Thought Inflation

Introduction

"Thought Inflation" is an entry in the Theme Roulette Event where developers were given a random theme word in order to build a game around over the course of a week. And the theme for this game in particular was inflate. A term that usually makes me think of balloons to be honest. In fact, I probably should get around to inflating a lot of the balloons in my room in order to make some more balloon animals. After all, it might help me find my happy place. Regardless, I should probably try to focus on how this game attempts to incorporate the developers ever expanding fears, depression, and anxiety into their game.

Story

On the story side of things, we follow Dev through a truly horrible day where she is constantly attacked by monsters representing various emotional states from apathy to never ending despair. As such, the player feels like their on an emotional roller coaster to a certain extent where Dev will go from being happy and confident to utterly dismayed from one moment to the next. Which definitely lends itself towards the games theme of inflation. After all, every high is followed by an even deeper down which is then followed by an even bigger high. As if the developers emotions are expanding and contracting beyond all control.

Gameplay

On the gameplay side of things the game is rooted around the player engaging enemies by answering their questions. Where a correct answer will allow the player to damage the enemy or at the very least avoid taking damage. While an incorrect response will result in the player taking damage. Albeit, the game changes the rules up a bit when you face off against Despair. Since, in order to take him/her down you'll need to utilize some combat basics.

To be honest, it's a bit weird that the game breaks from the format it established in the first two battles in this game in order to deliver a more traditional boss battle. A fact that hurts this game in my opinion. Though, I suppose the developer may have been trying to present the notion that you can't build your way out of despair with logic. You simply have to overcome it.

Graphics

If I had to pick the worst aspect of this game then it would be in terms of its visuals. A game rooted around exploring the emotional state of a character should be a lot more abstract and weird in my opinion. And in all honesty, "Thought Inflation" is rather tame on both sides of this equation. At the same time, I can't expect every developer on this site to be interested in creating custom art work and tilesets for every event that comes along. Nor does every developer on this site have skills in this area. Which is something that has to be taken into consideration when dealing with an event where it was every man and woman for himself/herself.

Conclusion

"Thought Inflation" is a game that really struggles to capture my attention. An issue that is born from multiple factors. These range from the fact that I tend to spend most of my times on RPGs and as such find a game like this one to be rather boring. After all, I'm usually spending my time beating monsters into submission with either a sword in hand or with powerful spells. In this game, you spend most of your time trying to talk the enemy to death. Albeit, the biggest issue I have with this game is still the visuals which really don't capture the look or feel of emotions like apathy or despair in my opinion. As such, I really can't recommend this game to anyone, but I'll openly admit that a game like this isn't my usual cup of tea.