My Ludum Dare jam entry: The Selene Project

Youtube short teaser video

One of the ideas I have had for ages was a game about meaningful choices… choices that would have real impact. I started mulling over ideas and eventually landed with the concept where player needs to think what kind of society he wishes to build.

I tried to remain supportive: whichever choices player would make, she would be understood. I kept questions prettyedgy and gave “only Yes/No answers” on purpose. I wanted player to think on which side she is leaning into, and make her pick based on that. I mulled over thinking if there should be “maybe” or “no comment” choices but eventually decided to simply keep it Yes/No and then have some confirming questions to test if player really thinks that way.

It was also in my hopes to provide some questions that might get people to think their own behavior in our real, existing world.

Naturally I had grand plans about sooo many different endings, but at least there’s a few really different ones available. Due time limitations I had to decide what would be really important and this left me with 3 layers: there’s 2 totally different paths, then one of these paths has several generic outcomes depending on what you choose and eventually there’s additional layer that can be reached only by providing 4-5 very specific answers.

I’m pretty proud of the project I did. The time schedule was soooo challenging… but I reached all my goals so I’m very happy about this (game concept, story, meaningful questions, voice acting, different endings, and some pretty nice space environment — and most importantly: people seem to enjoy the game).