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[TonyNowak]

TIE

TIE is a game about depression and the daily grind we are all forced too endure. Experience a week of more of the same, every day, through the eyes of our main character as the world and its inhabitants slowly start too become increasingly unfamiliar. Irregularities in the world and from deep within plague your day to day and a strange force seems to tear the very fabric of reality itself, as it becomes apparent that not all is as it seems in this short, atmospheric game about depression and existential dread.

-An intricately detailed and beautiful pixel art world to explore.
   
-An atmospheric narrative about the routine we all face and the void beyond.
   
-A wonderful, hauntingly melancholy soundtrack composed by Meat Analogue.

We become aware of the void as we fill it. Embrace life. Embrace work. Embrace routine. Embrace the unnatural but strangely compelling voice of the void that calls to you from beyond; a place neither here nor there, but rather simply... just is. After you...

You can grab TIE from my itch.io page here: https://tonynowak.itch.io/agameaboutdepression

THE TEAM

I do a bit of everything, darithorn is our programmer, and Jeremy is our musican/sound designer.

Playable Build v1.06 (Outdated)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13822695/TIE%20v1.06/TIE%20v1.06.html

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TIE Offical Soundtrack

http://meatanalogue.bandcamp.com/album/tie-a-game-about-depression-official-soundtrack

Screenshots

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TIE will be free to play via webplayer/standalone, and the soundtrack is available via Bandcamp. The soundtrack is composed by Vegetarian Meat (also our sound designer), you can listen to some of his work here:

www.vegetarianmeat.bandcamp.ca

www.vegetarianmeat.newgrounds.com

You can follow TIE on our website here:

http://agameaboutdepression.blogspot.com/

Or on the Unity Forum's here:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/202057-TIE-A-game-about-depression

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[conorh]

h'watching this. What you making it with?

[Excy]

Loving how you've set the mood with the limited colours and blank background, in a way it's sort of claustrophobic and stresses me out, which is good if that's what you're going for.

Following! Excited to see how this ends up

[Skydsgaard]

I love the art. And the concept looks very interesting. I will follow!

edit: the little detail of the 2 photos in the wall is super funny :D

[Iso]

This looks like it could hit me hard, it's already very relate-able. Edit: I mean this in a good way, as in I'd want to play it.

[Excy]

This looks like it could hit me hard, it's already very relate-able.

Chin up, man.

[Superb Joe]

hello. here is a film about ties, and other things, for you to digest (do not actually eat the film, but think about it, as it relates to your own work)

[TonyNowak]

Thanks guys! Wall of text incoming before work.

h'watching this. What you making it with?

Unity 3D is my tool of choice.

I love the art. And the concept looks very interesting. I will follow!

edit: the little detail of the 2 photos in the wall is super funny :D

I didn't think many people would notice the small details I put into each scene, I tried to make everything be sensible, as if it were a real home. Note the wall outlets being used, toilet paper dispenser, etc.

Loving how you've set the mood with the limited colours and blank background, in a way it's sort of claustrophobic and stresses me out, which is good if that's what you're going for.

Following! Excited to see how this ends up

Mood is huge for this, and the colors I ended up using I certainly don't regret. There's a ton of different backgrounds (all in various stages of work in progress), the one I am currently working on is the most detailed yet. I'll be posting more soon! :D

[moi]

OTTO FLIPPA is pleased

[Udderdude]

No wonder he's so depressed, someone took his head off and stuck it on the wall.



There we go, all better!

[TonyNowak]

Hahaha! Nice edit.

[Excy]

Mood is huge for this, and the colors I ended up using I certainly don't regret. There's a ton of different backgrounds (all in various stages of work in progress), the one I am currently working on is the most detailed yet. I'll be posting more soon! :D

Ooooooo

[TonyNowak]

TIE Soundtrack Preview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UQqELRNQQA&feature=youtu.be

This is a soundtrack preview for TIE, all of the tracks have been composed by Vegetarian Meat. We really hope you enjoy the tracks composed for the game so far! You can check out some of his other work either on Bandcamp or Newgrounds.

Bandcamp: www.vegetarianmeat.ca

Newgrounds: http://vegetarianmeat.newgrounds.com/

[TonyNowak]

TIE Pseudo Gameplay Video

So, I rewrote my interactions manager for the third time now, utilizing a completely different way of displaying text or interactions. These are completely customizable down to the smallest detail, this method allows for more complex color changes, fading in/out, text movement, text parallaxing, etc.

I also have this funny little bug that often occurs when I have rewritten a lot of things, and I call this the moonwalk bug:



I decided to make a short video of it as it's quite amusing when it does show up (east fix btw), and so far, others have gotten a kick out of it too. More importantly, you can see the new text and animations here. Don't forget to check out our soundtrack preview while your at it, posted above.

[somin]

Love the soundtrack
One thing I would mention is that i personally would move the text closer to the action. I don't like subtitles a whole lot in general because they distract from the action. I see that subtitles is a necessary evil in this case though so its fine, but I would move them closer to the strip, maybe right below. Quite apart from not noticing the text first time watching its just a little annoying to have to look up and down that far all the time.

Otherwise great work so far!

[TonyNowak]

Thanks a lot. We think we've hit a sweet spot with the soundtrack in the sense it is catering to the mood and aesthetic of the game. We have another track that will be potentially used here, let us know what you think: http://vegetarianmeat.ca/track/drifter

As for the text, that's a complain I've received very often, it would be no problem to move it up at all and will certainly take this into account as development progresses and we start getting builds out. It's my understanding it's just a bit jarring.

[eobet]

The moving dust in the sunlight and the reflections in the mirror elevated this from good to great!

[TonyNowak]

This week wasn't very productive due to work and some life events. Although, I have thought a lot about making the game's tone and feel more 'obvious' in some ways. So for example, walking into work, your boss awaits you, the closer you'd move towards him the more the music would start to fade out, being replaced by a static clash of different elements in the music and environment, the camera would shake subtly and the world's colors' around this person start to mute. I think it would be a little too jarring, and I'm certainly looking into others way of making the games tone and feel more obvious, but that's one of the many examples I had in mind.

Now that all of that is out of the way, on the more technical side of things, I did add a new control, which is 'W', it simply makes you look up, as some maps are quite large. I am also looking to make the game mouse based at this point, feeling I have too many controls.

[TonyNowak]

Hey guy's, been awhile since I've updated this so bear with me. As I mentioned earlier I felt I had too many controls for such menial tasks. I implemented a nice little mouse cursor (allowing more precise interactions, like flicking lights on and off, etc.) that fades out when there is no mouse input. Asides from this I wrote a music manager that handles the games soundtrack in between levels, etc.

Last but not least I have been experimenting with some pseudo "post processing" effects. Here's the result, the mouse cursor (white pixel) is also visible:



And just for you a sneak peak at some office props I've been working on.

[Bret Hudson]

This project seems really neat and has a lot of mood-related aspects to it I'm interested in seeing come together as a whole. The art is so simple but also so good looking; love what you're doing there.

In a game revolving around depression, or any strong mental attributes/emotions, I believe it's very important to be connected with the character. To feel an immense bond. Does the current mouse controls (I believe that's what you're using) disconnect the player from the character in game at all? What have you done/plan on doing to make sure that that bond isn't weak?