A downloadable game for Windows

made for

How Have You Been? Jam

CONTENT WARNING: Elements of body horror

A tiny game made when I was depressed and thinking about God and the mystical idea of emptiness. It's not very fun. Enjoy! 

StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows
Rating
Rated 4.4 out of 5 stars
(62 total ratings)
AuthorYames
TagsGameMaker, Pixel Art, Walking simulator

Download

Download
Via Negativa.zip 5.1 MB

Comments

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Really good, short experience.

Yayyy existential dread

Is there a way to listen to the music

https://soundcloud.com/yamie420666/sets/via-negativa-ost

i made it so you can download the tracks from here

Old Yames still very tastey!

3 Endings? No Commentary 

( 1)

This game is quite curious, I'm not sure what it represented but the idea of sacrifice as well as giving what's left over to "god" is a common idea in Christianity. What I see here is taking these ideas to the extreme can lead to a disastrous outcome as we lose our way or die for giving more than we can.

It won't have much to do with it but it reminds me, especially at the end, of the story of "The Happy Prince" where a golden statue with the help of a sparrow detaches all the jewels and gold from the statue so that the sparrow takes them to those who need it most, at the end of the story the sparrow dies in the winter by staying to help the statue, while it is melted down as it is no longer beautiful in the eyes of the ruler, the only thing left of the statue is a a heart of lead that refuses to be melted down to be thrown together with the corpse of the sparrow, only to end up being taken by an angel who was ordered to bring the two most beautiful things before God.

Perhaps the story puts it in a more positive light but both stories speak of detaching even from one's own existence and how God approves such choices to earn a place in paradise. Via Negativa is short but it has undoubtedly left me thinking about the influence the Christian religion has had on the stories I have seen and how it has influenced the values they represent.

( 1)

damn this was good! I love the smaller details like the bgm stopping when you give away your ears. Cool art. Pretty impactful for something so short, haunting

( 2)

Prior to it being his first game,Yames made a really fuckin short religious choice game that you give your limbs or organs to the God itself and receive nothing in the way.İt leads to the death in the end,all of your choices.You see other people suffering from that on the way you are walking.He tried to tell that in the way,everything you do leads to the death

( 1)

it's free existential dread !

( 1)

I have dug up your shady past, Yames, I have brought to light the skeletons in your closet

oh no

👀

Your game is the second in this video.

short, sweet, clever, elegant, haunting, demands respect

( 4)

waiting for god to peek its lil head out is so fucking funny to me i love this game

God is indescribable.

God is nothing and everything.

Lovely little game! 

How do you play this game full screen? 

( 4)

soundtrack sounded nice, I shouldn't have given away my ears..

keep up the great work man!

I've heard a lot about this game, and I want to download it, but all I get is  error cannot read "build" property of undefined

Hi, are you on mac/windows/linux? And you get this error when you try to download from the itch app? One thing you can try to do is download directly from the game page via a browser, see if that works. But thank you for letting me know, I'll look into this

( 2)

so I believe I just fixed it for the itch app, if you are on Windows, try downloading again from the app if you like

( 2)

sorry I took so long to get back to you, but I just tried to download it again and it worked! Thank you so much!

( 3)

great! thanks for letting me know :D

This is a great experience for such a short game. That soundtrack is gorgeous and I love the themes of loneliness and defeat towards the inevitable.

Amazing game

( 2)

Dude...your games are amazing! From the music to the mood to the way it's all written. It's rare to find religious themes in games done so well and with so much character! Will be following all of your work in the future :D

( 1)

I like it very much and i think you should make a extended version of it. Nothing set the mood like "god is on the road ahed...he took my eyes!"

Also i would love to have the ost! i hate the part when i have to give him my ears... i like the music :(

(1 edit) ( 2)

hello! your games look fantastic and I would love to try them, but is there any way to make them run on a mac? if you happen to know a way that would be very cool but no worries if not :) thanks!!  (edit: also if this is not the appropriate place to ask such questions I apologize I'll delete it later if so!)

( 1)

It's odd how something I spent only 10 minutes doing will stick with me forever. Punchy and atmospheric - Nice work!!!

( 1)

Had a good degree of cynical depth despite the length of the game.  Over all had a really spot on atmosphere, and was pretty elegant in its simplicity.  Excited to see more of your stuff.

( 1)

Very powerful. You captured a mood that is unlike anything, and it's pleasantly surprising.

( 1)

Thanks so much!

Can programmer perhaps translate those exe files into apk files so Android can run it?

Thank you.