First off, if you haven't played Downward Frog, you should give it a go! If you want. Up to you. It's pretty short. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/downward-frog ...if you don't, that's alright. it's cool. no problem. you'll just be missing out on THIS:

And if you have, thank you for trying it! I really appreciate all the feedback and am so happy people seem to be having fun. 's all I can ask for. Thank you! :heart:

Anyway! I wanted to write a bit about the game's development and why the game is sooo slooooooooow.

Jammin'

As I'm sure was the case for many people, this jam started with several hours of struggling to put together a good idea. I ended up falling asleep Friday night with a vague idea of where I wanted to take the theme. It involved you swimming after your toy frog that you'd accidentally dropped into the pool drain. Same general concept as the final game, except you'd be able to swim in any direction and have to surface for air regularly. I liked the concept, but the gameplay seemed repetitive. Come Saturday morning, I kept brainstorming while starting to work on the weird fish art...

(the rest of them were out to lunch so i couldn't get a signature... sorry...)

By Saturday night, I'd finished most of the animations. ...but I still hadn't decided on what to do with the gameplay... My mom came in and presented me with a bunch of name ideas. All of them were centered around the frog. (One of them was "Downward Frog"!) The frog wasn't playable, but she thought it was. Poor communication on my part, the way I'd explained the concept wasn't super clear. That got me thinking though, "Why don't you play as the frog?"

(Shoutout to my parents for being really cool and joining in on the creative side of game stuff every now and then!)

Even when you're working alone, it's so, so helpful to get others involved whenever possible!

I went to bed that night with much to consider, and by Sunday morning, I had my game. You are the frog, you sink slowly, you dodge with bubbles. Cut, print. Ship it. As the deadline neared though, it was clear that if this was to be a Compo submission, it would be lacking. No sound, music, or logo to speak of... very little polish or visual flair... after some deliberation, I asked my mom what she thought. She said, in essence,

"In a day, in a week, will your decision make you happy? If you wrap up now, will you be okay with the work you did?"

I decided to go for the Jam instead.

Of course, Monday ended up being a cursed day. Cat vet appointment, car troubles, bleh. When I finally got home, I rushed to create the sound effects and music, threw everything together, and submitted the game! ...juuust as it seemed like my computer was about to give out on me. As the game was uploading, my mouse pointer started flickering and a green line appeared on my monitor. Talk about stressful. It's fine now, I guess. Who knew technology could be moody?

It all worked out though! I'm happy I took the extra time to make the game the best it could be. It was absolutely worth taking it slow. Did it still involve rushing things a bit at the end? Yes. I get that there's some heavy-handed irony in writing a post about taking it slow during a game jam of all things, but hear me out! Of course deadlines exist. Things need to happen at some point. Given the chance though, it's worth taking the time to get things right.

Slow Fallin'

Downward Frog is a slow game. Incredibly slow. Glacial, even. There's some intent behind that, but it also just happened that way. Something that struck me at the end of development was the way this game straddles the line between peaceful and melancholic. The way you just slip into the pool, the lackadaisical drifting out of harm's way... it's... tranquil. There's no rush. No need to hurry. It's just you, some strange fish, and a really deep tunnel.

What's at the bottom? Doesn't matter. How quickly can you get there? Not important.

What is important? Keeping yourself alive and well. Making sure you're stocked up on bubbles in case something comes up.

I'm sure you could derive some meaning from that...

Well anyway, thank you for reading all this. And hey, if you submitted a game, congratulations! Try not to worry about the rating you get, the most important parts are learning and having fun (and playing games, of course!). Making a game in a weekend is a sure way to do just that.

Thank you for your time! You could follow me on Twitter if you want. I don't post too much.

'til next time, stay froggy!

-GogglesKitty