Hi there. :wave: I'm a teacher and some of my students are participating in the Games for Change Student Challenge. Some of them are a little bit shy about actually submitting their games, so I thought I'd try to set an example and make and submit a game to Ludum Dare 50. Aside from a few tutorial projects in Scratch, I've never made a game. I learned some Visual Basic nearly 15 years ago, but otherwise not versed in any programming languages, so I'll be using a no code/low code option, maybe Twine or Ren'Py. So, unless something pressing comes up that weekend, I'm in. GLHF everyone!

Got home from work way later than I hoped last night, and didn't even look at the theme until this morning. Have an idea and a primary "mechanic." Going to do a text adventure in Twine. If time allows, hopefully I can figure out how to add some art and music. I guess the next step is flowcharting out the story. :fingers_crossed:

Finally some progress! Got the whole story, primary mechanic, and flow/sequence all down and started a project in Twine. (Story spoilers if you read the flowchart in the screen shot.)

To do: - Code it up in Twine - Write the prologue and main exposition passage - Format the text and make it look spiffy

Extra if there's time: - Add music - Add some kind of puzzle to each of the four main choices (puzzles in a text-based adventure :thinking: ) - Add art

'Kay, assuming I add some open source music, I'm planning on entering the Jam, but I have to work Monday, so hoping it all comes together by Sunday night. Good luck everyone!

Not only is LD50 my first game jam, but this is the 😱 first game I've ever made, Journey in Spacetime: A Text Adventure.

Got home from work late last Friday and didn't even look at the theme 'til Saturday. Took some time to mull over an idea. A thought hit me:

What if you had a flashback to something that never happened?

My noob self wasn't about to make a game complete with cutscenes, so I thought about how to adapt that idea to a text adventure I could make in Twine. I moved through drafting a flowchart, linking and coding the passages, writing some exposition, and basic formatting of the text. I moved on to music, searching up some open source stuff, and at that point was almost out of time. Threw in a few stylized open source images and finished the game Sunday night before bed, but updated the jam/itch pages on Monday after work.

This was such an interesting experience. I learned a new markup language, Harlowe. Also used some variables, conditional logic, and a little HTML. I didn't venture to any outside forums/chats, but everything I saw on the LD site, as well as multiple Twitch streams was friendly, supportive, and encouraging 😊. Thank you to everyone who has played so far and given feedback in the comments and/or on stream! With more time, I'd have liked to include some ambient sound/music on every page. And I think the biggest flaw based on feedback so far was not getting the premise across well enough. I hope anyone else who checks it out has fun and I hope I've set an example for finishing and submitting a game to my middle and high school students participating in the Games for Change Student Challenge. 💜