GMTK Jam Postmortem

The GMTK Jam came to a close, and I consider it a relative success. My entry is delivered, it will load, and I'm almost sure that it will run for an extended period of time. Those are literally the same metrics we had at AA / Mid tier studios I worked at. I had some fun with this one and wanted to talk about it.

I declared the first day of the jam Idea Day, because my schedule wouldn't let me get to code and implementation immediately. So I just stewed on ideas:

1st Idea: May: The Movie The Game

Spoilers for the movie May. 

I loved this early 2000's drama-horror, which I introduced us to Lucky McKee and Angela Bettis. I thought it met the requirements of the "Joined Together" theme in a narrative sense, and I could back up that theme in a well designed implementation. I pictured an (intentionally) pixelated FMV capture of the actual movie footage, with UI Portrait Icons Anna Farris and Jeremy Sisto. You would meet these strangers, interact with them, maybe find some items and combine them in a clunky interface to solve clunky puzzles... 

 and eventually....kill them and turn them into a giant doll-friend. 

Actual mock up for actual game idea

I got really far into this one before I decided not to. Still thinking about it tho...

2nd Idea: Carrion Like, but more Thing Like, and more QWOP like

The 2nd idea came to me. Continuing with the horror theme, you would play as a formless alien that has to tear humans apart (and put them back together) to grow and escape an underground military facility. This would have you select limbs, placing them on other limbs, and psychically stitching together a Katamari-Damacy body of horror. Once connected, I would have the player assign keys to EACH LIMB. Going beyond the QWOP, and becoming a QWOPASKLZXNMNMN. 

This, but cuter

I think it would've been a lot of fun, but didn't feel I had the right asset pack for it. Also, the physics would've been a nightmare. Also, it felt too much like Carrion, I game I loved. I didn't want to be too influenced by that.

3rd Idea: Lone Wolf and Cub Inspired platformer

This was a basic premise, but I could see it being a lot of fun. And immediately understandable. You would be an adult sword swinging justice seeker, and attached to your back would be your springy baby. The baby could jump from the carrying case and get to places the adult couldn't, as well as launch special attacks. I think this was good, but a too pedestrian. I also didn't have the asset packs to support it.

From the Lone Wolf and Cub-Simpsons Crossover

With that, I kind of went into a inspiration seeking stupor. Just walking around the house, muttering "Joined Together Joined TO-gether JOINED together" over and over.  I taped a banana to a loaf of bread and walked outside, exclaiming I invented something called "Banana Bread". 

I taped two phones together and thought I really had something. I would program two separate games, one to display on each screen. And you would play them simultaneously, flipping the phone around...

  Turns out, I hadn't slept in a while. So I went down for the night.

4th Idea: Witch of Words

I woke up early, I feel like the idea came to me in the night, almost fully formed. Not a dream, just an ongoing conversation through sleep wake cycles. Turn based dungeon crawl where you string together sentences to cast spells. You can then shrink those sentences into single words that can be strung together with other spells...I like this kind of incremental / building. And the name came just as easily. I woke up refreshed and ready to code. 

It wasn't easy, but I'm happy with what I got in for the contest. I'd be even happier to take it further...