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A jam submission

MundaneView game page

Life, Family, and a 9-5 Job. Can you find happiness and support your family?
Submitted by feraswheel — 16 hours, 56 minutes before the deadline
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Mundane's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Use of the Limitation#93.8083.808
Concept#154.0384.038
Overall#273.6833.683
Presentation#523.6153.615
Enjoyment#533.2693.269

Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Team members
Feras

Software used
Unity, Photoshop

Use of the limitation
Over time, you wont be able to support your family, which will cause your death. You will fail.

Cookies eaten
0

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Wow that was so cool !! Great use of the limitation ! Nice real-darkside-life vibe !! I aslo realy like how the impact of black market affect the gameplay, the random event are cool ! A idea i have in mind is : game is in desaturated colors, then when the mental health goes down, it fade in NB like this ! Just an idea but something to sublimise even more how to translate the hard-life aspect you give ! Really great job !! ( ^ v^)

Submitted(+1)

Great work. Fascinating design that definitely engages the player to figure out how to best succeed. I especially liked getting hit by a car. Whys the spouse just drain your mental health though lol

Developer

haha  the spouse only drains your mental health when your forced to be home to make them happy. 

If there happy. Then your mental health doesn't get drained.because use are together. Use are both happy  (once ur spouse is on 100%, it won't reduce ur mental health)


But the act of making someone happy can affect you.

Submitted(+1)

This game hits different haha. Super interesting use of the limitation, it's a somber and very strategic game that scratches my itches.

The mood is very well presented, and though there are some visual inconsistencies, it doesn't diminish at all the great design work of this game. 

If I may add some extra feedback: I wish I knew when rent was due (and when I could upgrade my life insurance) without having to go near those places. It would help me manage things better. Notifications (like the tantrum one) could be possibly used for that.

I managed to get to 16K, then I got hit by a car because I sold one eye. I was reading the comments and giggling because this is happening to a lot of people haha. Awesome overall experience, this is one of my favorites, really.

Submitted(+1)

I really like the atmosphere and the concept!

My mental health didn't last long, but maybe I will do better next time ^^'

Submitted(+1)

Proc: great idea | atmospheric music and art style | difficult enough

Cons: (No cons, the game is perfect)

(+1)

Very beautiful game! Very hard to keep up with :P

Submitted(+1)

So dark omg lol, super interesting concept!

The gameplay itself gets boring after a while, well I guess that fits the title, no other complains.

Solid concept, great execution, cheers :D

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Super awesome entry! was very fun to run around and try to not.. die in a very slow way hehe.

My 50K+ strat:
Instantly buy both schooling and sell your Eye and Lungs (you dont need them)

Buy life insurance off cool down, this is 100% of your score tbh

When you bars are high work at the $$$ work.

Any time your lungs are full, walk over and deal with mental and wife.

If your kids want stuff buy it from $ store.

WATCH YOUR LUNGS, they burn your HP and forgetting to watch them is what killed my 66K run. 

Once things start to get harder because your traveling too much between Stores and work, sell your kidneys, and start staying at the $$ work instead, so you can jump to hospital or shop instantly.

Your goal in the later game is to just survive between the insurance cool down, your metals matter more than the other things. If things get dire you could sell your leg to afford bills and such.

I believe this Strat could easily break 500k if played better, my 66K run died to accidentally walking with my lungs dead. The insurance payout Doubles per buy so buy it often and early. 

Now as for feedback now that my start sharing is done lol.

I Love this type of game, was really well designed all around and fun to play. If you had a leaderboard I would shoot for number one. Having the "financial goals" was such a cute and smart way to set up a "target score" too! I think your game over screen should highlight which one you got, would be like a ranking system. S A B C F sort of deal.

A few flaws that I think could be dealt with, depending if you view them as flaws:

The shops have no differences but price, like the longer shops don't seem to make the time between tantrums longer I found. Or if they do I got very mixed signals form it. So either more clearity of a slight change would be nice. HOWEVER this could be considered the point, since the locations of the shops could be part of your routing and strategies. Again I start working in the south since the $ shop is right next to it. So this is a minor complaint if even one.

I wish bills had a more clear indicator of when they get paid off, a small cha ching with a number pop up  by your money maybe. Would help with timing Insurance resets too!

The art blended pretty well considering, but not perfectly. Making it greyscale really hit that the assets are pretty scattered, but its still a bit noticeable. This is all perfectly fine btw, it is a jam game, but something to consider is that having so many different pixel sizes and art styles was a big jarring visually.

Okay seriously awesome game, I had a ton of fun!
Really fantastic work!

Submitted(+1)

Atmosphere is great, game idea is well done aswell. I also like the bigger meaning of the phrase "Failure is inevitable" here, but I would have it (the limitation) liked to be a bit more part of the game mechanic aswell. 

Keep it up!

Submitted(+1)

This ... is... incredibly great.
I didn't knew, that it is possible to write such a great game in three days.

Interesting point: My first idea was also to make sth like sacrificing lifetime but I could not make it to a greater idea.

This one here reminds me hardly on "This war of mine". It's dark, right from the beginning. The music transports the complete emotion. I really like this earn and pay money mechanic by sacrificing mental health. 

It's a great title and my first found 5 out of 5. Thank you very much for this experience.

Submitted(+1)

  1. I like how staying at home in this game drains more mental house than working
  2. bgm was good, made it a bit less depressing
  3. "happy place" looks more like a drug den than a bar or sth
  4. moral of the story buy life insurance and don't get married, if u do then don't have kids
  5. also u'll eventually die from getting hit by random roaming cars which I guess is how most celebrities die, either that or being in them, so pretty realistic I'd say
Submitted(+1)

Unreal. This is such an advanced design for such a small time window. You made a game as uncomfortable as it is enjoyable - quite a tall task. You should be very, very proud. Some things that I loved: Being with your spouse drains your mental health (Eek), your kids do nothing besides drain money from you (Double eek), and you have to be careful not to get hit by a car, which is easy until you pluck out one of your eyes for black market money. Reminds me of Inscryption, come to think of it. This is one of those games that deserves more development after this competition. Well done!

Submitted(+1)

This is fantastic, and really uncomfortable to play all at once. The tone is perfect, with everything working together really well - the mundane, repetitive routines, the greyscale aesthetic and the melancholy music all combine to make something that really captures the daily grind. The constant stress of trying to balance the meters whilst knowing that a bit of bad luck could spell disaster adds a sense of urgency, but in a way that keeps the monotony intact.

Really enjoyed this (although not sure "enjoy" is the right word lol)!

Submitted(+1)

Great Job with the concept as well as the  over all presentation, gives me uniques and interesting vibe

Submitted(+1)

Wow, it made me want to throw myself on the train tracks, I love this depressive pokemon, the concept is very good, congratulations

Submitted(+1)

Depressing game, but I guess that was the point. Good job on the atmosphere with the presentation and music.

I think a few simple minigames for the different activities would help add variety to the gameplay. I ran out of patience for just standing around, after playing for a while.

Developer

how much did you end up raising ? I'm curious. 

Mini games was a thought. But as this is pretty time constraint. I believe it would have distracted the player.

It being a bit repetitive,  was the sole purpose.  It being a mundane task. Making your family happy. Paying bills. Work. Repeat... it's the act of juggling all that along with keeping your mental health in check and  raising the most amount of money before death.. that is the goal of the game.

Submitted

I don't remember how much I raised exactly. After playing for a while I go bored, so I bought some life insurance and jumped in front of a car. I guess it was an appropriately sad way to escape my mundane life. :P

Developer

haha. Well if you go back. It should show you your highscore. 

So the only way to raise alot of money. Is to keep upgrading your life insurance. 

It doubles with each upgrade (and adds $50 per minute repayment) which is what makes the game challenging and less boring 😆 

Submitted(+1)

Realllly nice concept, it was enjoyable to play and the art is soooo good, great choice for graphics/music, and it fits the theme/limitation so well. A great job.

Best of luck, I'd appreciate it if you try and rate my game if you can.

Submitted(+1)

How dare you make me play a digitized version of real life, I play video games to get an escape from reality XD
Jokes aside the idea and use of limitation works really great in this game!

Submitted

Nice game! Really cool concept

Submitted(+1)

This was awesome. I sold my eye and my leg to put myself through school. I got a great job and was bringing home bank for my family, then I got hit by a car from my blind side and it was all over. My family was able to live for a year with what I left them. They are probably out on the streets by now.


Great game!