With A Heavy Heart
Originally made for 2024's GMTK Game Jam by indie game dev team Octo Misfits in 5 days.
This is a narrative driven adventure where you need to control a balloon to help yourself find your old memories and escape the void.
How to Play
The focus on the game is on the narrative, with your object being on collecting memories, so the gameplay is not very punishing, with the controls being meant to be a bit challenging at first, to add something on top of the story, as you essentially need to keep in mind the two characters at once, but quick to master, making you grace trough the level.
There are various type of collectables, including ones with positive memories and negative ones, with the positives making you bigger and the negatives making you smaller. To collect items you need the character, not the balloon, to touch the item, so it may require you to use the tie and untie mechanics to collect the items as well as knowledge and skill on the controls and physics of the game.
One of the most fundamental mechanics of the game is the size changing mechanics of your balloon, as you need to strategically make your ballon bigger or smaller depending on the situation, for example passing trough small corridors may need you to get smaller. You can change your size either by collecting certain items or by using the grow and shrink mechanics.
Controls
| Action | Input | Description |
| Move | W, A, S, D or the Arrow Keys. | You can move your balloon up, down, left and right, however you need to pay attention to your stamina as if it's too low your movement gets slower and slower untill you are unable to move at all! |
| Tie/Untie | Space bar. Press the button to try to switch to the other state. | Untying is useful to throw your character and make them collect items, however while untied you lose stamina, however tying them back slowly recovers your stamina! Pay attention to walls in the way as you can't tie your character when there's something in the way of them. |
| Grow/Shrink (Doesn't works) | Z for bigger, X for smaller. Hold the button. | You can manually grow or shrink to pass certain obstacles. |
| Change Hats | Q and E, to scroll trough your available hats. | You can switch hats at any time, this doesn't affects the gameplay is just for visuals. |
Credits
This game was made using the Unity Game Engine, by these awesome 7 people
- Pix (Zephaniah Abiodun), Programmer and Team Organizer. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abiodun-opeoluwa-1b2a59248/.
- Hypnotik Fox, Artist (tech artist and HD illustrator) and Game Designer. Itch.io: https://hypnotikfox.itch.io/.
- SquashyHeemo (Himanashu Gupta), Programmer. Instagram: heemanchu.
- The Spade King (Anthony David), Narrative Designer. Twitter (X): @SpadeKingDante.
- Icingber (Cuthbert Tse), Level Designer. Email: gdcutht@gmail.com
- Sylphan Scribe, Artist.
- Leila 02742 (Leila Harris), Sound Designer and Music Composer.
- Noodle 0405, Programmer and Game Designer.
If you encounter any issues or have any thoughts on the game feel free to tell us, we will be happy to hear!
This page was last updated at 22/10/2024 at 20:57 (GMT -3).
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Development log
