You Died!
A downloadable game
Project in early development! Have some feedback? Feel free to fill in this FORM.
Planned full game release in February 2026.
Bug log on the bottom! It includes the bugs I wasn't able to fix before releasing the demo, but I am working on them and will upload a fixed version when I manage to fix them!
Description:
How will you cope with the loss of yourself?
Each episode of You Died! will allow you to experience a stage of grief for yourself. Make choices, deal with the consequences, and interact with your environment to express the emotions of the main character.
You Died! is a choice-based 3D visual novel with elements of psychological horror. It aims to help players struggling with growing up and feelings of wasted childhood. Using death as a metaphor for permanently leaving childhood behind, the story takes the player through 5 stages of grief from the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross model. In each stage, you will notice some changes to the environments and mechanics from shader changes to completely new abilities in each episode!
In this interactive experience you will play as the recently deceased troubled teenager. They need to go through all of the stages of grief and move on to whatever comes after death. Will you be able to help them? Or will you get stuck in their childhood home forever?
Music by Aleksander Rutkowski
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Known bugs as of 31st oct 2024:
1. In ep 1 the cat can't always be interacted with (if you follow her for a short moment eventually you can - no idea what is causing that) - note (03.12.24) I tried implementing a small fix - hopefully it works 100% of the time now but not tested yet!
2. In ep2 when looking at the radiator UI flashes very quickly. Stops if you come closer. (This should be fixed soon).
Download
Install instructions
Download Instructions:
1. Download the zip folder of game files for your target platform (MacOs / Windows)
2. Unpack the compressed folder.
3. Do not! move any files out of the folder. You can create a shortcut to the exe file (windows) or .app file (MacOs)
For Mac users - if you get an error saying this app cannot be opened - try doing this.
(for the final build I will make sure that it is not an issue but right now I don't consider it a priority_
4. Run the game like you would any other!
Development log
- Ep 2 - New shader10 days ago
Comments
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Hi Sev, Simon here,
I think the concept you have is very interesting, I hope you are doing okay! One game that you could look into for more inspiration is "GRIS". I recently played it, and I think 'grief' is also a big theme there.
I liked the music and art a lot! However the bugs make the game a bit unhandy to play.
A few bugs I found:
- After looking into the mirror, it turns pink
- After reading the diary, I got stuck in the bed/couldn't move. After seeing the pictures, I still could not move. But then when I look at the medications, I can move again. Is that meant?
- When I move backwards (using the "S" key), I go up (towards the ceiling) as well.
- Is it meant that I can move through walls? Because I am a ghost?
- The QR codes on your business card didn't seem to work for me, I had to scroll through your Twitter posts to find the link to your itch.io (maybe a link in Twitter bio would be nice?)
Alright, that's all, good luck with further development!
Hi Simon! Thank you so much for taking the time to play my demo! Thanks for reminding me about “GRIS”! I started it a while ago and indeed it might be the time to finally finish it and see how grief is portrayed in a game and take inspiration!! Thank you for bringing the bugs to my attention! Moving through the walls is on purpose Because the main character is a ghost, the fact that the character moves upwards when expected to only move backwards is something I’ll try to fix ASAP. Also, the “being stuck” until you complete all 3 interactions with items on the bed (medications, journal, and pictures) is intended. Still, since multiple players mentioned being frustrated with it I might have to remove that in my next version. Also thanks for bringing my attention to the QR code issue! I tested the code and it seems to work well on my device but either way, it is a great idea to add a link in my Twitter bio - thanks for that tip! Thanks for your support and I hope you are doing well!
Nice to hear that my feedback was usefull, good luck!
Unplayable buggy mess.
Look at the mirror from the wrong angle - stuck.
Look at bed from the wrong place - stuck in the cat, or the bed itself.
And I'm not sure there is even an ending.
Hi! This project is currently in the very early stages of development so bugs are to be expected (part of why I am releasing this early version is to find them - as a solo dev I can’t possibly find every bug on my own) but I would be happy to fix them if you could tell me more about them! Which place were you looking at the bed from when you got stuck? Did the cat appear before you interacted with the cat picture laying on the bed? What angle were you looking at the mirror from when you got stuck? I have tested the game with a small group of people and we have not encountered those specyfic problems so if you could give me some information so that I could try and recreate them to understand where they come from I would be really gratefull - it makes the process way faster for me :3. Also as of right now the ending of this episode is not in the build as to not spoil the whole story for when I releaase a working ‘official’ demo in about 6 months or so. Thank you for the comment, hope you have a nice day!