Air Pressure is a visual novel game that I’ve been working on on-and-off for a while. It has only three different endings, but a lot of branches!
I hope you enjoy it. It is quite a serious game, I guess. :)
Download for Windows (8Mb)
Download for Mac (11Mb)
Download for Linux (8Mb)
Edit: For the benefit of people coming here via ByteJacker, there is a Flash version here :) (Ported by raitendo)
looks good. Nice use of a limited palette.
you are mastering the way of the 1min minigames, keep it up
and air pressure is exelent, kind of remind me yume miru kusuri wich was the only videogame able to pop tears out my eyes
i thing i only got 2 of endings so far, but i dont understand what happened in the hospital one, oh well i’ll figure it out sonner or latter
good work :D
I don’t think I’ve seen a metaphor so well maintained in a game before. The process of realizing what this was about was absolutely beautiful. Good job!
Played it more than a dozen times, I love it!! It’s just short enough that you always want to try again and see what happens when you make different choices.
I’ve gotten the three endings, but I can’t say I understand all of them. Maybe I’ll get it later :p
great stuff
:o
this is a metaphor for uhhh illicit things isn’t it, kinda sad…
Would you mind explaining the title?
Nice game, I really like your graphics and music.
Thank you. Wonderfull graphics, sound and story :D So short, that it keeps me wanting more~ Thank you again.
Hey! I’m trying to find your email address. I’m PC Gamer UK’s freelance disc editor, I’d like to put this game in the indie section of the disc and I’d need your permission. Can you email me your answer so I can forward it to the Editor?
Thanks!
Wow, really good! I’ve got the three endings and I understand them (or at least I think I do!). Short and sweet and highly replayable – i’ll spread the word=)
@Sergio
Ok :)
It’s, uh, being surrounded by a sense of heaviness, which is invisible to other people.
Or, I listen to too much Los Campesinos :D
Nice use of metaphor. It reminded me of Jonathan Blow’s “Braid” – although in this case the metaphor is ultimately pulled aside at the last minute to reveal the true subject, while Blow opts for ambiguity in the long-run.
I *did* think that at certain times, the metaphor didn’t quite make sense – but I really liked what you were doing with it in either case!
If you ever want to collaborate, let me know! I’m a composer that recently graduated Berklee College of music and also do some game development myself. Currently my time has been a bit preoccupied with developing tracks for the Rock Band Network, but I’m always looking for composition opportunities.
– Andy
The conversations are so well organized!!
It’s really hard to keep the feelings while you have so many choices to cause so many situations.
That’s the magic of interactive novels.
@bentosmile
Thanks! Kinda makes sense.
I love this! I went through it dozens of times trying to figure out what was going on. Going from “Huh, whiny guy has a clingy girlfriend” to realizing that something wasn’t right here, unraveling it, was fantastic. I love how there was nothing in the game that actually said what was going on (Although the hospital scene was pretty obvious in hindsight). More!
I greatly enjoyed the game but found it a little disjointed with the connection between day one and day two in some cases.
Is there a place I can discuss the ending and possible metaphor too? I have a feeling I understand the story but it’s so hard to be sure :S
@SmokeyBear
Depends who you want to discuss with. :D There’s a little discussion on TIGSource: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=11381.0 (or, if you wanted to talk to me, my e-mail address is bentosmile (at) googlemail.com)
I’ve been playing your game and it’s really great, so I’ve started translating it to Spanish using Ren’Py.
The main problem is that the font that you used doesn’t have áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚñÑ¡¿, and I haven’t been able to edit the font to add them… Did you make the font or you got it from a font database?
Uh, nevermind about my last comment.
If there is any problem with translating without allowance… I’m so sorry D:
Can I ask for it now? I think I can finish it in a two, maybe three days.
I enjoyed your game. The metaphor leaves me wanting closure. Leaving the metaphor open, though, makes it adapt to whatever the viewer wishes to apply it too.
*spoiler*
At first, I thought Leigh’s transparency animation meant she was a hologram or a mental delusion (that theory made cast the conversations in a completely different light.) I wanted to find an ending where he realizes she wasn’t real in the first place; when I finally got the hospital ending, I was then confused greatly. =/
The addiction interpretation was interesting, though I still think there’s more shades of self-delusion. I was left with the impression that Leigh was an imaginary friend that the guy cooked up to keep himself sane.
In retrospect, it’s hilarious to think about the hospital ending when you take the metaphor at face value. Guy moves in to take the relationship to a “closer level”, and ends up critically failing coitus.
I just played it about a dozen times. <3 <3 <3.
This is AMAZING. That is the only word i can use to describe it.
The first time i played through i had chills all the time, it was creepily accurate. Then it came to the ending and i thought “What the hell?”.
I played through again and it hit me, it has nothing to do with what i originally thought.
By the third play i had it all figured out. This is a brilliant game, thankyou. :)
I usually don’t give around my praise so abundantly but if someone deserves it then it is you!
You’ve just taken the medium of storytelling in games to a WHOLE new level. It’s amazing what you’ve done with a game that hardly takes half an hour for all 3 endings to be completed,yet stays in your mind for WAY long than most of the other “commercial” games do nowadays.
I am rooting for people like you in the Indie community. The industry needs to recognize talents like you and start making better narrated games.
TWO THUMBS UP!
P.S : I will do my bit to spread around the word about this game in any way that I can! =D
I’m afraid I didn’t quite get it, each time I went through this story, I had a different sense of what was going on. Although the “drug addiction” metaphor was plausible ( I never saw it that way personally), I still have difficulty understanding it. At first I believed that Leigh was a possessive girlfriend, but after seeing the flickering and the hospital ending, I came to three different theories.
*Spoiler* So each of my theories are “Lie”, “Innocence “, and “Death”. -My first interpretation was that Leigh was an imaginary friend, his life’s great big “Lie”, because of the name, and her tendency to show up whenever he felt bad, so he wouldn’t have to admit he was alone. The second theory is “Innocence”, she had a childlike charm to her behavior, for if you get the *bad* ending, the protag claims he needs no reasons or explanations in life. The third is that Leigh is Death, or the protags’ interpretation of death, either trying to convince him to commit suicide, or he had already tried, and is in a comatose state. Either way this theory pretty much stays the same, with the protag having an audience with death, (Leigh), who is helping him to ultimately decide whether or not to die.
SPOILERS
This is my interpretation. OK so I’m pretty sure she is heroin. When they first met she wrapped herself around his LEFT arm, the most common injection site. To get the hospital ending you have to stay in with her and get closer to her, closer than ever before. I see this as an overdose leading to the hospital. Once in the hospital, the nurse says that you are lucky, having missed nerves and arteries. At this, the protagonists scoffs as if he is experienced in shooting up heroin. If you successfully leave the girl, it takes a few months for all her stuff to be gone, representing successful detox. If you just leave things the way they are, you continue being a junkie.
Are there going to be more visual novels, or is this just like a one time thing? Because this was game rocked my socks off. :D
Thank you for making it available for Linux!!
And I really dug the art style and 8-bit music =)
You have done the big work, thanks for wondrefull game, I hope it’s not the last novel. If you suddenly will not have ideas for a new stiry, You can always address to me)) Good luck!
Just played it from the PC Gamer cover disc. Weird but charming and very addictive.
I love the fact you havent gone overboard with graphics. The display and content are just right.
Also felt the length of the game was about right, maybe a little short but still good. In a way I see it as a song – short but delivering a feeling that makes you want to play it again.
Well done. I’ll check out the rest of your tunes and look out for the first ever game album!
This was really good. I liked the metaphors and how everything was really vague. Because that’s what life is sometimes like, isn’t it? Not everything is a straight-forward route to some determined destination.
Nice game. Can you drop me an e-mail, I’d like to talk about the PC version.
just wanted to ask, what was the entire thing about? and i dont get what the guy was doing in the hospital. did he kill her?
That was amazing. And very intense. I played all branches at least once, and the most even a second time after figuring out what she really was.
You are very talented, thank you very much for this great experience
Greetings from Germany
Hey, I was trying to find your email as well, but couldn’t find it. Would you be ok if I adapted your game into a short film? I’d give you and your site a prominent mention everywhere :)
*spoiler*
If this wasn’t actually meant as an illustration of how it feels to be addicted, then it is the most colossally accurate and poignant accident I’ve ever witnessed in my life. I don’t expect anyone who hasn’t dealt with an actual addiction to be able to understand it. That’s one thing I’ve learned, that unless people who have never been addicted to anything (and I mean real addiction here, not ‘I play WoW too much’ or ‘I’ve just got to have my coffee’) are willing to sit back and fully believe every word an addict or ex-addict says about their experience without trying to interpret it and try to fit it in intuitively into their view of life, they can never understand it. I’ve never been addicted to anything hardcore, but I’ve been close enough to understand.
Thank you for making this game. This is the kind of ‘mature’ game we need more of. It is a true shame that gamers have allowed the mainstream of their culture to be so completely ruled by petty censor tyrants that we can’t have experiences like this with more games.
this is so brilliant. is there anyway to get my hands on the audio file? it’s incredible.
I’d like to point out that you can be addicted to coffee; caffeine, to clarify. Seriously.
*spoilers*
Um. I thought the metaphor was rather clear, but maybe my background helped a bit with that. Although the metaphor holds okay-ish for any sort of addiction, it fits self-injury best; cutting to be exact. (Especially because after she wraps herself around his left arm [since most people are right-handed] in his teenage years [when a lot of people start cutting], he winds up in the hospital and “hasn’t hit any nerves or arteries.” Also when he feels “nervous excitement” he can barely stop his hands shaking–when some people are fighting the urge to cut their hands can shake horribly. I’ve seen it so many times….)
To the general population, I guess cutting doesn’t necessarily come across as an “addiction”, maybe because of the people who do it to fit in with a certain stereotype. However there /are/ people who use it not to fit a stereotype, but because it’s a relief for them, like a drug; a coping mechanism, and a /very/ addictive one (not least because it releases all sorts of feel-good and pain-killing chemicals in the brain, but there are psychological reasons too).
Thank you so much for this game. My boyfriend introduced me to it; he and I both have been struggling to break the cutting addiction for months now, and it doesn’t always look like it’s going so well. I’m glad there’s something out there that captures a self-injurer’s or addict’s thoughts and emotions AND is well-made. Whoever you are, you’re wonderful. ^_^
I really enjoyed this game! I was listening to the music after playing it through a couple times and decided I wanted to make a remix: http://intercloud7.bandcamp.com/track/air-pressure-remix
Hope you like it!
Fawlty Towers.
Lately I’ve been having trouble with a relationship and that has made this game so much more meaningful because of it.
I just discovered this website a few minutes ago but I wanted to say that your games are awesome. They´re so simple yet so loveable. I like the cuteness and the music in your games, also tanaka´s adventure made me laugh. Can´t wait for your next game, I hope you make more games. Keep up the good work!
This is amazing. Very meaningful. It kinda saddens me that it might be hard for others to truly understand the meaning if they just play through once then call it stupid and leave. I think (if you can) you should make this an app. It would definitely be neat to have this on an iPod Touch! I would even pay money for it. It truly is a work of art!
Great game!
I really, really liked the atmosphere.
*SPOILERS*
At first I thought she was an imaginary girlfriend, triggering all those flags.
But the hospital ending made it fairly obvious.
No wonder why that ending is so hard to get. No real point to continue playing afterwards cause now everything is said and done.
Hi let me start off with I love Air Pressure. It really moved me and intrigued me, and I played it over and over. The writing is so poignant and I loved every detail of the different branches and the way it was set up. The music and design as well. I would be honoured and very happy if you would allow me to adapt this into a short film for my school’s film festival it’s only a small high school thing and I have my heart set on doing this game. If you would email me I can give you all the details and make sure everything is set so I in no way steal your work I love it much too much to do that. The last thing I want to do is plagiarize. Please contact me and even if it doesn’t work out I am so happy to have found your game :)
This game is great, I cheer for you. One of these dark, but still hopefull and deep artgames. Brilliant, just like Coma and ImorTall….it’s great, that this is downloadable. Thanks, man :)
What’s bothering me is that the first time I played it I’ve always tried to choose the answers that make her stay for I thought the game was about love and independence. But now that I heard that many people say, it’s about heroine addiction I just happened to realise that there is no big difference: He wants to keep his love/heroine….he’s addicted to it. He isn’t sure whether he needs to be independent. He feels good at the moments he has it, but he is kinda unsure if he did the wrong thing….So basically one could say the game made me realise Love can be a kind of addiction as bad as heroine…Therefore please answer my request bento….I just want to know if the game is really about heroine, since the girl keeps flashing, he talks about stucking to his left arm and so on, it’d make me a little sad if it was about heroine, but still please tell me the truth….Anyway you made some great artwork, and a very deep game.
Thank You.
I drew a picture for your game!
http://chibi-beckett.deviantart.com/#/d5e4l23
I loved it even though it was very sad. The deep meaning has stuck with me. Thank you for sharing this game with everyone!
Omg I get it
It’s like he’s addicted to heroine, when he was introduced to it, he stuck to it forever. I just got to the end of the game where he’s at the hospital and it all makes sense! I’m thinking that the girl is kind of like a imaginary person, but you can imagine her as the heroine, and he wants to become independent from it, or he can keep doing it.