takeHeart

GDD and Devlog:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zU7OLDR1aqtW0KjlgpM8jZLyiodor-RW?usp=sha...

WARNING:  There is currently a bug in Safari that sometimes makes audio overlap and it gets pretty loud. However, it seems to only happen at the very beginning. If you use Safari, start the game on very low volume and raise it slowly when gameplay starts. You'll know if it's bugged. 

NOTE 1: It's been said to me by the few playtesters that I mustered minutes before the deadline that the game occasionally crashes. The previous version seemed to work fine, but the rushed final product seems to have messed some things up. It doesn't happen to me, at least, so I'm hopeful it won't happen to many others, either.  Anyway, I hope it doesn't bug for you and that you can enjoy it.

NOTE 2: There is a worse issue which relates to performance. The jump sometimes gets laughably low if there's an FPS drop. I assume that somewhere along the way I messed things up with delta time, but if you find yourself unable to make a jump you should definitely be able to make, that's a bug.

ABOUT THE GAME

takeHeart is a game that's been on my mind for a very long time now. When I saw the pirate software jam come up, I immediately thought the format fits, although the shadow and alchemy theme definitely took me in a completely different direction in terms of aesthetics. As someone who is thinking of getting into commercial game design, but has another job and is going at it solo, it takes me a lot of time to make things happen. Gamejams are a great opportunity to have a clear deadline for myself, but I often find myself having difficulty making games I don't truly care about. takeHeart is meant to be a compromise. It is envisioned as a relatively short game which I can realistically finish, whilst also having a certain emotional depth, which is important to me. In it's present form, I hope people can get 10-15 minutes of play time out of it. Initially, I planned for the full game to take aroundaround 30-40 minutes to complete, but seeing how long this compressed version takes to finish compared to how little I managed to implement of the already reduced content I planned out for the jam, it makes me think I can get a few hours of game time if I keep working on it. Anyway, mistakes were made, let's hope I'm somewhat the wiser for it. :)

GAMEPLAY CONSIDERATIONS

The gamepad offers a better playing experience. D-Pad to move, face_down to jump, face_right for the dash - once you unlock it. :)

The journal pages are optional!!! If some are too hard to obtain, you can skip them. It's entirely on me for not having properly tuned them.

Credits:

WRITING

Excerpts used for the jam from my own original texts written for the full version.

VISUALS

All visual assets are by myself.

SFX

https://freesound.org/people/pushtobreak/sounds/16793/
Attribution NonCommercial 4.0
https://freesound.org/people/adamgryu/sounds/336023/
Creative Commons 0
 https://freesound.org/people/HydrocityHarry/sounds/649886/ 
Creative Commons 0
https://freesound.org/people/B.Harkins/sounds/683653/
Creative Commons 0
https://freesound.org/people/ddohler/sounds/34253/
Attribution 4.0
Author: ddohler on Freesound: https://freesound.org/people/ddohler/

MUSIC

Theme music: F. Couperin - Les baricades misterieuses
Music in public domain

Source materials used:

1. Edition Augener, ca. 1888
Public domain
https://imslp.org/wiki/Les_barricades_mystérieuses_(Couperin,_François)

2. Arrangement for viola da gamba by Joseba Berrocal
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
https://imslp.org/wiki/Les_barricades_mystérieuses_(Couperin,_François)

MIDI conversion: PlayScore2
Mixing and recoring in Ableton Live Lite 11