Hey, Jamers!

This Ludum Dare, I took part in the compo format for the first time since my regular teammate decided not to participate. It was a throwback to the same emotions I felt at my first jam, which was super exciting!

Despite working with Unreal Engine over the past few years, I chose to go back to my old favorite, Construct 2, for the compo. I started my game development journey with it, but it’s been acting up lately, freezing inexplicably now and then.

I made a last-minute decision to enter the compo on Friday and realized I’d have to create my own music. After asking around for composers, I settled on using MilkyTracker. I spent of evening learning it and believed I could whip up a simple chiptune—though, unsurprisingly, I ran out of time to make it during the jam.

I was slightly disappointed by the chosen theme, although it was clear it would win. I find the themes of recent jams too straightforward and uninspiring, pushing everyone towards the same ideas. Boring! So, I aimed to approach it from what I believed was a unique angle. Here's what I brainstormed:

Ideas: - Arranging runes in different orders to see who gets summoned. - Accumulating the willpower to act, or what I call "Summoning the Courage." - Rearranging thoughts in one’s mind to interact and generate new abilities, similar to shapes in Tetris or inventory management in Resident Evil. - A brain simulator that filters information and retains only some in a limited memory space, inspired by an article about sleep mechanics. - Functioning like a memory card save editor, not by the number of saves, but choosing what to keep. - Willpower that determines how well your character follows commands. - Playing as a nerdy character gathering the courage to go outside. - Thoughts have shapes like Tetris pieces; if they connect, the shape becomes larger and more complex. - The goal might be to assemble a particular shape to perform an action. - Sentences are assembled like in Baba Is You.

Gameplay Base: - To get the hero to act, players need to create thoughts and mobilize his willpower. - The brain is a field of square cells spawning thoughts and willpower. - The player’s task is to merge thoughts into sentences and add willpower where needed. - Thoughts are of several types with modifiers, each type having its unique Tetris-like shape. - Willpower centers around the word "WANT," gathering synergy to activate.

Things I didn't have time for, but really wanted to: - Thoughts can be all rearranged and rotated, except the locked ones. - Negative thoughts participate in synergy, often accidentally, causing the hero to do bad things.

I ended up improvising a lot based on this foundation. Spent a lot of time on the character's interaction with the world. Generating an idea sentence for a character is only half the battle, I had to make it so that it was interesting to look at the result.

I ended up spending a lot of time on things that didn't even make it into the game, or made it into the game, but were of no use. For example, I made a little dungeon generator that isn't needed. Or make walking animations for characters.

music and sounds-- well

I really liked what I got and I see potential in it, I hope to continue this game but I'm not sure if I can.

play here