itch.io

Hello! Thanks a ton for your interest! We're in the first planning stages for an english version, yes - it's going to take *a while* longer, but down the line we'd like to have an english version available for everyone to enjoy. Can't say when exactly, but we'll ping back when it's there!

https://pehesse.itch.io/living-the-dream

Thank you so very much for playing!!

Wow, thank you so much!! I'm touched that it spoke to you, and I thank you very much for saying so. 

There should be a "win64" folder within the archive that has the game exe, I think? The WindowsIconUpdater is one level above, next to the folder you're looking for! I'll clarify the instructions, sorry for the trouble!

I'm glad you found it worthwhile, thanks a million!

Thank you very much for playing, and for your comment!!

Hello everyone!

I've just released our latest "very small game", titled Living the Dream. It's about experiencing the life of a game developer, and maybe other stuff along the way. Also, it's not a very "nice" game, and I definitely don't recommend playing it if you're not in a good place right now.

Be sure to read the information on the game page before buying, if you intend to play!

https://pehesse.itch.io/living-the-dream

I've talked a little more about the game and the thoughts behind its creation and publication here, so to keep things short, feel free to head that way if you'd like to read more: https://twitter.com/lavantdapres/status/1602660485966565379

Thanks for your time!

Ha, I understand better now, many thanks :-) Well, sorry, I'm very private and cautious/reserved. I very much appreciate your enthusiasm though, and I hope you'll look forward to what I do next! If you aren't already, the best way to follow my updates is on twitter https://twitter.com/lavantdapres. I'm currently freelancing on a number of projects, but you might also be interested to know (if you don't already) that I've started working on a remake for this game: https://twitter.com/lavantdapres/status/1548662921856782338 It's just starting, so don't expect it anytime soon (and there's always the possibility it fails to take off), but it's "officially" started now, and I'm hoping to share more about it when there's really cool stuff to show (and hear) !

Sorry, I didn’t know who that was and I assumed it was spam/a scam. I restrict access to my steam friendlist to irl known people only. What can I help you with?

Hey there! Thanks a lot for playing and enjoying this small story!

Regarding the displacement softlock: yeah, I'm very sorry. The whole system was built in a rush, I barely had a day to test it out and some use cases slipped through the cracks. I'll try to see if I can't prop it up some more thanks to your report.

The echo tree behind Daere: not an issue, it's the intended design. Did you notice that the tree's position in the physical world is reflected in the spirit world? Moving the tree to *that* position in the physical world essentially moves it "on" Daere, which is why it turns to winter (and why the season spirits are in a "weird state", ie refuse to go near it). That's all part of the puzzle to get the winter bark, and helps to reflect Daere's "winter" mindset.

The extra click on the beetle: not sure which you mean, but it's not required to click on the beetle to "confirm" states for pollination. As long as the conditions are met (beetle on tree in right spot and right season), the progression flag will be set, and you can move forward with the puzzle through very few clicks/moves.

The story was a bit shorter, mostly because it was written in a very short while - the actual development cycle for this one was much shorter than the previous game, we had to cut a lot of corners and planned ideas, like the expanded flower and mushroom puzzles, as you saw.

Regarding extra facing animation polish, I hear you - though please remember, the dev time for these is *minuscule* and any polish is really beyond the intented/expected original scope (those projects already grew wayyy beyond what was originally envisoned as described in the short blurb):-D

The dynamic sound : did you play on mobile or desktop? If you played on mobile, the system is disabled, and only a single music track plays. If you played on desktop, the music will shift depending on your current realm, so both physical and spirit realm have their own special song, shifting from one to the other when switching character. It's very cool, and I'm glad we managed to go the extra mile on that with Barry.

Big picture plan: nope! The idea was to get me back in the creative saddle after a long depression, burnout and creative slump. I didn't want to make "polished, fully featured and finished games", only short design experiment to play around with ideas and wishes I had in mind for years and couldn't afford to try before, and try my hand at Construct 3 through extremely short projects (the original intended dev time frame was a couple of days each month, I have actual day to day obligations and can only afford to work a couple of hours per week on these). I started collaborating with Ben at the very start through a stroke of luck, though the original idea was to go at it alone (and it might come back to that eventually, Ben and Barry have stuff to do too, though we'll keep at it as long as it makes sense for us). Basically, those are ways for us to try and learn things (through experimentation and failure both) and have fun in the process. We have long list of "ideas and wants", some more developed than others. How many will we end up doing? Will we take longer for some of these than we currently are? It's all up in the air, there are no "rules" or defined end point, it may pause occasionally and resume later, it's a surprise bonus helping of free interactive stuff, and not a promise of regularly scheduled "content". I'll talk about plans through Patreon updates if there's more to come/expect from these, but for now, that's about it, really!

Thanks for playing and for writing your thoughts!

I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to art reuse?

We're iterating on the point and click system developed here for Mood03, so I'll keep some of your remarks in mind. The intention here was simply to get something as simple as possible working while keeping to the intended dev timeframe - things like drag and drop would be an added layer of complexity when I wasn't even sure how to go about building a mouse control system in the first place :-)

Hey there, thanks for playing!

Regarding controls: they're intentionally set up this way to explore a purely isometric control scheme. I did not allow cardinal movement as it did not feel good to play/look at without dedicated animations (and I confess I had no time or energy for those).

I'm sadly aware of the broken transparency effect in places - did not have time to thoroughly test the last minute changes that resulted in those, sorry! Due to the nature of this project, I won't update it and it will stand "as is" as a testament of what was made (mistakes included) in the short development span alloted.

I'm glad you enjoyed the music, it was a last-minute spur of the moment change!

The monologues are unfortunately not "bugged", and are rather designed to skip/go away if you walk away from their initiation space. The intention was for players to stand and read, instead of keep walking - obviously, that failed for some, but the display system itself it built around that very principle, so queues/freezes would unfortunately not alleviate the issue. Something to keep in mind if I explore a similar concept in the future, though I'd probably simply approach "text display" in a whole different way altogether.

I wholly understand the desire to interact with the mouse, and it's one of the things I wish I had time/knowledge to implement when making it. Sadly, this game was built in a "rediscovering/coming back into gamedev" mindset after a long period of... not so, and I did not know how to implement such a control scheme. Thankfully, I have since explored that very idea, so in the future, I should be able to offer something to that effect!

Will do, many thanks :-D

Thanks a lot! Very glad you enjoyed it :-D

Oh no, what are you apologizing for? Thanks a ton for remembering it in the first place :-D Thankfully it has no expiration date, so it's still playable, the complete version is here: https://pehesse.itch.io/honey-rose-ufe or on steam! Hope you'll have fun if you get back into it - and no worries if you don't :-D 

If there is still room and it is appropriate, feel free to add Honey Rose: https://pehesse.itch.io/honey-rose-ufe (unless it takes visibility away from other more high profile projects)

Oh, many thanks, dear player :-D

Hey there! Thanks a lot for the interest :-) For Mac, I'd recommend direct browser play, as all other versions are Node Webkit exports and aren't Mac compatible AFAIK. All the info for browser play is here: http://pehesse.fr/honey/en/get-the-game/ or if you'd rather get to it now the game itself is http://pehesse.fr/honey/web ! 

Man, I didn't even see there was a comment here! You know I like the vid and your take on it a lot already, but thanks for the comment, too :-D