the game was pretty good the lore in the truth ending the fact that you made death feel like part of the game and the way you integrated the mechanics as part of the story and the bossfights were pretty cool even if the mush romms were annoying as hell pretty cool game !
Play game
Choice of lie's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #27 | 3.808 | 3.808 |
| Fun | #57 | 3.115 | 3.115 |
| Audio | #60 | 3.192 | 3.192 |
| Overall | #70 | 3.099 | 3.099 |
| Accessibility | #86 | 2.769 | 2.769 |
| Graphics | #89 | 3.115 | 3.115 |
| Controls | #90 | 2.808 | 2.808 |
| Theme | #105 | 2.885 | 2.885 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.3
Wildcards Used
Single Location
Use only once location
Game Description
You are already dead. A voice retells your story — again, and again. Accept it, and remain weak. Deny it, and expand your legend with lies. Power grows, the world distorts… until the story collapses. One arena. Endless deaths. How far will your tale expand before it consumes you?
How does your game tie into the theme?
Expansion is the core loop: each denial inflates your legend, amplifying power and consequences until the narrative finally ruptures.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
cruel_sacrifice , opexbean
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1
Comments
This was actually a pretty interesting take on the theme and it's genuinely really cool to see games which have a narrative focus to them, that's something you don't see all that often in game jams. As others mentioned, I also abused the spikes method a bit and used that to my advantage quite a bit due to struggling with the hitboxes a fair amount.
Despite that though, I think you did a great job of taking a unique approach to the theme and put some effort into getting some narrative points in there and I do agree with frinkly about their points about why people may have missed the theme incorporation and I'm honestly really glad to see you taking the feedback well, that's honestly the most important part of a game jam :) I'll keep my eye on this for a future post jam update and see how you expand on this!
Submitted
Al Pigeone's Tri-State TakeoverIt's only up from here! Keep up the grind and I'm sure you'll keep getting better and better with every jam. The way I see it, as long as you're able to come out of a jam learning something, then the jam was successful no matter what ratings you get! I hope to see you joining more jams in the future :)
Really unique concept! I ended up playing it all the way through and reaching the ending without too many restarts -- I realized that if I stayed near the spikes the enemies would hurt themselves by walking into them. The restart mechanic really reminds me of the chilling moment in Undertale after I tried to restart my save file after killing Toriel and feeling bad (search up Flowey on Saving Toriel on YT). I think this has a lot of potential!
I think the melee hitboxes could use some tweaking, sometimes it feels like my hits should have connected when they didn't. Also I saw you mentioned on discord that players weren't realizing that restarting was a core part of the game progression. I think one potential idea is to make it so that the restarting doesn't require a player clicking a "restart" button, and also mixing up the dialogue/animation even more drastically so it doesn't feel the same. You want it to feel like a restart, but you also want to convey to the player that big changes are happening, and they should continue playing to find out more. Making the player have to click a button before knowing this is likely causing a lot of drop-off.
Overall a great entry to the gamejam and I hope you continue working on it!
Submitted
Rogue GoldbergCool Game!
I thought the story was the most engaging part of th game! The loop of the game, aka building up your arsenal by lying is quite fun! Sadly I found the combat kinda lacking in "umpf", if that makes any sense. If you develop further on this concept, maybe add like knockback, more effects and all that stuff to make it feel more satisfying!
Anyways I think you did a good Job! Keep it up :)
Submitted
The Misinformation MachineThanks for the review! There actually is knockback—a pretty strong one—but right now it’s only on the mighty sword and only affects the small mushrooms (though it’s really satisfying when it works!). We didn’t have enough time to balance everything properly. I even implemented knockback scaling with enemy weight, but because of time constraints I only assigned values to the little mushrooms. :)))
We’ll definitely keep working on this and improving the combat. Originally it was meant to be the main focus, but we quickly shifted our attention to the narrative and really put our hearts into the ending. :)
This was really cool premise, and I love how the narrative develops as you continue to play. The gameplay was really smooth and it was really easy to simply start again after failing. Well done!
A few things to note
- A tip at the bottom of the dialog to press space to continue would be very helpful
- Pressing Space to advance the dialog is doubled with choosing one of the options, this sometimes led to accidentally choosing an option when trying to speed the dialog along.
- The melee attacks don't follow the player which makes it much harder to land hits.
- I was able to lie about having a magic shield twice.
The VOD is linked below, and will be available for 60 days:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2574331467?t=0h8m43s
Submitted
Let's Enjoy And FarmWe really appreciate the review and also the live playthrough—it means a lot to us!
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Thanks for pointing out the missing tip about pressing space to continue. I actually lost it while fixing the UI in the last minutes. After your stream I even added the description about it, so thanks again for noticing!
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You’re absolutely right, the spacebar should be disabled during dialog so choices can only be made with the mouse—that was an oversight on our side.
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The melee/projectile behavior was intentional and inspired by Realm of the Mad God, where even melee attacks act like ranged projectiles. We also added a speed penalty for spamming attacks, so players need to shoot more precisely.
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I discovered the bug with lying about the shield (and sword) twice just before submission. I only had time for a quick fix—making sure the second lie doesn’t give you points anymore.
Thanks again for playing and sharing such helpful feedback—it really helps us improve!
i love games that utilize death in some lore/mechanic-relevant way. Very cool! I'd love to see how the powers/lies could be expanded upon with maybe different weapons or more abilities as the game goes on further if ya'll end up working on this after the jam. Gameplay wise I was reminded of vampire survivors and found myself wanting to play it similarly by holding down attack and just focusing on movement, but with how fast the mushrooms are in the first wave I think that wasn't the right strategy haha. Even with the dash ability unlocked I found it pretty difficult to time it so that I wouldnt get hit by the other mushrooms. Wonder if maybe a hitbox adjustment, speed increase for the main character, or a speed decrease for the mushrooms would have felt more balanced for me? (I'm also on trackpad though, n maybe could just be due to skill issue on my part). Sad I couldn't make it past the first wave, seems like there was more cool narrative to uncover, great job with this!
Submitted
who cares about growth potentialThanks for the review! There are 3 weapons and 2 abilities in total right now(If we not covering the hidden easter egg ability). The second one (the trident) is unlocked after your 2nd death, and it should make clearing the first wave easier since it shoots 3 projectiles. The best strategy for the first wave is to run wide circles near the spikes to lure enemies into them. Also, instead of holding the attack button (which slows your hero by about 10–15%), it’s better to shoot once, precisely in their direction when they start dashing toward you. With the trident, the 3 projectiles are piercing, so if you keep circling the map, enemies will eventually group up and you’ll be able to hit them all with a single shot.
For the second wave, the trick is to avoid getting too close to the flying eyes and just dash through them on cooldown—it usually takes about 2 dashes to kill one (there are 2 total). After clearing this wave, you’ll unlock the mighty sword.
I know the combat still needs some balancing—I left that for the end and just didn’t have enough time to polish it properly. Thanks again for the review! It’s a bit sad you didn’t get to see the full story—I’m sure you would’ve liked it!
PS: Everyone saying that the first wave is the hardest in the game)))))
what a deep story for a game jam! The idea of "lying" to improve your battle skills was a cool twist. Battle itself works pretty well, although theres some things I think could see some improvement. Imho, the first wave is harder than the second one, and the boss is really okay compared to the other levels (beat him in the first try). Also, you can kind of lure enemies into the spikes which I think does too much damage to them.
Btw, is there more than the two endings? E.g. I did not try beating it without any lies. Or can you survive the mushroom waves that spawn with the full lie bar?
Submitted
Mystic Maggie's Magic MansionThanks a lot for the review! We actually planned to have a proper “without lie” ending, but we didn’t manage to finish it in time. The last dialog was written literally in the final hour before submission, which is why there are no branching options yet. The idea was to reward players who completed it without lying with a special ending—but it was meant to be really hard to reach.
As for the difficulty: the first wave feels harder because, right before submitting, we removed a lot of enemies from the later waves. Originally, things were more varied—the second wave had around five flying eyes, and the last one had the elite mushroom with some smaller mushrooms alongside him. We cut them because there wasn’t enough time to balance everything, and we wanted players to actually reach the ending (since it’s our favorite part of the narrative). It’s a bit sad, but since this was both our first game and our first game jam, we didn’t really consider that most players wouldn’t spend too much time in the game.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that the dash ability seems to confuse players. It’s actually the strongest offensive tool in the game—it deals more damage than any weapon if used aggressively. But we understand it’s not obvious at first.
We’re big fans of Realm of the Mad God, which has similar combat, so for us it felt pretty natural. But we get that it can be tough for players trying this style for the first time—you need to be precise with your shots, and spamming slows you down, which makes it trickier.
To be honest, I don’t think you can actually survive a “lie collapse.” That event is meant to end the current run. We had three planned lie-collapse endings:
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One with the mushrooms.
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One with a weapon you could only use to damage yourself (we ended up moving this into the “truth reveal” ending at the last minute).
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And a third one I didn’t finish because I didn’t have time to add wave-start text like “Wave 2.” The idea was that, when the lie collapsed, the narrator would say something like “It’s really boring, let’s skip a bit.” Then the screen would fade out and back in with something like “Wave 234241231”—and suddenly there’d be a huge swarm of every enemy type. 😅
We really appreciate your interest—that’s why I wanted to share some behind-the-scenes insights with you 😄.
P.S. There’s actually one more ability in the game right now—but it’s basically useless 😅. You can press Q if an enemy is nearby. We didn’t even have time to cut it from the build, let alone finish it. On top of that, it has about a 10-second cooldown that isn’t shown anywhere.
This game was very cool. Loved the humor in the writing! And I'm impressed that you basically made a rogue like in a week lol. Great job.
Submitted
Balloon Labyrinthreally cool game, and super impressive considering it's your first ever game!! combat was challenging but fair, and after a few runs i was able to reveal the truth! i had lots of fun playing, i love a challenge :))
here's a few bits of feedback/suggestions
- i think since the focus of this game is the narrative, it should be emphasised more! i think the first death/loop could have emphasised much more that things have changed after dying, and overarching meta-progress in the narrative could have also been more emphasised, maybe as you defeat more waves you get some more dialog hinting towards the nature of the "truth"
- the level itself could have done with some more interaction/obstacles, maybe some structures that also hint towards the truth? (trying to avoid spoilers)
- i really liked how it was almost puzzle-like in that you had to balance what abilities to get, but i think some things could have been better balanced. dash and the extra health felt op and 100% necessary, whereas most other abilities didn't really feel like they made a significant difference
- similarly, the wee mushrooms felt way more difficult than pretty much any of the other enemies
- finally, imo it would have been more satisfying if when you clear all the waves and reach the narrative ending, it should have just ended, breaking the loop! i think it would have really driven the narrative home
overall i want to emphasise it's super impressive to have even put together anything in the timeframe of a jam, let alone to pull off something as complex and ambitious as this. i think there's a gem of a concept underlying this, and it would be well worth refining and polishing it if you want to! great work!!!
Submitted
AmbergroveThanks for the review and for hinting at so many things! We’ll definitely use this feedback to polish our game.
Right now, we only had time to add one little Easter egg dialog:
- If you die the 4th time, the narrator says: “I’m surprised that you are still here.”
- The hero replies: “You said that there is no escape.”
- Then the narrator adds: “I wasn’t talking to you.”
It’s a kind of fourth-wall-breaking moment, and I’d love to add more of those in the future!
As for the ending, we just liked the idea of it being a purgatory—where you’re locked in for your sins and there’s no way out. About hinting at the truth: so far we only included the crosses and one dialog where the narrator says it’s funny that the hero remembered God. But we’ll definitely expand on that!
Again, thanks a lot for the valuable feedback! Ps: a lot of balancing should be done, as you recall, we totally agree
yea i really liked that moment! that's the kind of stuff i mean, would have loved to see more of that kind of meta-progress throughout but also i think what you did within the time constraints is still super impressive :))
also, i respect the idea that it's purgatory for both the player and the character and i see what you were going for narratively, but for me personally the reset back to the start felt a bit anti-climactic. i think there's a way you could do it where there's a narrative ending showing that the character is still trapped in the loop, but the player reached an "ending". but that being said this is all very much subjective, and you should make your game how you want to make it, that's the whole point of art!
Really solid foundation here. The combat already feels quite responsive and there’s a satisfying sense of weight to the movement. I especially liked the knockback and how cleanly everything resets between rounds. With some added polish to the hit feedback and maybe a little visual variety, I can see this evolving into something properly addictive.
Also wanted to say how much I appreciated the artwork on the jam page. The contrast between the brutal fantasy style and the lo-fi in-game visuals gives it a unique vibe. UI is minimal and effective, which works in tandem with the grid-based level design to feel nice and tight. No effort here feels wasted. Would love to see where you take this next!
Submitted
PopRocksI can’t tell you how valuable and pleasant your feedback is to us!! We will definitely proceed with this game after the jam. We had so many ideas in our pocket, but some of them had to be removed before submitting due to lack of time for testing.
As for the artwork, it was provided by our friend, who is a tattoo master with a very unique style. I’ll let him know you liked his art—he’ll be very happy!
Really appreciate the reply. Great to hear you are planning to keep building on it, and honestly I would love to see where it goes next. The artwork had such a distinct personality, so props to your friend for bringing that to life in such a memorable way! Best of luck with the post-jam version, and I will be keeping an eye on it for sure. Hope you get a chance to check mine out too when you are making the rounds :)
I’ll definitely review it, just had a rough week and will have more time closer to the end of it. I don’t want to rush while playing and reviewing your game—I’d rather do it properly. I actually tried your game before submissions even ended, but it was just a quick look (at that point I hadn’t slept for 24 hours to complete my game😅). What I do remember is that it felt really catchy and very polished.
thanks for review. You are definitely right, I think the drop rate should be increased also, there is 3 size of potions in total , but I guess rate is so small that people will see only the smallest one). We left potions/drops rates and weapons balance to setup in the end, but dialogs took more time than we expected, so the balance remained untouched , unfortunately
I love the narrative take on the survivor genre! I think the writing could use some editing at times, but the general idea behind the storytelling is excellent and I found myself smiling along pretty much the entire time. Great submission, you guys should be proud!
Submitted
Pour Some Love!I understand, our game has a lot of dialogue too and I was getting frustrated trying to get all the dialogue I wanted in and finding what worked best! It's difficult when games have such a strong focus on dialogue when you have so little time because dialogue changes constantly alongside the game. You guys did great!
Super hard but pretty entertaining combat. Really liked how the narrative fitted with the weapon upgrades. Art and animations are really nice too. Great job!
Submitted
Turning LeavesThanks for the review! This was our first jam and the first game we’ve ever created. Next time, we’ll try to make it easier so players don’t struggle as much. Right now, it feels almost impossible to clear the first wave without dash + trident, which requires dying twice already—and that can be confusing. We were mainly focusing on the narrative, but I guess the combat makes it harder to reach the endgame twist. :)
I really enjoyed this game! It was quite hard, but after a found rounds I think I got it down. I went down the lie path, and really enjoyed the narrative. It was a little hard sometimes to tell I was taking damage, but otherwise it was great fun!
Good job!
Submitted
The Grove GuardianI love the idea of how a narrative can be more powerful than reality. The game can be a little verbose at times and I feel like I might be approaching combat the wrong way. Probably a skill issue on my part, though. Either way. Looks great, feels good. Enjoyed even though I suck at it. Well done.
Submitted
Forest Ex NihiloThanks for the comment! This was our first game ever. At first, we tried to make it really challenging, but then the narrative part took the biggest slice of the design, so we removed a lot of enemies right before submission because we didn’t have time to balance the combat. The first wave was actually meant to kill you 2–3 times before you unlock the trident and dash ability (it’s almost impossible to clear the first stage without dying twice and getting the trident). We really appreciate your feedback!
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