One of life's tragedies is that of losing a person you love dearly. Whether it's your mom or your dad, or even your dog! In My Life is Yours, a puzzle platform adventure game, a man gets a chance to get back the love he lost, but the two of them have to outmaneuver Hades to get their second chance at a happily ever after. Created by Katie Chironis, Duncan Boehle, Connor Fallon, and Val Reznitskaya over the course of 48 hours for a recent Global Game Jam in which it took 2nd place for the Peoples Choice Award, My Life is Yours takes you to the bowels of the Underworld to explore the old adage that "love conquers all."
To move your character through the levels use your [arrow] keys to move left, and right. The old fashioned [WASD] set-up also works. To jump you can use your [space] bar, or use [W] or the up [arrow]. Switching between characters requires one to die for the other to live and the element used to die greatly affects the form your other half reincarnates as. If your character dies by earthen spike, then you will be a solid form able to push the heavy blocks. Fire will bring you back as a human torch and can shatter glass. Air will allow you to be blown this way and that by air currents. Water allows you to slip through fencing. If you are currently in the form of a specific element you will be able to pass through that same element unfazed, except in the case of the spikes. Your goal is to reach the doorway at the end of each level, and on some levels there are two doorways available. Only one of your characters needs to go through a door and if you get stuck at any time you can press [R] to restart the level.
The inspiration for the game comes from the classic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, though the game plays out differently than the myth itself. The addition of the elements and their uses in the game gives a greater depth to each level and the switching between characters adds an extra dimension to the puzzle solving. One thing that feels lacking is the length, with the whole game taking anywhere between five and ten minutes to complete. However, the brevity doesn't detract from the beautifully crafted levels and backdrops. If anything, it's a smart move to make you want and demand more which is really all any game maker wants. Sometimes you don't need an hour long game to make you sit back and feel pleased with yourself for a job well done, especially with a game that can make you reflect on what lengths you would go to in order to hold onto the one you love most. "I see. You are an adventurer, perhaps?" Well, are you?
So atmospheric. Love the dynamic music that changes with the elements. Water's my favorite.
...Just for the record, I think that's ice, not glass.
My favourite sound is actually the air sound...
Anyway, I like how there are the levels where you can make a choice,
and how it tells you those choices at the end. I only wish that those choices influenced something, like an ending scene.
it just influence the words,but not the scene
i even tried with reaching each door with girl when it is possible
I got two different endings...
One with the girl alive and the other with the girl as a ghost.
The girl was alive when I took the easy route at the last level, and I don't know if there was anything else I did differently.
Overall, I enjoyed the game thoroughly.
This was sweet. I've heard a lot about using game mechanics instead of words to tell a story, but it's never been something I've given a lot of thought to. I like words. It never seemed necessary to care. Yet, without any dialogue, I could tell a lot about the relationship these characters had. Drowning themselves, jumping into spikes, burning themselves up in a wall of fire, doing... something with skulls and ghosts that I don't quite get, but looks very unpleasant- and doing that all willingly so the other one can move on and help move them forward- these characters must have an insane amount of love and trust for each other, and that's all without seeing a word spoken between them. This little game has converted me to the importance of mechanics that don't just "not clash", but tie into the theme and story really well.
The ending didn't feel complete, though. I got the end where the guy was alive and the girl was a ghost, and it looks like I could have saved them both if I did things differently based on what the other commenters are saying. It would have been nice if there was some way of wrapping it up that wasn't just telling me what choices I made... and wouldn't it have been what choices both characters made together instead of just the guy? I may be interpreting it wrong, but to me it seemed like both characters were an active part of the escape.
One more tiny nitpick- there needed to be some visual cue that when one of them got through a door, they both escaped! I knew I wasn't really leaving one of them behind, but it always sort of felt like I was.
I got the ending where the guy walks across the screen to the girl and joins her, then fadeout to credits. That means they are both alive, right?
Yay! they are both alive!
these were my choices
agreement over conflict
safety over adventure
easy over challenging
i wonder if there is a way they are both dead or only the girl survives.
dear ilikecheese35,
they do influence just that! 1 set makes the girl a ghost at the end the other makes them both alive. I'm still not sure whether or not there is an ending that has the boy a ghost or both of them ghosts. If anyone finds one of these tell me!
Update