For Tomorrow is a metroidvania set in a dystopian world, robbed of its joy and life. Fight through various areas as you struggle to find a reason to push on.

Developer for the Safe In Our World Mental Health -  Game Dev Champions 2024 Game Jam within the "Solo Dev - 25+"  category

Mental Health

Development

About Me

Controls

What is a Metroidvania?

Download

Mental Health

A lot of the themes touched on in For Tomorrow are drawn from my real life experiences. Growing up I always felt out of place, like I had to pretend to fit in everywhere I went. As I got older and lived on my own, it led me to hide away on my own for several years, forgetting to eat every second day, turning down any chance for social engagement. Slowly but surely I dug a deep pit of depression for myself, and as it got deeper and deeper, getting out seemed more and more impossible, until there only seemed to be one way.

I broke down and called my brother, and within a year, he'd offered me a room in his apartment. After I moved in, he managed to convince me to go to a local game store to play some Dungeons and Dragons. I met a girl there. 6 years later, I get to call her my wife.

I thought there was only one way out of that hole, but I just had to wait for someone to come along with a ladder. It is always worth waiting.

Development

I'm a firm believer in the idea that to spread awareness it's more about the wrapper than the contents.

Games like Celeste, Unpacking, SpiritFarer, Psychonauts etc. all deal with mental health, but if they had not also been great games to play, the messages would only have reached a fraction of the audience. As an extention of this, I saw this jam as an exercise in blending fun and addicting gameplay, with subtle storytelling.

I only joined the game at the beginning of August, so I had hoped for more time to implement more elements of environmental storytelling and more subtle effects on the world based on the characters mental state, but some features had to be sacrificed for the sake of time.

Overall I am happy with the result, but I will likely expand on the project in the future.

About Me

Altogether, I have been a Game Developer for just under 2 years. I released my own game a few years ago after having working on a it for a few months, and managed to land a job in a game studio for a while, until the industry's infamous instability caught up with me. After a long while of unemployment, I'm slowly managing to get back up on the Game Dev track.

Controls

Keyboard & Mouse :

• WASD to Move
• Left Click to attack towards cursor (if unlocked)
• Right Click to Dash towards cursor (if unlocked)
• Hold shift while running to Slide (if unlocked)
• Hold F to Heal
• M to open Map
• Escape to Pause

What is a Metroidvania?

A metroidvania is usually a 2D platformer, in which the player's progress is a little less linear than something like Mario.

You are going to run into obstacles that you cannot get past, which is usually your cue to turn back and explore, finding some ability that will make it possible. In other words, if you get stuck trying the same seemingly impossible jump for 20 minutes.. you probably need to find another solution ;)

Usually games within the genre also includes boss fights, puzzles etc.