understand that the RPG cutscenes were the main story/theme and that when the player needed to fight their inner demons (inside their head) it transitioned to the Roguelike, where this is the player's avatar in his mind and he is fighting off his demons.
Downloaded version might be a tad better than WebGL, so give it a go as well!
Resolution 1920x1080 (Play on fullscreen with webGL, experience bar might be a bit off if your resolution is not 1920x1080)
Ps. Mac build done with Windows, so it might need some work to get running, this helped us and hopefully you as well:
(These commands need to be called in terminal when in the same folder).
sudo chmod +x TheStrugglesWithinMac/Contents/MacOS/TheStrugglesWithinMac
sudo xattr -r -d com-apple.quarantine TheStrugglesWithinMac.app
Settings -> privacy & security -> protection should ask if you want to give permission to the app (allow) after that pressing TheStrugglesWithinMac.app should work
EDIT: 30.05 klo 12:02 (Had to set the canvas on gameplay to scaling, since with some resolutions the expBar and levels weren't showing up)
Download
Comments
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Nice game! A really traumatic feeling to having the mob close in on you.
Thanks! Yeah it's the constant fear of when will they catch you 😅
The boss itself is on another level as well.
If you haven't rated it yet, hope you have time to do it (Just because you commented on the game site instead of gameJam submission site so thought to ask :D ): https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2023/rate/208915
Yes I rated it. Your comment was how I found it obviously :) Thank you again.
I liked how the puberty issues got represented through the power-ups. If anxiety was the goal, it has succeeded delivering. (If it weren't for the rocks, I wouldn't have beaten the boss ;-)) Very nice!
Thanks! If you haven't rated it yet, hope you have time to do it (Just because you commented on the game site instead of gameJam submission site so thought to ask :D ): https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2023/rate/208915
Yeah our original plan was to have like childhood - adolesence - adulthood stages, but then we thought just represent them through powerups! :)
Hahah, yeah I think rock technique is for sure the way to go first time you beat the boss :D
A round experience, with good execution. Perhaps I would say that some sounds (SFX) for the monsters would have added a little more tension to the already tense situation of having to escape along with that music. I have played it several times and I have almost completed the bar but it is difficult for me hahaha
https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-jam-2023/rate/2089159 If you haven't rated yet please do :) (not sure since you commented on the game page :D)
Thanks for the feedback and playing though!
Yeah we tried some SFX on the enemies and other stuff (like shooting) but they were a bit overwhelming with so much of them, so we ended up going without, would have taken too much time to perfect them to the level.
Hahah, it has a learning curve for sure, hopefully you can make it, since there is more after level 1 (2 more cutscenes and a boss leve, which is affected by your powerUp choices)
I did!! 2 levels + boss level?? Amazing solo work!! Will try harder :D
Oh I had a team member Chris who was a crucial part in making this :D
It has 3 cutscenes and 2 levels (one of them is the boss I mean).
Love it, the music is especially good, the mobs feel alive. I think an upgrade progression bar would be really nice to have (how many stars to go), and some kind of heal drop to get you back after a misstep.
Thank you so much for the comment! Hope to get your rating once it opens up for voting.
There should be the experience bar (some resolutions might f up the positioning a bit), but you are right that it doesn't show the amount you're still missing, just a bar that gives you some estimate.
We thought about the heal drops, but wanted to have the difficulty so that it might take few tries to get through level 1 to the boss fight. Also some replay value with having to try with different powerup combinations.