Life Unshackled

this digital toy, with a few games included, tries to explore how precisely can we control a human being's actions with gamepads

In a desolate forest, a few skeletons rise to play sports-like games. A few eager and ever-curious birds expectate patiently! 

Controls

General Controls


Abilities:

Abilities are designed to be used in combination so explore!

Down: Grab
Up: Fly
Right: Bend Time
Left: Launch

Note: Hand needs to be near the object's height in order to grab it, so push the stick all the way down to the object.

Note: Stamina is consumed over time and is consumed more the deeper you bend time in either direction.

Game Modes & Rules

1. Free Roam

   Practice the controls and abilities here

2. Soccer-Like

   Objective: Protect your colored Goal Zone from objects entering it and eliminate players by scoring goals in their goal zones.

   Rules:

   One team per player spawns up to a max of 4 teams (Green, Purple, Red, Yellow).

   Players should verbally coordinate which team they will be at the start of a match.

   3 Points per team to start.

   -1 Point if a loose object enters your colored goal zone.

   When a goal is scored, and after removing objects from the goal, all zones go Neutral (Grey) for 3.5 seconds.

   Zones shuffle random colors after the neutral period.

   Reaching 0 Points implies Elimination. Last team standing Wins.

3. Tag/Hot Potato

   Objective: Don't spend too much time being "It".

   Rules:

   One random player starts as "It".

   "It" has a countdown timer that only ticks down while they are tagged.

   Touch another player to pass the "It" status (1-second cooldown on re-tagging).

   If your time hits 0, you are Eliminated. You can stay around but won't win the match.

   The last player standing Wins.

4. Rally Style Race

   Objective: Touch checkpoints in the correct order faster than opponents.

   Rules:

   Phase 1: Everyone shares the same random sequence.

   Phase 2: Same sequence as Phase 1, reversed.

   Phase 3: Everyone races through the "true" track.

   Players pass phases individually (passing doesn't change the race for others in any way).

   First player to complete Phase 3 Wins.

   Player/s winning pulse white so others can attempt to slow them down during the race.

5. Tennis-Like

   Objective: Hit the ball with any object available to score 11 points before your opponent. Must win by 2 or more points.

   Rules:

   Sliding the ball into an opponent's blue zone scores 1 point.

   Red zone score 2 points.

   Letting the ball spend over 3.5 seconds on a side scores a point to the other team.

   Letting the ball spend over 2 seconds moving very slowly on a side scores a point to the other team.

   If someone grabs the ball, the point ends and the other team gets 1 point.

Focus Levels:

Modifiable in the Options, they roughly correspond to "difficulty" settings, but to be precise they introduce mechanics:

- Lukewarm is selected by default and lets you get used to the controls and abilities

- Controlled Chaos introduces the Awareness and Stamina stats. Collisions deplete awareness: if you get hit too much, you get confused, so your right and left sticks switch functions. If you get even more confused, the switching is more profound! You can recover awareness by pressing and releasing LT slowly, fully and without jerks (just like breathing)

- Relaxed Intensity introduces the Life Force stat: if you get hit too much, you lose life force and die. You can recover life force by "breathing" with LT until the awareness fills completely, which fills you with grace and allows life force to recover.

Stats:

Awareness: Blue Circle: Awareness drops when receiving hits.

LT represents your breath. Breathe fully, slowly and with no jerks to recover awareness as quickly as possible.

If Awareness drops below a certain point, player is confused. Right and Left stick switch functions. If Awareness drops even lower, stick functions return to the original sticks but now their values are inverted: to move up, you'd need to move down, same for the hand positioning. Any confusion level could make players randomly drop held objects, with deeper confusion triggering it a bit more frequently.

Life Force: Red Circle: recovers faster when Awareness is high. Drops when receiving hits. Drops rapidly if Awareness is too low. If dead, recovers if Awareness is full.

Stamina: Green Circle: recovers faster when Awareness is high. Drops when using abilities or performing actions.

Player Equipment

Player has a shield on their back. If the shield collides with another player's body, the other player takes damage to their Life Force and Awareness proportional to the magnitude of the collision.

If both shields collide, both players just take a bit of Awareness depletion.

Credits

Concept, Design and Art by me.

Sound effects from Pixabay, processed by me.

Code generation Assistance from Github Copilot.

One more thing

The players sleep between midnight and 7 AM, and so should you :)

If you try to control them, they'll be sleep walking...

Oh, and the birds celebrate every score/win :)