It's so rare that I experience such a profoundly dense and meaningful narrative in the confines of a game jam game. The cyclical nature of suffering is genuinely an ingenious way to interpret the jam's theme, and the lack of an end, the lack of color, and the confined progression all aids this feeling of hollowness. Whether intentional or not this game really exuded this feeling of powerlessness to me, and while there is a nihilism to being powerless to change a world that revolves on suffering as an individual, I still think that it's very valuable for art to explore that amidst a sea of optimism (which I also love). It honestly feels weird rating a game like this for a jam, because it's so atypical but I just found the entire experience so beautiful from the narrative to the atmosphere to the stunning artwork to the integration of theming and battle system. Seriously amazing job
Viewing post in The Driller That Will Unravel The World jam comments
Thank you for the fantastic words, couldn't be more glad to get such a review, as I did partly think I was doing something that people don't normally do in jams. I was saved by it being a month-long jam, as my style and approach (ie using the theme as a literary device central to the plot, rather than a mechanic) isn't something I can do in 48~96h. In 48h at most I finally figured how to tackle it, rather than implement it in any creative way.
I won't spoil it, but I've planned an ending (and there are a few setups to in the game already) that brings an end to the cycle and gives a close to the nihilistic cycle of endless suffering. I almost wanted to implement it, but my time management demanded I started working on the stories for the library and the art assets, so I had to leave it for a full release.
You could say it is begrudgingly a roguelike currently, but the narrative is meant to have an ending that gives it closure.
I'm very happy to hear you enjoyed everything I put in it in such a profound manner. My intent is always to try to connect with others through storytelling, and your message really makes me feel like I achieved that, so my biggest desire as an author has been fulfilled.
I'd absolutely love to see what ending you had in mind but to be honest there's this metatextual beauty in the jam limit not giving you enough time to have an ending. Reminiscent to works like Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix or Satoshi Kon's OPUS which are two manga series that try to get at the core of humanity and art respectively, and the fact that they remain incomplete to this day I think says more about humanity and art than any ending ever could
Very well said. I also like Kafka's The Castle for incomplete works whose incompleteness is somewhat meta, as the story itself did go in an insane circle where nothing ever gets resolved, and then it abruptly ends, midsentence. Leaving something incomplete can be a woe to reader and writer alike, but sometimes "being unable to" complete something itself is a message a writer can send to a reader.
An issue I sometimes find in my work and in the work of others occasionally, is when you're trying to make a statement through a character, answer a question to the human condition perhaps, but you can't find what the character has to say, because you don't have that answer yourself. Some of these incomplete works of late authors, or modern works that are in a hiatus for decades often seem that way to me.
You could just write words to complete the work, but there's no beauty in a work without the truth to it. You can't throw away what you believe in for the result of finishing it, and I think that's the ultimate struggle of an author trying to argue for something much larger than themselves. And even if there's a sadness to see them depart not ever finding that answer, there's an even greater beauty to it, and that's what I like to see in it.