Decay
content warnings: current events, death, suicide
A short game I wanted to make to take bit of a break from I Hate You, Please Suffer, which is a more miserable realization of the negative aspects of that world. I guess you can call this a spin-off game.
Also you can probably tell that I'm being turned into the Joker by real world circumstances
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Q: The game kinda runs like shit
A: Yeah I kinda hate RPG Maker MV and MZ, but you can do more cool things in it over VX Ace, so it's hard to say what's good or bad. Playing it in download form would probably be a better experience.
Q: What's with the art style?
A: I wanted to give a unique look but I didn't want to fully commit to a full new art style for something short (besides the enemies). My approach was to make all the environments look fucked up while the characters and objects are grayscale to represent how people are expected to continue on with a monotonous life in a chaotic world.
Q: This is too hard.
A: Yeah
Q: If it takes place in the same world as other works, shouldn't the main character develop magic powers?
A: Yeah but then that'd make this game kinda cool when I want it to be a miserable experience. Sometimes you can just ignore lore.
Q: Who made the music?
A: It's public domain stuff by Rose, please check them out!
Q: How can I give you money and power?
A: Check out my other stuff. If you like RPGs, I mainly make those. I also write about games, so check that out and maybe share reads you liked with other people. And also I got a Patreon I guess.
Download
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Development log
- 1.1 updateFeb 27, 2022
Comments
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I managed to get the Normal Ending first try with my stress at 100. So real it hurts lol
lotta people complaining about the birds but imo those were the least annoying enemies (except for the food theft. absolutely unforgivable. jailing them for bird crimes). i really enjoyed this game - got the normal ending; max hp down to 85. not sure if checking the sink twice a day helped with that, but i like to think it did. somewhat curious about the other endings, so maybe i'll come back and replay this sometime! rn i wanna try one of your other games; i own slimes, so it'll probably be that (it was actually going to be that, but i ended up checking your page and deciding to try out this one first lol)
really accurately captures the feelings of everyone at the height of the pandemic, playing this now really does feel like opening up a time capsule. crazy to think about how it really wasn't actually that long ago, and in some ways it never even ended, the repercussions of the outbreak and the response from those in power are something we're still dealing with to this day
An awesome game made by an awesome developer that's as pissed at the world's economics/politics as much as I am. Great job!
(I managed to survive with just 1 HP. Sickness really kicks your ass and I relied on pure luck and escape attempts.)
10/10 photorealistic experience of working at a essential job during the first few waves
This was a fun play, got the Normal and Uncertain endings, third one gave errors after the last fight but still a great game to go through regardless, very well captured how it felt going through monotony of the pandemic.
Suprisingly runs fine on mobile. Loved it, got the normal ending - just curious what the other endings are. Going to guess that's the least horrible one though lmao
Enjoyable game! I killed at least two plague beasts a day and simply did not take days off for the maximum grindset experience. Everyone hated me at work because I purposefully didn't drop my stress below 40 so I could continue going ape. Ended the game at level 9, and I'll aim for higher next time if I play it again
how do i eat n stuff? i bought groceries but im unsure how to use them!
If you have ingredients, you have to interact with the stove in the apartment. Anything else can just be used in the menu.
thank you but how do i access the menu? ive seen the three lines thingy at the top and whenever i click it my screen goes bright red
You can also press "X" to open the menu, but also, that's weird. What version of the game are you playing? The menu's fine on my browser and my PC download, I wanna know what the deal is with this.
im playing from browser maybe its just a small bug but im not sure
i have also pressed x many times i went through every button on my keyboard but was unable to open the menu
??? That is. Weird. Honestly, see it you can play a download build of the game because this just seems like an engine compatibility issue.
I was able to get the normal ending, mostly thanks to discovering and thoroughly exploiting a bug that allowed me to leave home and go work another shift after returning from the first. Gaming or cooking after arriving removes the "it's night, can't go back out" message and lets you return to the field to hustle further. This let me rack up multiple workdays without advancing the calendar. There might have been some smaller bugs too - I think the news alerts didn't always line up with actual price hikes - but I didn't pay very close attention for them.
I still got a bunch of game overs and ended the game at 30 hp, with only one day to spare after collecting the rent. So the bug might not be a total game-breaker, especially considering how risky it is to catch the plague or something just after heading out - I only used it if I was still in mostly-good condition. It could be more exploitable - I might not have hustled hard enough while the hustling
was goodsignificantly less dangerous in the early game. I might also just have bad plague RNG.I don't fuck around with 50/50 odds for escaping unless I have to, so I fought most encounters and ended the game at level 6. That said, if I was in over my head, Coughing Fit never seemed like a better option than just trying my luck escaping. I found hunger the easiest resource to manage, so I made a lot of complementary use of the single-attack move that stresses you out and the move that burns stress but makes you hungry.
I suspect there'll be plenty of media that sets out to capture the fear and isolation and historical impact of the pandemic once it's in any sense "behind us", but I think this game does a good job at specifically emphasizing the more mundane lose-lose-lose situations people face every day.
It's a very angrily-written short story of a survival horror RPG, in a good way. I like that it uses a straightforward turn-based RPG format but denies the agency or power that would normally grant. You just have a level 6 capacity to cope with this part of the collapse of an individualistic society.
I liked the glitch effects and vaguely nauseous graphical style. Some of it ran like shit on my laptop which is probably in-theme. in conclusion fuck them biiiiirds
I'm glad you enjoyed the game and I sorta apologize for the birds. Also yikes, thanks for the heads up on the exploit, I can't allow anyone a measure of safety!
i am the corona king.
was kind of putting off playing this because I knew it would be grim but I'm glad I finally did play it holy shit. very immersive real life simulator. the writing really hits and the use of colors and filters and stuff is really good. will be recommending to friends who can stomach this kind of thing.
It seems like the game consistently freezes at a certain ending. I keep getting the error message "Failed to load img/sv_actors/landlord.png".
I’m glad you like it! I didn’t get hit by that bug during my playtests, so I’ll have to check again soon to see if there was a problem when converting the game. How are you playing it?
This happened in the browser version. I was using Firefox if it matters.
Ah, I’ll try re-uploading a browser build after I get some sleep. Browser RPG Maker is still kinda imperfect, but I’ll also try playing through a normal download build later to see if the problem’s also there.
i hate those birds
the birds reign of terror is forever