Mirror to Fate

A short game poem about hope made for the NFTS Game Poems Jam, with the theme "the other one". Use the WASD / Arrow keys, or a controller's D-Pad / Left Joystick, to move.

It is recommended to play blind before reading the author's note below, but if you are stuck on what to do there is a "walkthrough" at the bottom of the page.

Author's Note

I've been thinking about games as art since before I made Live To Create at the start of the year, so finding this game jam was quite lucky as I hadn't heard of game poems before. The original plan was to have the player collect pills to expand the lit region (meant to represent "this" world where my life improved after getting medical help vs "the other" world where help isn't available), but that felt too "gamey" so it was changed to slowly pushing back the darkness as more a "strength of will" representation. But I didn't want it to seem like people that suffer are just too weak, so I added the second phase where you shatter the mirror to help "the other". Maybe it's a bit clunky of a representation, but I'm still happy with how it turned out.

Credits

• Programming, Design, Art Edits by Donian
• "Danse Morialta" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
• Roguelike/RPG Pack by Kenney
• Breaking Bottle by spookymodem
• DM Mono Font by Colophon Foundry
• Godot Engine (License)

"Walkthrough"

The poem is split into two phases:

• In the first phase, push back against the enclosing black space. Once it has been pushed back far enough, it will retreat entirely.
• In the second phase, push against the glass mirror until it shatters. Then, have the two circles touch.