Hi everyone,

My team and I were not really certain of what could be made in 72 hours. None of us had ever participated in a game jam before, and while two of us are industry professionals, the lifespan of a project in the wild does tend to be a little larger in scope. About a month ago, we decided to sit down and spend 8 hours making something. It wasn't pretty, and it was held together by several fraying threads, but it worked. Somehow, this gave us the confidence to jump into the real thing, but it wasn't all it gave us. From that day, we landed on three design principles that would guide us through the game jam process: - Simple - Fun - Juicy

Whether we met these criteria is subjective, but as a team we believe we met them. Our artist Ollie got to work designing simplistic, easy to read characters and UI, while I - the programmer - got into the weeds of it all, exposing every variable I could to let everyone adjust the game to make the gameplay experience as entertaining as it could be. Juicy, a phrase that some people may not be expecting to see in this context, references the visual and audio flair of the game, adding polish where we could on the final day - or at least that's what our final day was for our artist, I still had a game loop to complete 🤣

Following these simple guidelines kept us all working cohesively and for the betterment of the game. There's a lot of stories to be told of the development, from an early pivot to the woes of the 11th hour, but I'll leave those to another post. The process was stressful, but ultimately rewarding. The satisfaction I felt seeing the game published for the first time was unexpected and incredible. We made something, and it might make someone out there happy for a little while. I'm proud of my team and I'm proud of me for what we were able to accomplish, even though I see so many better entries around us. This has been an amazing experience, and I can't wait to see if I can drag the team back for 56!

To cap it off, here is a gif the artist sent me to show off the opening screen of the game. I hope you all appreciate his art as much as I do! And if you feel like checking out a classic arcade style game with cutesy graphics, take a look at the link below!

Sorcerer's Folly