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Does your game require playing multiple routes to get the full experience?
Yes, there are technically 2 endings. The true path allows you to continue to Chapter 2. The other is a 'bad ending' (which can be triggered in two different ways) that traps the protagonist in a constant loop, reinforcing his belief that everything is a dream with no consequences. If you hit the loop on stream, I recommend reloading to see the true path
Approximately how long is your game (in minutes)?
Between 15 to 20 minutes
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Comments
so good!! such a creative entry!! you were so effective at suspense and communicating anxiety. very impressive, hope you keep it up!
Haha, this is so relatable! That's me every night! 😂
This was very good!
me every night
вжжжжжжжжжжжжжжжж
God. Why does this perfectly depict how annoyingly difficult it is to go to sleep? It was a fun lil game, and I liked the visuals, it made it kind of unerving but in a good way. Plus its fun with clicking and having all the dialog come up(which probably gave me the bad ending lol) . :) Good job.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much! For a moment, I thought the game was going to be stuck in eternal limbo, hahaha. It makes me incredibly happy to read that I managed to convey that exact frustration of not being able to sleep due to overthinking.
You have a really good eye and hit the nail on the head with your ending. That loop you fell into symbolizes how the protagonist prefers to stay trapped in their intrusive thoughts; even though they cause harm, it's a chaos they already know. That's why all those words saying 'the loop is good' act as traps to send you back to the beginning.
But keep an eye out, there is a hidden way out. There is a different text that slowly fades away amidst all the noise. That represents how anxiety leaves us very little room to make the right decision in time. I challenge you to reload the game and act fast before that opportunity disappears!
I know very well that we, visual novel players, love analyzing the psychology and hidden details of these games. Because of that, absolutely everything here has a symbolism. Getting every click and every animation to convey that feeling took me almost 1,200 lines of code and immense technical effort. I've put countless hours of work and sleepless nights into this project to ensure the experience was exactly this immersive.
Knowing that all that effort was worth it and that you enjoyed it gives me so much motivation. Especially because Chapter 2 is already finished, and there we will finally get to know the protagonist's true motivations.
Thank you so much for playing and for taking the time to analyze it!
Yes! You definitely did very well at conveying that :). I applaud you for the amount of code you put into it, that's quite a lot and I think it paid off well. The words that popped up were my favorite part for sure and I could tell you put a lot of thought into what went where to make it more anxiety inducing as the game went on. I forgot in my first comment to mention the BG music, I loved it . Especially when it got more erratic as time went on, that was a fun detail. :) I will for sure have to try it again to see if I can catch the way out. Again, great job!