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The Struggles Within's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #34 | 3.961 | 3.961 |
| Music | #83 | 3.705 | 3.705 |
| Fun | #93 | 3.775 | 3.775 |
| Mechanics | #118 | 3.636 | 3.636 |
| Theme | #203 | 3.713 | 3.713 |
| Aesthetics | #262 | 3.496 | 3.496 |
| Sound | #428 | 2.473 | 2.473 |
Ranked from 129 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game total?
2
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
Audio: Main Menu: Visions of Innocence. Credit me as "Tungerman". https://tungerman.itch.io/tearjerker-music-pack Cutscene 1: Heart Initial - https://sonatina.itch.io/infinity-crystal Cutscene 2: Trust Initial - https://sonatina.itch.io/infinity-crystal Custcene 3: Airship Initial - https://sonatina.itch.io/infinity-crystal Level 1: The Horde - https://ivanduch.itch.io/dragon-tales-1 Level 2: The Last Stand - https://ivanduch.itch.io/dragon-tales-1 Menu Select - https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/sound-fx/fantasy-sfx-32833 Scroll Opening: https://freesound.org/people/ukjoncollins/sounds/441549/ Characters & Animations: Emoji Icons: https://sysl.itch.io/mit-licensed-icons Character (cutscenes): https://cypor.itch.io/12x12-rpg-tileset Character & enemies (gameplay): https://rgsdev.itch.io/free-cc0-modular-animated-vector-characters-2d UI: Buttons: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/fantasy-wooden-gui-free-103811 PowerUp Images: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/icons/free-rpg-fantasy-spell-icons-200511 VFX: Particle Effects: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/particles/spells/48-particle-effect-pack-13998 Environment: Gameplay scene: https://rgsdev.itch.io/free-cc0-modular-animated-vector-characters-2d Cutscene: https://cypor.itch.io/12x12-rpg-tileset
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Comments
Neat game! The transition from exposition to game was confusing. The story just cut out and shoved me in the game. I've played similar games before, so I knew what to do. I will say that there needs to be more scaling. It started off very intense, and it was very difficult to actually get to any of the exp orbs, and it took too many to level up to be able to get to them. Needs some rebalancing and polishing, but good job!
Thank you for the comment and in-depth review! 💪🏼
Oh god damn, we've tried to fix it, but sometimes due to FPS differences and some lag on the website/etc it could cut the story off too soon. Downloadable version shouldn't do that. Thanks for letting us know.
We have some scaling there and did a lot of balancing but I completely understand, it's a hard art to master, for sure something that on our bigger projects need to have even more playtesters with different levels of experience.
I appreciate your review though, it's always good to get feedback to learn from! :)
Nice game although the pixel art at the start was very blurry. I like the story :)
Thank you! Oh damn sorry to hear that, must be some resolution issue, since we tested with few different resolutions and it seemed alright. But thanks for letting us know :)
Glad to hear!
This was fun. If only healing oneself was this easy
Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it!
Oh tell me about it, but it's a slow progress and therapy/etc, for sure can be of help on your path! For me at least it was :)
I myself as a bullet hell enjoyer, liked this game. Good work!
Glad to hear mate, I enjoy them as well quite a lot :D Happy that you liked it and thanks for the review + comment!
OKAY! That went from RPG Maker to Binding of Isaac real fast!
Honestly I didn't care much for the story. The gameplay was very fun though! You really go from running from your demons to absolutely smashing them, nice feeling.
The boss was tough as bullet hell, and I like it! If you're into some more bullet hell stuff, I have just the submission for you, check it out :)
Hahah, yeah it has a slight change :D From your real life to the dimension inside your head.
Glad you liked the gameplay though! You explained it quite well, that was the feeling we wanted to portrait!
Yeah boss can be one tough son of a gun, especially if you take few certain powerUps that affect him more than the others.
Oh I will check it for sure, today I probably can't play any, need to take a day off, haven't had one since I started developing the game, feeling a bit knackered! :D
Nice game, it was kinda a sudden when you switched dimensions and i could tell the game was kind of a roguelike since it had buffs and such.
Though i felt the art style change was a bit weird maybe you guys were trying to enforce the fact that this is a different dimension but i think the artsyle should have been consistent
Also the combat was a bit boring since all you were doing was just running around and shooting the monsters and the sudden boss battle with all the projectiles caught me off guard, maybe during the buff collecting phase you could have added enemies with different attack patterns(e.g. a shooting enemy and a rolling enemy just to prepare you for the boss) and i think you should have made it so the little buff coins float towards you when the player is nearby instead of having to be exactly where the coin is.
Anyways good job with the game!
Thanks for the comment and good points 😊
Yeah the art was our weak point for sure, since we're not artists and wanted the two "dimensions" to be different and when using assets it was hard to find two different ones that would still work together somehow.
It's not everyone's cup of tea for sure, I get that. First time I played VS I had a similar feeling but I just got hooked on games like it. Obviously ours is not anywhere close to being on the same level, would have needed a lot more powerUps and progressive difficult changing, but that would have been too big scope for the gameJam.
That was actually our idea to add enemies that would shoot/roll, but having a small test on it, it was too difficult for the player with the current short gameplay. For a longer one that would have been a great idea for sure!!
Yeah that's a great idea, but didn't want to make it too easy either, since that could have even more taken the player to just run away for the coins to just reach him, now you needed to go back and risk it as well (also there was this autokill feature if enemies got too far and then new ones started spawning infront of you). The "triggerbox" was actually a bit larger than the star, but good point, one idea was to get a powerUp which would then make the box a bit larger or if you got close enough for the stars to pull towards you.
I love the in-depth review thank you for taking the time! 😊
Nice game -- took me by surprise when the attacks began. very well done.
here is my submission for anyone thats willing
Rate Mirror Mirror by repeatloader for The GameDev.tv Game Jam 2023 - Free Course For All Submissions! - itch.io
Thanks, yeah it's a very sudden change as normally in your mental health, things can rock negatively quickly. But game wise I get your comment especially if not used to rogue-like games😊
I will have a look at it later for sure!
The mechanic is nice. The storytelling is good. The art style between two dimension is a bit too contrast in my opinion. Some sound effects would be nice. How the screen gets darker as you get hit is a really nice touch, considering the story of the game. Good game.
Thank you so much! Yeah that I agree with, neither one of us are artists and was hard to find assets that suited together but still were different enough to portray the dimension change from real life to inside the characters head.
Sfx missing for sure was a downside, we tried some for shooting and enemies getting hit, but due to the sheer amount of bullets and enemies getting hit at some point, it was too overwhelming and we ran out of time to fine-tune, so went without for now.
Thanks, we really enjoyed the effect once we got it done.
My brother let me take the time to rate your game ***** stars, maybe little better music or audio effects would be great later on, besides that this is one of the best games i play in the Jam so far, really funny, love the art, and the mechanic is cool, i follow you and add it to favs maybe later we can make this game next level i have couple of ideas about it.
Thank you so much for the lovely comment mate :)
Yeah the SFX are really missing, we tried some on attacking and shooting, but they overwhelmed the music and didn't fit so had to go without.
yea i was worry so much about that i miss sounds too, i always do the sound at end and always short on sounds hahaha
Wow, you could really feel the walls closing in; the cutscenes really told the tale and mood transitions. Loved it, well done!
Thanks for the lovely comment, my team member is the one to thank for the cutscenes and fine tuning the story to really feel real.
Very cool! I like the intense music and endless horde, I lasted pretty long without getting hurt but once I did and the fog started to close in it felt really intense.
Thank you so much, yeah I love the fog/dizziness feeling once you get hurt, makes it even harder 😅
Great story to start off a fun game. Great music and animations!
Thanks so much for taking the time to play and review!
I like this style of game and you nailed the basic mechanics. I enjoyed the bullet hell feeling of the boss fight as well, and your art/animations were well done. Good job!
Thanks, glad to hear you liked it!
Art/animations were for the assets, so credit where credit is due!
I really dig the idea of melding this subject matter with this style of game; it allows for a nice combination of engaging story and engaging gameplay, and it seems that you had a lot of fun finding ways to represent how the physical journey the player plays through is the character's emotional journey. For instance, I really like how taking damage makes the world become dim and lowers how far you can see; I think things like that make it more clear that the demons are not just literal demons.
Game was quite hard for me personally. I found that it was best to just lead a massive bunch of enemies around in a circle, always shooting behind me, and collecting the XP drop thingies as I made my way back around. To be honest, this wasn't a particularly engaging way to play after a while, and I never ended up getting to see the boss. That said, it's also very possible (and in fact, likely) I am just terrible at this game.
Overall, super interesting conceptually. I like how you tried to differentiate the two "dimensions," although if you were to expand on this, at least slightly more cohesive art styles would be a must in my opinion. And I just generally like the interplay of the story and gameplay. Nice work!
Thank you for the very in-depth review and kind words 💪🏼😊
You got lot of our points we were trying to make with the game, so lovely to hear that we didn't "hide" them too deep 😅
Hahah, don't beat yourself up mate, it's a learning curve for sure, sometimes running works and sometimes few risky dodges might reward you to get the xp. Also once you get few powerups it gets easier. Was hard to find a perfect balance between difficult but doable and so that it would work for everyone. That's for sure something even more in-depth game testing would have helped with.
Thanks, that's exactly what we wanted to portray with the "dimensions", and I do completely agree that art work synergy ain't the greatest. Neither one of us are artists, but we knew we didn't want the levels and cutscenes to be too similar since they're two different dimensions, so couldn't use the same art assets and couldn't find two different ones that would fit out idea. Definitely need to find an artist for the next one 😅😅
Gotta love a good little Survivors-like. That boss battle was epic. Good stuff. If I were to sneak into your design team without you noticing via a cardboard box and then patch in one change, I would add a little "Tak!" sound effect when a bullet hits an enemy. I think that would make your game very taktile and enjoyable. Thanks for the game :)
Thank you 😊
Hahah please do, we tried some SFX on the shooting and on enemy hit, tried volume, fading, etc but they just overwhelming since there was so many hits happening at some point. But yeah I do agree that SFX is needed, just didn't have time to find and fine-tune perfect ones
Nice job really enjoyed
Thanks! :)
The gameplay is awesome. Very fun to play. You did a great job!
Thanks mate! Glad to hear you enjoyed it :)
The game is really addictive and fun, good work guys I really enjoyed your game.
Thank you so much! I know it can be a bit tough to start with but once you get it rolling the boss fight will be fun with the powerUp choices making a difference in the end fight ;)
absolutely, I really like the vibe of the game and great level design D.
I do have to ask what is your contribution to this game? According to the asset list, there is very little work - done by yourself. Or at least that i can notice.
I understand that this is a narrative based game, but even then, how does it fit with the theme of the jam?
On to an actual game feedback:
The game seems to be well put together, the ride along gameplay combined with actual gameplay is an interesting take that is not that common. Some may say that there's too many cutscenes and too little actual play.
The aesthetic between the walkalong section and the gameplay section is too much in contrast, the art styles do not fit. I'm sure you could've used one set of assets for both the environments.
gameplay - if you're not lucky to get the movement speed buff in time, you will die. You should probably change the spawn rate or make the monster abilities more scalable by level or stage :D.
Overall, i think this narrative style game has a lot of potential, we shouldn't have too high expectations for game jam games, most of these are masterpieces, including this one.
Well we're not artists nor musicians, so those we obviously have to get them somewhere to start with. It's not everyones cup of tea and we didn't have someone who could do those in our team unfortunately. But I do understand your point, but still I would argue that most of the game was made by us :D From creating the story, to the coding, to the gameplay, to making cutscenes and building everything together and things like boss having same powerUps as your choices/etc, so even with us not making the art ourselves I wouldn't say that we didn't contribute.
Dimension wise I would say that mental health is a dimension of yourself and fighting your inner demons takes you into your own head and facing yourself as the main boss is part of it and that's in a different "dimension". That's how we liked to think the theme. We didn't want to just go with the dimension changing, we wanted to think other aspects of the word dimension as in having two worlds (the real one where the cutscenes take place and the gameplay where you face your inner demons and fights inside your head). Mental dimensions and a lot that revolves around that.
Yeah I completely agree on the contrast of these two art styles, as mentioned before unfortunately we had to go with what we had and we didn't want the art to be the same, since we wanted to show the dimensions of those two separate worlds and how the person sees himself in his head is different.
Balancing the game for sure is difficult and don't get me wrong we worked HARD on that and in the end we felt like we found somewhat a working solution and the feedback I got it seems people have got to the end. It can be beaten with other PowerUps as well, but obviously speed works for one kind of tactic.
Just tried to bring our ideas/thoughts on your points and I do appreciate the honest and indepth feedback and don't take my answers as attacks on your points, they're good questions and I appreciate them and I hoped that I was able to open our thought process and answer your questions :) !
A sad story but facing the demons was fun!
the graphics were lovely and I liked the use of the emojis to portray the characters feelings.
It's true, it ain't always fun, but by facing your inner demons and seeking help, it can turn to happiness at some point, or at least managable :)
Thank you for your comment and sweet words :)