This game focuses on the loss of a parent and child from the perspective of a child. This is a very family friendly game, no cursing or blood or major jumpscares. It does deal with a heavy subject matter but hopefully in a respectful, introspective way with emotional integrity. 



I am constantly inspired and moved by how children will see and process the world, believing in how it could be despite what it is. I wanted to tell a story from the perspective of a child confronted with one of the worst realities of life and how they come to process and accept it on their own terms.

 There is no fixing it, there is no solution. There is no resolution. Only this insurmountable loss you must learn to accept and move forward from. It's a part of life and being human. And it is a lesson we all learn at some point, hopefully by framing it this way we can grow from the spirit of this childhood mindset. 


Thank you to Egg who did the amazing art and images for the game!! And thank you to RavenBlueIndigo for the music. I can't say enough how much I appreciate all the time and effort y'all did for this. Egg, especially was a rock for me to cry to and I relied on them constantly. Coolest part of doing indie game dev stuff is the community I've found and the friends I've made. 


Friends for Survival  are a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt charitable, non-profit bereavement outreach organization available to those who are grieving a sudden death of family or friends. 

Published 21 days ago
StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5, Windows
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(6 total ratings)
AuthorsBroodyGaming, Egg
GenreAction
Made withRPG Maker
Tags2D, Female Protagonist, Horror, No AI, Pixel Art, Psychological Horror, RPG Maker, Singleplayer, Story Rich, Top-Down
Average sessionAbout an hour
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard, Mouse

Download

Download
While I Wake.zip 132 MB

Comments

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(+3)

well that was one way to destroy my heart and stomp all over the bits.

(SPOILERS)

damn, this was a REALLY effective interpretation of the subject matter. tying everything to the main character's nightmares really made me feel lost and disoriented, which worked perfectly with the narrative. i loved how in each "level" technically has a path to take and a way to beat it, but instead of feeling like you're progressing, it just seems like you're sinking deeper and deeper into trying to find an answer, a way to turn things back, anything that will tell you that everything will be okay (and this is especially poignant with the narration)... it was incredibly powerful, and the contrast it had with how quiet and quaint the real world scenes are just drove the point home further.

all of this would've been great on its own, but when you pair it with the art? WOW this game looks incredible. the tileset is moody and richly textured, with amazing uses of color. the sprites are great too, their movement is really well done and i love the variety they have (normal humans, abstract squiggles, gray human shapes...). the icon expressions!! they were incredibly creative and fluid, and honestly made the main character really memorable (i LOVE that it's the only way we see her communicate until the end; it was a great way to show how strong her emotions are, but how hard it is for her to express them), the game wouldn't have felt the same without them. the character busts were amazing too, i love their style so much and how expressive they are, they really left a big impact (the picture at the end?? GOD i'm gonna cry-). and there's so many small details; the gray circle that surrounds the screen in the nightmares, the way the font perfectly captures its child-made charm, the screen being less saturated at some points, the abstract backgrounds, the flower cursor!!! such a neat little touch haha. the presentation is amazing on all fronts, and it made everything in the nightmare sequences FEEL wrong and disturbing. gave me yume nikki/omori vibes at some points :D

and the MUSIC oh man, so so great. it feels chaotic and disturbing, like the tracks themselves don't know what's going on. it gave the presentation even more of a punch, and perfectly emphasized how twisted the nightmares are, and how much poppy is struggling to process anything at all. at some points it did feel a little too chaotic and annoying, and i think i would've liked it more if it was a little softer (even if i understand it's a tight rope to walk on haha), but it does the job really well (and the calmer tracks are amazing too!).

the gameplay was super creative as well!! maybe i got the game completely wrong but it's interesting to see a story focused on loss that doesn't explicitly use the five stages of grief as blueprints for its levels (not saying that it's wrong to do so, or that this story doesn't use the stages of grief at all; just thought it was neat to see how these levels took a more subtle and original approach with it). the part where you try to make everyone quiet down and every tile you step on gets destroyed was really cool. the tag game with the squiggles was great too and the way it makes you feel tiny with the zoom and every room being extremely big? sooo awesome. the first and second levels were a bit frustrating cuz of how you had to repeat areas and walk in circles (maybe there was a better way to do it and i didn't notice lol), but! the sprite turning around and then moving opposite so your inputs! so so so cool. the levels are really original and they tie into the story extremely well (nothing in the house feeling "right", trying to find a way to make everything okay if you walk down the hallway, wanting everything and everyone to be quiet, playing childhood games to try to cope with everything...), amazing stuff.

in terms of stuff i didn't love... i'm not sure if was a technical issue with me or not, but the opening sequence was... kind of weird? the combination of the music, the car crash audio and the extremely quiet voiceover was a bit too much to process, and poppy moving on her own all over the house with animations that i hadn't registered were the emotion icons yet (that's my only real issue with them tbh; it's not clear at the start that they're supposed to be emotion animations) felt kind of disorienting. maybe it's just a me thing but the opening scene being confusing made it a bit hard to get gripped by the story (tbf on a replay that sequence is much easier to follow, it might be just a first impression thing). and i found two random glitches; the first time you can walk in the backyard the fences can be walked through, and in the tag level if you pause the zoom goes back to default (honestly that's an issue with the engine itself lmao, but i thought i'd mention it).

man... i'm still thinking about that ending haha. what a gripping and emotionally resonant experience. it's easy to tell that you gave it your all to make this as respectful and effective as it could be, and i really admire that. fantastic stuff!!


(when i started writing this i thought "okay this game is about a pretty heavy topic that i'm not super knowledgeable about so i won't write much" and welp... never doubt the random swings of inspiration the writing muse will give you XD)

(+3)

Ahh Oxy!! Thank you so much for your kind words, you're always so thoughtful <3 I'm glad it hit well. Wasn't Eggy's art beautiful?? I did the tilesets but they did the character art and that LOVELY photo at the end. When I first saw it I legit cried haha. It was such a cool experience working with someone else this closely on a project.

I'm glad it hit and felt respectful! I always want to approach dark subjects with intention, not just shock value. It's very important to me to have a message behind what I'm doing. I'm glad you liked the speech bubbles! They were a fun challenge for myself, trying to get emotions and story across with such a limited tool was really fun to think through. You're an inspiration for me for timing in conversations in RM! I feel you nail the beats and pauses of a conversation really well. Thank you for the heads up about the bugs! Easy fixes thankfully lol. 

Raven super killed it with the tunes! I'll have to pass ur comment along to him in case he doesn't see it. It's been wild working with so many talented music ppl game after game, I feel so lucky?? Idk haha it's just, wild. All the ppl I've met doing these. The creativity of this community never ceases to blow me away idk blaahh. Ahh, thanks again a million times for your time and care <3 

(+2)

Wao thank you so much for the kind words abt...well everything, haha! Chevie did awesome at the level design, and I was so happy to work together with her on such a heartbreaking game j _ j 

capturing the mind of a child who clearly isn't able to communicate their feelings very well was a major point we wanted to tackle, in particular, checking again and again due to a feeling of: "maybe I didn't check the right way? Maybe if I look again, I'll see that they're home? Maybe I'll see why they're not there?" And so forth. 

thank you so much for your compliments, I'm shy about my art in particular ahaha but Chevie knocked it out of the park with her adding emotions for Poppy as a way for her to communicate without outwardly doing so, yet still convey to the audience how she's feeling. 

I always love reading your detailed notes on things, it makes it feel like our planning and depth that went into making the game feel more worthwhile like "yaay, someone noticed!" 

I hope Poppy and her father can learn to come to terms with everything and heal together in the future...

Thank you again so much :>

(+1)

Glad to hear that you liked the music, as I had composed three tracks for it~

Was a fun lil project, haha.

I love how you presented the theme of loss! I’ve never even considered a child’s perspective for that, but the sad reality is that a lot of kids do experience loss very early in their lives. The art is amazing and the narrative is on point. I just have a few complaints about the gameplay, but nothing too harsh. This exceeded my expectations for this jam. Great job!

(+1)

Ahh thank you! I'm glad you liked it. I love trying to tap into parts of life that ring with truth, ya know? 

And i like to take weird risks for jam games so if you ever wanna share your thoughts about the gameplay, negative or otherwise feel free! You won't hurt my feelings, I use jams to learn and grow so I can apply that to my bigger projects. 

Appreciate you giving it a go <3 

Ok then! Just please don’t think that I disliked the game or anything. But the gameplay loop felt kinda repetitive. Find the standing out piece or click randomly on stuff until you get it right. Do it 2 more times. Then to it in another room for a total of 9 times. And this repeats in other rooms too, just not exactly the same pattern. Some other small details could be adjusted too, like the doors taking slightly too long to fade out in the dream compared to how fast it is to open and close them in the real world. The holes in the floor idea was nice but, again, kinda repetitive because the corridors are 1 tile wide so you can’t visit all rooms in the same cycle. The cracks in the nightmare could take one less cycle to break, and could accept anti clockwise movement as well. And finally, I know this is supposed to be a child’s perspective, but the game could guide the player better on what to do. I started off just clicking randomly until I noticed the pattern on the second time I interacted with something on the first room.

I know that sounds like a lot of complaints, but I just like being thorough with my criticism. Overall it was an enjoyable experience and anyone who plays it can notice that you really put your heart into this.

(+1)

Thanks for this!! Really really, those are the kind of tweaks and changes that are hard to predict and balance blind, ya know? I appreciate knowing what worked and what didn't so I can zero in on better mechanics and balance. And almost everything you mentioned were things that I waffled with on how to balance haha. Not complaints at all, games should be fun and pull you forward in an entertaining way and finding that balance is something I feel I could spend hours talking about lol. So always happy to hear detailed feedback and thoughts on where I could improve with design . Thanks again for your time! 

(+1)(-1)

Also, since we’re here, please feel free to play, rate and make constructive criticism for my game for this jam as well! https://aleksander.itch.io/memories

Don't read until you've beaten the game

I really vibed with your game because my game also tackles the theme of loss. But in my game it’s more of a surprise at the end, since the idea is for the player to see the protagonist’s memories as the game progresses. I think this theme has a lot of potential because sooner or later most people will experience grief and loss in their lives. And to me the message that we gotta keep on living is really strong. Cheers!

(+1)

looking forward to it! Dont wanna jinx it but I dooo often make YouTube videos and post them of ppls games so 😎😎 gonna try and record some later today 👍

(+2)

How could I not love a game with so many poppies? :D Still, I haven't anticipated such an emotionally intelligent game in a horror game jam. Much love.

(+1)

Awwww, so sweet. It's funny - I had that thought too when I saw your name initially hahaha. Looking forward to giving your game a go too! Thanks for your nice comment <3 

its not sad and i'm not crying😢

dammit, crying face emoji! how did yoy get there??

(+1)

Denial is a river in Egypt 😎❤️