I’m quite happy with how my first game turned out.

PLAY IT HERE-http://jonathandaar.com/Downloads/TMATM.zip

I scraped what little understanding of programing I had and I managed to squeak something out, something simple enough for me to code yet conceptually challenging enough to feel satisfied with and I was able to put down a interesting twist, rather than explore a world, you explore what you can do in a very tight area.

If you played the game your experience was likely something like  this: You were placed in a constrictive environment, without anyone to guide you, all you knew is that you were the monster mentioned in the title(A bear?). You looked around the first day and saw the door. I’m not supposed to be here! I need to get to that door! But you could not. You experiment for a bit howling,before figuring out how to eat, and fall asleep.

The second day you saw the musician playing a nice tune on the balcony with the door. I want to be  there too, you thought, and you found you could jump! So you jumped a few times but you were not able to jump high enough! So you give up, eat and go to sleep. You start to realize that Space is the action button and Ctrl is for jumping. You might have noticed that the Monster was making different happy noises and could not stop looking at the musician. 

On the third day its raining, no one is there, but you can jump high enough to climb on the cage! So you Claw your way over to the door and press the action button, but your character makes the same lonely howl from before! He doesn’t know how to. Dismayed as the rain pours you start to wonder if you’ll ever get out. So you go to sleep.

On the forth day there is someone new! A photographer! You try to jump up to him but he takes photos, blinding your eyes and making you cry out. After struggling and becoming frustrated you go to sleep.

On the fifth day you see a child. You try as before to interact with him and he starts throwing rocks at you! And they hurt! What a awful kid! So after experimenting for a bit you give up, eat and go to sleep

On the 6th day you are starting to feel discouraged! There is no escape, what awful visitor will I have to deal with next? But then you see the Musician, and now you are strong enough to reach him! You jump up and walk over to him, he just stops playing and looks at you and you jump at him and you destroy him and you yourself are destroyed.

As your dying body hurls threw the air time slows and your body changes into that of the human.

The game exits and you are left wondering what it all means.

I want you to figure this out for yourself. I want you to think about things, about how different the monster was around the musician. Think about the way you acted. If you were human all along what does that mean? Why did you kill the only person who was nice to you? What does it all mean?

I intended for this game to be up to interpretation but a lot of people asked me for an explanation. So I’ve written one.

SPOILERS-

I constructed this game to show how feeling trapped, feeling inhuman and not having anyone to mentor you can lead to you hurt others. You were so desperate for a reaction, you killed someone. Too many people have to suffer trapped in this world, whether its trapped with abusive parents who the law keeps them from leaving or trapped in a country or a job. I wanted to show how desperate and frustrating it is to be in that kind of situation. Most people are lucky enough to at least have someone to guide them, with the internet and the library in our society information is cheap and you can find an escape.
He sees himself as a bear because that bear rug is the closest thing to a companion he has. I did my best to give expressive emotions with the way I drew  things. The Camera man, child and the cage are ugly to encourage negative feelings about them.

The Interpretations I got were mostly I was expecting, those particularly analytical and thoughtful got the message and told me I was good story teller.

Many just thought it was funny and enjoyed its homebrew feel. I did intentionally make the game a bit silly so those who weren’t looking for a deep message could enjoy it too.

I was really hoping that people who don’t normally play games would appreciate this one because its so different. Sadly instead many of them either became frustrated when they weren’t told what to do, or totally missed the point of the entire experience. Telling me things like: “I Think it needs achievements for every hidden action in the game”, so then goal would to find all the different things you can do(Like barf on the musician, yes its possible!) or “Your game doesn’t have any replay value.” Yeah I should have put in a high score board and challenged players to speed run the game…Of course it seems some people have a very narrow minded view of what a game is supposed to be, which is too bad. Games don’t have to be anything!

I still have some people to show it to who I hope won’t be so close minded. So far I’ve shown the game to really a very small number of people. If I can find one person who doesn’t play video games who appreciates it I’ll be a very happy man.

Honestly I’m happy every time someone appreciates it!