MZ - If You Love Me

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Started by BroodyGaming 9 posts View original ↗
  1. BroodyGaming
    #1 Source
    I believe most people would say they would do anything to protect someone they love. To bring them back, keep them here. Keep them safe.

    It's time to prove it.

    Download here. ​


    Many of my games start with a kernel of truth, or a feeling or an image I can't get out of my head. A driving force that the rest of the game wraps itself around. I had read this thing on a forum many years ago that was a detailed list of how to bring someone back from the dead. I loved how the writing of this post posited you, the reader, as the hero of this story. It wasn't happening to someone on paper, it was YOU going down to bring someone back. I wanted to run with that faceless main character feeling, that sense of what would you do? YOU? If you love someone, what would you do in this situation?

    If you love them, you go find your lost one and bring them back, no matter what.

    This game includes spooky art, layers of hell, a slippery rose that won't stay put and voice acting! There's no wrong answers, no game over. A fairly linear story that leads from an inevitable beginning to an inevitable ending. I designed much of this based on the Divine Comedy or Dante's Inferno. I wanted to use it as a building platform and then ran with my own imaginations for much of it. If you're familiar with the Divine Comedy I'm sure you'll recognize some hints, if you are not you are not missing any important context, it was mostly there as a creative guideline to keep myself in check during the jam limit.

    All art and music and sound effects were made by me. This was a first venture into the world of doing voice work and it was a very fun challenge. I did the female voice work and HawkZombie did the male voice work.

    Thank you to HawkZombie for doing some brilliant voice work for this game, his credit and link to his socials are more easily found on the itch game website.


    Made for the Fear the Devil and Journey to the Underworld game jams. This game includes many themes of hell / after life / inhumane statis of forever torture and suffering that is implied in hellscapes. I had a hard time thinking of good/useful TWs for this one, please just be aware of the themes and make a choice for yourself accordingly.

    Screenshot 2024-09-28 172301.png


    Screenshot 2024-10-15 174212.png
  2. AgustinPrS
    #2 Source
    Hello, translator from English to Spanish, can we talk?
  3. Beregon
    #3 Source
    This game is a very surreal take on the Inferno part of the Divine Comedy. The art is suitably unsettling and spectacular and there's many great moments that let you appreciate it fully, such as the full on zoom out when the protagonist is crossing the lake. The writing is also on point, especially the ending that gives many things to ponder about and is deep in the right way. The game is basically a walking simulator, done in the right way where the story and visuals carry the whole game.

    If I had to criticize something, it would mostly be small things. For example, on the last level, where once again the "you feel a gust of hot air" message pops up as usual, but when you enter, you are in a frozen ice cave, so, this one time it should've been changed to something like "you feel a gust of cold air". Also, in the "forest" area, it was hard to tell through which path you were supposed to go at first, but otherwise no substantial complaints!
  4. UmbraCelestine
    #4 Source
    I liked the game, it's quite interesting. But, I don't get the purpose of the choices in the game.
    "Do you love her?"
    Yes : I can proceed to the next part.
    No : I still have to proceed to the next part.

    Though, other choices do serve a purpose-

    But, overall... It was really interesting.
  5. BroodyGaming
    #5 Source
    Beregon said:
    This game is a very surreal take on the Inferno part of the Divine Comedy. The art is suitably unsettling and spectacular and there's many great moments that let you appreciate it fully, such as the full on zoom out when the protagonist is crossing the lake. The writing is also on point, especially the ending that gives many things to ponder about and is deep in the right way. The game is basically a walking simulator, done in the right way where the story and visuals carry the whole game.

    If I had to criticize something, it would mostly be small things. For example, on the last level, where once again the "you feel a gust of hot air" message pops up as usual, but when you enter, you are in a frozen ice cave, so, this one time it should've been changed to something like "you feel a gust of cold air". Also, in the "forest" area, it was hard to tell through which path you were supposed to go at first, but otherwise no substantial complaints!
    Thanks B!! I’m so glad the art and words resonated with you. It was fun doing my own take on such an old story and metaphor and I had so much fun conceptualizing every level.

    And I totally agree about the words near the end, imo a few things got too repetitive near the end of the game haha but as you know a lot of that boils down to time. I have plans and want to individualize the whole rose being blown away and the tunnel a lot more for each level at some point in the future. That kinda feedback is so helpful for that plan.

    UmbraCelestine said:
    I liked the game, it's quite interesting. But, I don't get the purpose of the choices in the game.
    "Do you love her?"
    Yes : I can proceed to the next part.
    No : I still have to proceed to the next part.

    Though, other choices do serve a purpose-

    But, overall... It was really interesting.
    Thanks for giving it a go! I have a second ending planned that I just didn’t have time for for the game jam. I really appreciate your words and feedback!
  6. AAK581
    #6 Source
    "Uhhh hello this is Dante Alighieri... I was looking for a successor and I stumbled upon this... we need to talk"
  7. BroodyGaming
    #7 Source
    AAK581 said:
    "Uhhh hello this is Dante Alighieri... I was looking for a successor and I stumbled upon this... we need to talk"
    Illegal to be funnier than me on my own post omg hahaha
  8. TheAM-Dol
    #8 Source
    I had played this on stream.
    Now, before I dive into my review on it, I just want to say that I had no awareness of what this game would even be - probably to my detriment - since games were picked at random and I didn't read the store page(er...forum page) for the game at all. Maybe I would have understood it better had I done so, so for that all I can say is: My bad.
    Unfortunately, going forward, I can really only review it based on my raw, blind experience with the game...which was to say, not a good experience.

    I found the overall game incredibly dull.
    I was happy to see the original artwork, which at times looked nice with it's own artistic expression to it.
    However, sometimes this art even obscured what could be interacted with. There was a particular room that I had no clue what to do in because the interactable objects blended in with the rest of the environment.

    The writing itself tried way too hard to be "deep" and the metaphors were hamfisted and shallow - though, honestly, knowing my own reading comprehension, maybe that's actually a good thing :LZSlol: What wasn't very good about the writing is that it invited the player to...interact with it? Make choices and respond to their "lover" but none of the choices mattered. If there is no point to it, I am not sure why you would want to include it at all.

    I also found the rose constantly getting blown out of Protag-man's hand sort of trite. After the first couple of times, you'd really think protag man would learn to hold the flower better. Maybe you could have found different excuses for why the rose was being taken away from protag-man. Either way, the constant repetition in the game made this become increasingly dull and predictable.

    It's hard to grade much of the game play, it was all senseless click on things without much thinking. Other than the aforementioned "Didn't know what to do because the interactables were obscured by art", none of the rooms particularly challenged me to think about things either.

    Hopefully any future games you make will improve on the metaphors, writing, and game play elements.
    Best of luck with whatever your future endeavors may be.

    A link to my stream is below. Your game should have a time stamp that you can jump to.
    - YouTube
  9. BroodyGaming
    #9 Source
    TheAM-Dol said:
    I had played this on stream.
    Now, before I dive into my review on it, I just want to say that I had no awareness of what this game would even be - probably to my detriment - since games were picked at random and I didn't read the store page(er...forum page) for the game at all. Maybe I would have understood it better had I done so, so for that all I can say is: My bad.
    Unfortunately, going forward, I can really only review it based on my raw, blind experience with the game...which was to say, not a good experience.

    I found the overall game incredibly dull.
    I was happy to see the original artwork, which at times looked nice with it's own artistic expression to it.
    However, sometimes this art even obscured what could be interacted with. There was a particular room that I had no clue what to do in because the interactable objects blended in with the rest of the environment.

    The writing itself tried way too hard to be "deep" and the metaphors were hamfisted and shallow - though, honestly, knowing my own reading comprehension, maybe that's actually a good thing :LZSlol: What wasn't very good about the writing is that it invited the player to...interact with it? Make choices and respond to their "lover" but none of the choices mattered. If there is no point to it, I am not sure why you would want to include it at all.

    I also found the rose constantly getting blown out of Protag-man's hand sort of trite. After the first couple of times, you'd really think protag man would learn to hold the flower better. Maybe you could have found different excuses for why the rose was being taken away from protag-man. Either way, the constant repetition in the game made this become increasingly dull and predictable.

    It's hard to grade much of the game play, it was all senseless click on things without much thinking. Other than the aforementioned "Didn't know what to do because the interactables were obscured by art", none of the rooms particularly challenged me to think about things either.

    Hopefully any future games you make will improve on the metaphors, writing, and game play elements.
    Best of luck with whatever your future endeavors may be.

    A link to my stream is below. Your game should have a time stamp that you can jump to.
    - YouTube
    Hey thanks for giving it a go and for the feedback. And good on you for raising money for a good cause like that! I get that not everyone likes really serious toned games haha, so all in good fun. I am totally artsy fartsy haha, shamelessly. love the weird sad ! Wild you stumbled upon two of my games in one stream! I feel kinda bad, they're clearly not up your alley haha. I was surprised to also see Frozen to the Bone. The challenge you'd set yourself sounded so hard!! I couldn't do it. And there was rhyming in both as well lol. I was so impressed haha and again, all for a good cause so that was neat. Best of luck to you as well.