Project Overview
This game was made in 72 hours for the Ludum Dare 52 game jam. The project spanned from 1/06/23-1/09/23. I worked in a team of 4: myself, two artists, and a composer.
I handled all of the game's writing, programming, development, and a majority of the design.
"Mini game" Puzzles
The majority of my time spent on this project was spent creating the puzzles that the player must solve when inside the characters' memories. These puzzles were all simple, yet unique. Despite the game being quite small and straightforward, I was able to develop many different mechanics which put my ability to efficiently code to the test.
I'm fairly happy with how all three puzzles turned out. Quickly prototyping these puzzles was the most enjoyable part of this jam for me. My favorite puzzle is the slide puzzle. This puzzle was by far the most advanced. I was constantly coming up with better ways to implement bits and pieces despite not having the time to do so.
Game Flow
Time crunch always hits during game jams, and this time around it rushed the game flow programming. As someone who mostly enjoys creating the framework for advanced systems and mechanics, creating the game flow on this project pushed me out of my comfort zone.
Having limited time, I did not bother planning the ins and outs of how to allow the player to progress through the story beforehand. Naturally, this approach created issues that I had to overcome quickly. Learning through mistakes never fails to provide me with knowledge that can be applied on other projects in the future.
Scope and Planning
Game jams and over-scoping go hand in hand. Not getting everything finished in time is almost a given when you make a game in a tiny amount of time. This jam was different for me. We set out a solid plan and made sure we were on the same page about our priorities. Limiting our scope was a focus of ours as we wanted to grow as game designers.
As usual, we weren't quite able to fit in everything we had planned, but we were expecting it. Instead of having an important feature of the game missing, we were able to delegate our time to get the game finished first. This was rewarding for me as most of my game jams have completed with something that I was excited for completely missing.
Dialogue System
This was the second time I've designed some sort of dialogue system for a game jam. Not only was I able to implement new ideas I came up with in the past, I also got to see the flaws in the idealology of those ideas. It's rare to be able to practice iterative design when it comes to these short projects, but it is my favorite type of design.
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As I've developed a solid understanding of how to create such a system, I wish to expand upon it. Little details like allowing dialogue to emphasis certain words seemed impractical at first, but the practice has encouraged me to practice the limits of my knowledge.
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Additionally, even though I was the only developer on this project, I was also able to practice designing user friendly frameworks. Adding in all the dialogue was a breeze thanks to a bit of work up front.
