The Indigo Illusion

[wherewildthingsfly]

A Game by Shared Madness Games LLC

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Game website page

This is my first game! It is about two hours in length. The game's been extensively tested but please feel free to report any bugs or errors you find and I'll fix them right away. The game also contains multiple sensitive topics. If you have questions in regards to this or anything else, please contact me. I'm always willing to chat!

The Indigo Illusion is a tale of empowered teens solving a mystery. It's a game that explores friendship, love, death, loneliness, sexuality, gender, religion, and more. This game is a character driven, narrative experience in which choice is paramount. It is about real, human people struggling with societal constraints, insecurity, and relationships. It's not flashy, it's messy and true.

You move into your new apartment on the first week of classes as a college freshman and find that you and other residents of your building have begun to experience strange things. You all might just be crazy.

• Meet new friends
• Explore the human condition
• Find out the stuff dreams are made of
• Be a teenager and solve a mystery
• Learn something about yourself and me at the same time

(Real gameplay features)

• Talk to people
• Explore and interact with environments
• Puzzles! (sort of)
• Basically lots of talking
• Seriously, conversation

Credits:

Spoiler

Portraits by:

Mangaartdraw

 

Graphical Resources by:

Enterbrain

Celianna

PandaMaru

Flaming Teddy Productions

J. Paul Getty Museum GRI Digital collection

     Fédèle Azari

     Julia Margaret Cameron

     Gertrude Käsebier

     W.S. Hobson

Yair Haklai

Ransome Gillett Holdridge

Dr B K Guha

seier+seier

Rob Meek

Maker Systems - RPG Maker Source

 

Music by:

Bensound

Emanuel Salvador

Markus Staab

Felipe Sarro

Anna Simboli

Agustin Barrios Mangore

Antonín Dvořák

Diana Hughes

Aya Higuchi

Vox Àltera Ensemble

Peter J

Luis Sarro

Juan Diaz Porras

Murray Atkinson

 

Sound Effects by:

Mark Diangelo

 

Scripts by:

Vlue

Nicke

Gambit

Zalerinian

 

Testers:

Jess South

Vladimir Lukic

Angel Tasevski

Elisa Bjort Gudjonsdottir

 

[amaSenpai]

Oh, this sounds interesting.

I really enjoy exploring what makes humans.... Human. The character work seems nice as well.

 

[wherewildthingsfly]

I was trying to be clever with the features list. I'm dorky that way 

I really wanted to write a personal and character driven story that hopefully gets at themes not usually addressed in games. I'm glad that interests you. Thanks for your support!

 

[amaSenpai]

Story really makes a game for me. So having that character interaction and 'unaddressed themes' sounds refreshing.

College is usually the first time people are really on their own, so I'm wondering what 'crazy' means for the cast.

Did you do the art? it's lovely. The only nitpicking I'd like to add is that the red head girl has a weird choice in necklace. The neckline doesn't work with it.... Of course that's a fashion problem that you may not care about.

 

[wherewildthingsfly]

I found the college setting it to be perfect for the story I wanted to tell and the characters who inhabit it.

I did not do the art. I wrote and designed the game. I was lucky enough to work with a very kind artist who was willing to do the art and I think it's of high quality so I don't want to criticize it too heavily myself but I absolutely respect your opinion. The art's not perfect and I certainly have some things I wish were different myself so I'm sure it will receive criticism and that's always welcome   .

 

[Labyrinthine]

When the character sprites are on the right and the text box figure on the left, does it feel like the character was facing away from the conversation? (or just me nitpicking about a non-existent issue...)

 

[wherewildthingsfly]

Hmm...I'll definitely have to take that into consideration because the majority of the scenes in the game have the character portrait on the left. I appreciate your feedback!

 

[Cavemann20]

theres mess up in the end of the game. Near the end when you grab the doorknob and it asks what person are you thinking of? and you select a character and they join you, well I got switch to that character and stay as them for the rest of the game.

 

[wherewildthingsfly]

That was a bug when that particular scene was first added. It has since been patched. Thanks!

 

[IAmJakeSauvage]

Congratulations on releasing your first game Not bad - I think the premise itself is really interesting, and I really enjoyed going through some of the people's dreams...


Some suggestions for the future:

• Sprites moving, balloon use, etc. for your cutscenes - they're rather bland as it stands. I'd also recommend SE for the little things like watering the plants, picking up a book etc. - it'll only help to make your environments more immersive. (Echo has some cutscene tutorials on their Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Ae_j4iVUtJ1eqYa-TR_4A) 
  
• Work on exterior mapping - your "interior" style maps are ok - but forests/cliffs etc. need a little bit of work. Look at the screenshots thread to see how others go about making interesting exteriors! It helped me a lot when I was younger. 
  
• Some grammatical errors (lots of you're instead of your) you may want to polish.
  
• This may be a personal gripe, but if you're going to implement moving blocks and things along those lines - make sure they have a purpose and are somewhat challenging. There's no point in throwing a few movable rocks into a map just to hinder the player.
  

Otherwise, great work! Stay inspired - I can't wait to see what you come out with in the future!