Mind's Resonance

Our game was honored as the winner of the game jam for being the best game.

CONTROLS:

• MOVEMENT:  W A S D
• DASH: SPACE
• PARRY: LEFT MOUSE CLICK
• UI INTERACT: LEFT MOUSE CLICK

SUMMARY:

Mind's Resonance is an action video game created during the Great CITM Game Jam, where the main theme of the games was Echo, along with some sub-themes such as Perspective, Reality Distortion, Parallel World, Metamorphosis and The Power of Music.

In Mind's Resonance, we aimed to understand the echo as the idea of internal mental echoes that individuals experience, referencing the psychological term of Rumination. Rumination essentially refers to negative, repetitive, and persistent thoughts that tend to be associated with worries and focus on problems without reaching a solution, causing the person to continuously dwell on the same idea and feel trapped in a cycle of negative thoughts.

These types of thoughts are often influenced by both our perception of the environment and our cognitive distortions. Thus, they are partly triggered by external inputs.

In our case, we wanted to convey this through a story set in a school, where the main character experiences bullying. Every time a group of students bully him, everything they say resonates in his subconscious (Parallel World), and he must battle his inner demons, each representing a different type of suffering that individuals can experience due to these rumination thoughts, in this case, resulting from bullying. For example, our character will fight against a chained heart representing sadness and emotional oppression, a puppet representing the feeling of being manipulated and controlled by others, and finally, a monster, a deformed being covered in twisted mouths symbolizing constant contempt and criticism.

Furthermore, since music has a powerful therapeutic effect, we wanted to use it to symbolize the trigger for the game's main mechanic, the parry. This parry is used to bounce back the waves shot by the monsters, representing negative and repetitive thoughts.

Lastly, throughout the game, we represent the character's personal growth (metamorphosis) through color. Initially, everything is colorful, but when the character faces bullying, the art turns black and white. As he wins battles, the world gradually becomes colorful again, symbolizing the journey of overcoming obstacles. 

This culminates in the final scene, where everything is vibrant and colorful, representing the ultimate overcoming of challenges.

Team Members:

Xiao Shan Costajussà Bellver: Game Designer and  Programmer - itch.io

Arnau González Acosta: Game Designer and Programmer - itch.io

Uri Martín Corella: Game Designer and Programmer - itch.io

David Ruiz Luengo: Artist and Game Designer - itch.io

Xavier Prats Paredes: Game Designer and Programmer - itch.io