My 2D platformer in C++ and lua that made it to TOP30 of Poland in ImagineCup.
This project is long abandoned and most probably cannot even be built again. You can watch the walkthrough here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjolw0OFPKM
Describing the idea for the game got me into the TOP30 of Poland. It reads as follows:
Sensibilia
Story
Undefined future. Several years before inventing and popularizing virtual reality. Late enough for the society to become reserved and nuclear.
You assume the role of a complete loner in his mid-thirties living constant daily routines. Soon he becomes an active member of underground internet message boards, where he's convinced to leave behind the indifferent, real-world society. The man was told to concentrate on his own self, like a true narcissus would do. As a method of self-betterment, he engages in practices like lucid dreaming.
Diving into the embrace of wonderland, he realizes that only asleep can he ever rejoice. Reality checks become the only way to draw a border between what's real and what is not.
Inevitably, the border blurs.
One idea for the ending is that the main character makes a book merely out of his dream diary (a method used to aid lucid dreaming), which is in turn an inspiration for the protagonist of the future sequel, The Narcisstic Experience (which is out of scope of our participation).
About the game
We've come to a conclusion that it's enough to tell such a story with a short 2D action game. Mixing peaceful moments of cogitation with a challenging, fast-paced gameplay should drive Sensibilia's replayability.
Rapidly changing dreamworld with its unreliable environments should provide a decent challenge for the player. The time seems to alter once some clock goes out of view, and should you notice an NPC, he may already be slowly turning into something unfriendly.
We replace the concept of health points with "stability". If the whole dreamworld falls apart - it's game over, you wake up with a trauma. To prevent this, the player is provided with following abilities:
- casting so-called "rays of instability" that destroy any unfriendly entity upon hit
- doing reality checks that stabilize the dreamworld but have some kind of temporary cost
- probably only a few more not to make the gameplay redundantly complex
To aid the ambience of dreams, we'll redefine the unmistakably chosen wave of "glitch art", which is heavily used throughout "fragmovie" communities and underground music artists, but has never been applied to visuals of video games.
By delving right into the mind of a hypothetical recluse of the future, we'll emphasize the problems of lone people. The surreal narrative will occasionally link to the dream argument.
It is the last dream ever dreamt what we are used to call "reality".