This time, because my idea for the jam was a puzzle game, I had very little intuition for whether it would be fun. I was terrified that I'd end up working on the idea for a long time only to find out it's impossible to make challenging / fun levels with the mechanic. So, I decided I'd try to make up some levels as quickly as possible so I could scrap the idea quickly if it doesn't seem fun.

I started by drawing some schematics for levels on my ipad. Here's an example of a schematic I drew, trying to come up with a somewhat challenging level given the simple mechanic:

It gave me some confidence to draw some levels, but it was still very hard for me to get the feel of how it would actually feel like to play these levels. Maybe the concept that seems challenging on paper will be too simple once you could actually play around with moving characters? So, my next idea, to avoid wasting a lot of time on coding, was to build a paper prototype. I cut little pieces of papers for the characters, keys, and locks, and played around with them. Here's the same level built from paper:

It was helpful in giving me some intuition, but eventually playing with pieces of paper became very cumbersome. So, I made the most scary decision - I will try to make an actual working game as fast as possible before the first day (Friday) ends, so on Saturday morning I could decide if I want to keep the idea or scrap it for a new one. Here is the prototype I had before I went to sleep on Friday (it's the same level as above):

Eventually prototyping was an amazing experience, and really made me feel how powerful it is that you could basically build a working game mechanic with unity starting from an idea in less than 3 hours. I later spent Saturday designing all the levels and story/dialog for the game, and then Sunday-Monday on polishing to make it feel more like a real game (or at least like a better thought out prototype). Here's the same level using the final code and assets in my LD submission:

I'd be really happy if anyone wants to try out the game, and would appreciate any feedback. Please check it out at: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/labrats It's available on web, windows, mac and linux.