Play game
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
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
This game is awesome. I has a strong story. The Vampire Survival Upgrades. The BlackthroneProd run and gun... CutScenes. Nice Job on this game. I really loved the music game me Conan "Basil Poledouris" vibes.
Thank you so much mate for the kind words! Glad to hear you liked it, it for sure has some VS style, we wanted to add our own twist with the story and boss battles that actually is affected by your choices of powerUps. One powerUp especially almost sets the boss into hard mode :D
Love the idea of fighting with demons in your head, nice job!
Thank you so much mate :) We absolutely fell in love with the idea that it's all happening in your head and whatever powerUps you choose, they will affect the boss fight!
Well done!
Thanks! :)
Bro, the game is amazing, I was having fun with “double the trouble” and “imaginary friend” until the bossfight came 😂😂, I almost lost, the story is simple but using it in this context is great and I specially liked how the screen gets darker the more damaged you are, that is touching! and I love it.
BUG: the first time in the “fighting in mind” mode I reached the max level but the boss transition didn’t happen, I had to let them kill me then start again, and I felt the “increase speed by 20%” isn’t actually applying the effect for one of the cards.
Thank you so much mate!!! :)
Hahah, yeah the imaginary friend really ramps up the difficulty in the boss fight 😂 Good on you to beat it with that on, since that's like the secret hard mode pretty much :D
Oh thanks, I loved the effect as well, it works for the game and the story, me and my teammate were bouncing ideas on like almost second last day and came to this idea.
Oh damn, I heard someone else saying as well that for some reason the boss transition didn't happen, maybe I've F'd something within the code, might need to check it! But happy to hear that you liked it so that you even started from beginning!! Off the top of my head I can't really think why it would do it, but I have a hunch. It shouldn't be the increase speed by 20%, but something else, but you never know until you check! Thank you so much for taking the time to write this and for your kind words! :)
Nice game, I really like the music and the differnt level ups, but for me a bit too hard (i can't even win the first battle) and it would be nice, if you get level ups earlier.
Thanks mate! :)
Yeah it's a hard talent for sure to have the balancing so that everyone can enjoy it and beat it, something for my future games to focus on that balancing would be more fair to everyone (or atleast the player group who are most interested in the product).
Really great game, congratulations! Gameplay wise at first it is a little too overwhelming and after some upgrades it becomes underwheling, so I think it would need a little more balance, for example with increasing enemy spawn rate, when leveling up. The boss battle was a little hard, I almost lost it, but well it wouldn't be a nice boss battle if it was too easy :D Keep up the good work, you are awesome! :)
Thank you so much for the kind words and good feedback! :)
I completely agree that the balancing is something that needs to be looked into, but at the same time we wanted it partly to be hard in the beginning and feel a bit easier in the end ( so it would portrait the mental health issue a bit, not exactly on thos terms purposely, but one commenter really pointed it out well). But yeah balancing is something for sure that needs very much playtesting from variety of experienced and unexperienced players and people who love the genre and people who have never played the genre! Hard art to master for sure :D
Hahah, yeah I do have to say that the boss battle wouldn't be getting easier even if I had the chance to revisit this, I like the fact that depending on your powerUp choices the boss battle gets some variety as well. Almost all of the powerUps somehow affect how the boss fight will be, some more on the stats (which you can't see) and some more visibly.
Thanks again, really enjoyed the comment and the feedback!
What a twist, cool game play. Real dust till dawn vibes and cool graphics.
Thank you so much! :) I appreciate every comment, as a hoping to be game developer some day it really warms my heart to hear that people enjoy something we've made!!
Managed to beat the final boss. I enjoyed getting the upgrades and get gradually stronger to defeat my demons
Great to hear you liked it and beat yourself :D
Good to also hear that for you the balancing was alright, considering you made it and won! :)
Wow, this was really cool! Good job implementing the gameplay mechanics. It was challenging to play without being overwhelming. The metaphor of fighting inner demons was well done and I like how it was even reflected in the names of ability upgrades. One suggestion I have is maybe adding the ability to pause. Great game! :)
Thank you so much for the lovely comment and you perfectly understood our point even the powerUps (we had a plan to start from childhood and go all the way to adulthood, fighting your difficulties from each time and powerUps would be for those, but bit of a big scope and the game would have been too long).
That is a perfect suggestion, didn't even cross my mind for the gameJam, but now that you say it, it's obvious :D
It reminded mit of survivor.io if you know that. Very well made.
For me on Firefox everything worked fine and the XP was there too.
In the beginning the mob incresed in size so fast that I was only running away I almost couldn't get to the xp-pickups and then in the end I just mowed them down so a little scaling of how many spawn might be nice... and the Boss was very well done he was just a bit too fast I think cause I had already 3 speed pickups I think and still could not avoid many of his bigger attacks - if I had less he might have bee too strong.
And I love the message of this game -in reality its not that simple, sadly but its a good start to seek help!
Thanks, yeah I think I might know what you mean!
Glad to hear everything worked and you liked it :)
Yeah that is a good point and true, it was very hard to balance it so that it wouldn't be too easy or too challening. Also wanted the feeling that in the end you are kind of mowing them down since you survived the worst.
Hahah, yeah that's actually on purpose (obviously needs a bit fine tuning), but the boss is different on every playthrough depening on your powerUp choices, so if you hadn't chosen speed pickups, then then boss would be balanced with that as well, but have something else you picked up as powerUps! ;)
Completely agree that it's not that easy sadly, but it is a good first step to the right direction! :)
I love the Vampire Survivors vibes! Nice little twist at the end, and the art brings memories of some older flash games. I only wished for two things, more variety in the mobs abilities/movement and full gamepad support. It just needs the right stick to look.
Oh, and the "xp" bar didn't show up on the WebGL build, probably a resolution thing.
Thanks!! We planned on adding full gamepad support and started with it, but in the end we completely forgot it and literally on the day of submission with few hours left, we were like shiiiiit :D But yeah sorry about that!
Glad you liked it thought, yeah the boss fight can be relatively fun especially with few of your powerUp choices giving it a completely different twist.
Oh weird, just tried it myself and it was working, but sorry to hear that, thankfully you sticked around to make it further though! :)
Oh I played the entire thing on Windows xD, the bar is such a minor thing anyway. And don't apologize for the gamepad support, it's literally just a personal preference :D I forgot to mention it, but you've probably seen it in other comments, some sounds effects would be a great addition.
Hahah aah, fullscreen should help on that :D
No I know, but gamepad support for sure would be great and that's something I will for sure do on my next game, since it's not good to kind of diminish the amount of players that are willing to play your game and it's such an easy add on as well :D
Oh yeah 100%, we agree with that. We actually did try some SFX, but due to the sheer amount of shooting and enemies getting hit, they were very overwhelming and we just ran out of time, since neither one of us are artists/musicians, so it wasn't our bread and butter so to speak. So we decided to focus on the background music :)
I thought this was going to be a chill story game. And then it turned into vampire survivor and THEN it turned into a bullet hell boss fight. Omg. There was a lot going on this game. I came close to killing the boss a couple of times but I wasn't able to do it :(. But I thought this game was very cool :). Alot of elements going on there ;)
Hahah, thanks! Yeah it had some variety. We wanted the story to give meaning to the gameplay and then didn't want to just have VS copy (and with this timelimit a shitty one of that), so we wanted to give our own twist to it with boss fight, which changes based on your powerUp choices. Because it's yourself who you're fighting so what you chose in life, would obviously come back to haunt you.
Glad to hear you liked it though! :)
Hi, congrats on your game! :) I enjoyed the story and the gameplay. The only thing I would try to modify is perhaps to put a limit on the number of monsters that can appear on the screen. Within the first 20 seconds of the game, I was already surrounded by more than 10 enemies hehe xD
If you have some spare time, please try out my game. It's a classic space shooter from the 80s but with a personal touch. Please leave your honest feedback. :)
Thank you so much mate! :)
Yeah that's completely understanable, I was playing around the last day with some timing and made it so that the spawning starts a bit slower and gets faster in about 20-30 sec period, but yeah it's a lot to take in at first at least if you haven't played too much VS style games. Balancing is one hell of an artform to perfect! Would need a lot more playtesting and from a large variety of players who have and have not played the kind of game you're making.
I will play it straightaway now that I got time mate :) I try to give always an honest but fair feedback, don't want to trash anyone, because you never no if it's someones first game and you just discourage them from ever making a game again! :)
Really enjoyed this one. The story was good, and the gameplay was a lot like Vampire Survivors which I enjoyed. Nice work!
Thank you for the review! :) Glad to hear that you liked it! :) Yeah VS is a strong inspiration, but we wanted to bring our own twist with the story + boss battle with changes depending on your powerUp choices.
Nice game, last boss was interesting, I bit him by running around the rocks.
Thanks :)
Hahah, yeah I think that's the universal way of beating him :D I knew it was in there and thought about taking it off, but I thought that the boss being able to walk on the stones would be enough challenge, but not enough as it seems :P
please don't, the difficulty has to be honest, because his minion can hit through a stone:D
Hahah :D I won't edit it, I promise
Replayed the game because the first time I got stuck and its now much more fun! I managed to complete the game and I enjoyed the boss battle at the end! The reason I got stuck was because I just ran away from enemies and I didnt know you could pick up glowy circles and get better so I died by a huge storm of enemies. However once I reaplayed the game it was very fun, well done :)
Thank you so much for giving it another go! Yeah We kind of assumed people would get it, but if you haven't played a lot of VS (vampire survivors) style of games, it's not a given take away, should have made the few first drops glow a bit more or something.
Good to hear that you enjoyed it on the second play through! Hope you made it to the boss, since that's where the fun ramps up and the choices you make with the powerUps might change the boss fight a bit, some more visibly some under the hood ;)
Ok! I did make it to the boss, the bossfight was very fun, well don :)
Big fan of bulletstorm games, and this one didn't dissapoiont, great job
Haha great to hear mate! Hope the boss wasn't too hard :D
It was awesome. I liked the animation in the begining that gives the player the background story for the fight. And the fight itself wsa quite good. The fact that we can't control bullet direction add a new dimension to the challenge. You have to move or you wont be able to collect stars because of the inner demons. Loved the names for the upgrades. The lore is there. The boss fight was a bit too hard for me, so i died there but overall; Nice game with intense enough combat.
Thank you for your words and in-depth review!
Not sure what you meant by not being able to control bullet movement, it was mouse direction based? 🤔 If you played it without moving your mouse, you're an absolute legend in the game, since it's hard enough with that 😅
Thanks, that's what we wanted to go with the powerup names and how it affects the boss fight and ties to the story.
it was mouse based ? ı assumed it was the reverse direction of player movement. Thats how i played it.
Edit: So i have played the game again. It is much easier when you aim at them.
Haha, well I got to give it to you, you are a legend! I don't think many could make it to the boss with keeping their mouse still.
But a good reminder again that can't assume how people perceive your game/controls in it. We didn't even think about mouse control needed to be shown.
We wrote it in description, but tbf I never read any instructions, I'm more of a "well I'll learn it on the move"
This is excellent. I really enjoyed this and the writing and design is wonderful. The duality between art styles, music choice, etc really seals it as amazing. Very impressive stuff and fun combat.
I do agree the level 1 balance is a bit tight and the game feels almost unfair at some points, but then as you level up and get stronger, it makes you not want to put it down. You made a very fun experience and I look forward to seeing more stuff of yours in the future!
Thanks 😊
Nice to hear someone enjoyed the difference in art work, it has got a lot of feedback, but great to hear you like it. I do agree with most of the feedback though, since neither one of us are artists, it was hard to find something that was different enough to portrait the two different dimensions (real life & inside his head) and still work together seamlessly.
Haha, yeah it can be a bit hard start, but we wanted it to be a challenge, but still beatable. Balancing is one hell of an art and hard to master. Needs a lot more of playtesters than we had and they need to be different level of players as well.
You live and you learn, but thank you so much for the review and kind words!
Nice work, I bet it took a lot of work doing those cut scenes and writing alongside the game. It was a fun experience. I do agree that the balancing when you're level 1 is a bit unforgiving, though I think it also goes with the story in a way. Once I got strong enough, I almost didn't want it to stop, but I guess that's the pull of that style of game :D
Thank you so much for the kind words!
Thankfully I had a team member who smashed those out of the park!
Yeah it's hard talent to perfect balancing the game. But good to hear you made it through though, so it wasn't maybe too too hard. And yeha very good point to the story although I would be lying if I said that was intentionally just for the story, but nevertheless a very good point that first starting to go through your issues/problem will be very hard indeed.
I wish that we had time to make it longer and more powerups and different boss fights that even more stronger chance based on your own choices. But lot learned from this project and for sure something for the future to think about!