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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
Nice short game! I liked very much the idea of having your power ups affect the boss as well.
Thanks! That was something I personally really liked and will definitely in the future further develop for some other game perhaps! Choices you make affect your story and especially since your boss fight was yourself, it was obvious that he would have to have same kind of powers.
Great work. It was a fun experience.
Thanks, great to hear you liked it!
Love the Vampire Survivors gameplay. You really can't go wrong with that. I did feel like there was a disconnect between the gameplay and narrative segments stylistically, but maybe that was the point. I had a lot of fun playing this, and completed both levels. Perfectly short and sweet for a game jam. Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for the comment! :) Yeah we wanted them to be two different worlds, the other one is in his head fighting the inner demons. Glad you liked it and found it fun!
We wanted to add a lot more powerUps and other stuff, but didn't want to make it too long either + tbh also started running out of time. :D
Great message! I felt the start could have been more interactive, and the first level was reminiscent of 20 Minutes to Dawn. The vision blackening as health went down made it incredibly challenging though.
Also, some of the sprites at the beginning were blurry rather than crisply pixellated.
Thank you so much! :) Haha, yeah the vision blurring was last minute add, but we ended up loving it and how it brought another dimension to it, since inner demons can very easily blacken your whole view of life and all that :D
Aah yeah, the art we used for it wasn't the greatest, not artists ourselves so that was a bit hard. But appreciate the feedback and the review! :)
Yes, the start is very difficult, so the first try was very fast, but after that it's fun to play.
Maybe make things a little easier by firing the bullets at a random nearby enemy.
Thanks for the review. Yeah it might take a few tries , especially if games like this ain't your genre.
But glad to hear you made it further. Didn't want the game to be too easy though, it's a hard balance to find something that works for everyone.
Cool game! Not a fan of this genre, but I still liked the game! For me, there are too many enemies at the beginning, which makes it very difficult to get to the first upgrade, but still, great work, everything is at a high level!
Thank you so much for the comment! Yeah it's a hard start, but once you get a powerUp or two it gets easier and then the boss fight gets interesting since it might have some differences based on your powerUp choices! :D
It's not everyones cup of tea and I completely understand that though! :) Theres always games for everyone and that's what I love about gameJams and game development all together, so many different ideas/genres as there are imaginations thinking them.
over all pretty good game, the art style needs a lot of improvement i suggest you stick to one style and not move to another one but other than that pretty good game
Thank you so much for the comment! I do agree that the styles should intertwine a bit better, but we also wanted it to have different styles, since the other one is happening in his mind, so in there it's his imagination and mental health and has to fight the inner demons to be able to surive. Also art was not our strong suit, we needed to stay with free assets, so hard to find something that are different but still work together well! :)
Very nice take on vampire survivors-style games. The theme is used very well both in the gameplay and story. Well done!
Thank you so much, means a lot! :)
As someone who has spent way too much time on vampire survivors, I loved this.
You and me both mate, you and me both :D Glad to hear that you enjoyed it! Tried to have our own twist, with the story and the boss fights!
Very nice Music 5/5. Nice Story. Good game!
Thank you so much! :) Means a lot
Very serious topics, but still a fun game. Well done, it's not easy to balace the two.
The initial horde was a bit too much, it becomes overwhelming very quickly, and it become hard to collect yellow orbs.
Great job! :)
Glad to hear, yeah we tried to be careful not to take it too far but also give player an actual game to play instead of just the story.
Hahah, yeah we wanted it to be difficult, but still doable. It might take some tries but once you get a level or two (maybe take a further path to the xp), you will start to absolutely destroy the inner demons and then you'll meet the BOSS :D
Thanks for the review and kind words!
I like that kind of game. The upgrade system is similar to ours. Is it possible that some upgrades have different names and images, but the same effect? Maybe you could change that. Otherwise a cool game, good work:)
Yeah we kind of ran out of time to add a lot more powerUps, since most of the powerUps also affect how the boss is going to be after level 1, so it wasn't just adding a simple powerUp, but also hooking it to how it affected the boss. But if there would be further development on this, I would love to add so many more powerUps (I got loads in my head :D )
Thank you for the review and glad to hear that you liked it!
First time playing this you replicated that feeling of being overwhelmed quite well with the amount of demons that spawn and the boss was a pretty fun fight, gave me binding of Issac vibes with all that stuff flying around. Its also a nice short story, I am glad Jacob got things back on track by the end :)
Thanks for the comment, love to hear that! :)
Love Binding of Isaac and other games like it, so that's a massive compliment :)
It's a start for Jacob, but to the right path, I'm sure he'll be fine when he keeps the path of finding help! :D
Fun game. Am not sure but does it have dynamic music?
My team mate was in charge of handling the music, he did do some small adjustments and fading,etc. :)
Thanks for the review and comment! Glad you liked it! :)
Pretty nice concept! and the story carried. I like the vampire-hunter type gameplay; it needs some polishing here and there, but overall, it’s pretty fun. Good job!
Thanks! Yeah for sure some polishing needed to make it better, but good to hear that you enjoyed it! :)
Very fun and unique! With SFX it's gonna look crazy!
Thank you so much for the comment and review! :)
Yeah we had some SFX for shooting and enemies dying, but it got a bit overwhelming so we decided to go with just music for now, but finetuning the SFX to suit the game and not be overwhelming would for sure make it 10x better immersion.
Quite challenging, I liked it!
Thanks! :)
this is good and really easy to play. I love the art of the game too. Sfx will make it even better, especially when we shoot / hit the monster. I need the excitement of killing lot of monster xD. In my opinion, area type gun will be funner to play. overall nice job finishing the game!
Thank you so much! Good points as well and some of those we tested (like sfx for shooting and hitting the demons, but it just sounded out of place and overwhelmed the game since there's so much of killing and shooting) 😅
Area type was something I started to develop, but ran out of time.
I haven't played this genre of game before, so it took me a second to figure out what was going on and how to progress other than just running away from everything. But once I got it figured out, I found it to be really fun. I thought the boss fight was well done, it was interesting and difficult, but I was able to win on my first try, so I feel it was pretty well balanced. Good game!
Thank you so much for the comment and great to hear that first timer enjoyed and was able to catch the drift quickly (should have maybe though about short tutorial/help menu)! You might just be a natural at games like this 🤔😁
I like how the drops from enemies in the first level persist, and you can come around and pick up tons of them at a time. It's also cool that you were able to get a boss fight into the game. That one was tricky. I barely survived a couple times. I kinda wished there was a passive heal, though. (even a very minor one.)
Thank you for your comment and time on the game! 😊
Haha yeah, destroying them early would have been too punishing for the players. Boss fight is our gemstone, we love that the powerups you choose makes the boss fight different, that's a mechanic I'm reusing in some of my future games for sure, makes your choices matter also in a game like this.
Passive heal ain't a bad idea actually, since we were on the verge of maybe adding health packs from random enemies, but that wouldn't have worked on boss fight so we scrapped it. But then also it could entice you to just run away until you're full health 😅🤔 Hard to balance these things.