trip->power

My first time participating in a game jam, and my first time making a game made with Godot. The jam in question was Mini Jam 73: Power, named after the non-obligatory theme. The mandatory constraint, however, was to make a game with a total of 5 color values displayed on screen at once. 72 hours of non-stop game making.

Since I made this before studying game design at all, coming up with a gameplay that fit both the theme and restriction for the jam was probably the toughest challenge — took me about an entire day. My first idea was some kind of stealth game, but I thought it wasn't simple enough to make and it would end up being forgettable. After almost giving up and going to bed, the idea struck me: a puzzle game with limited movement. The rest of the game suddenly came together.

The objective is to press all the buttons in each level, in no specific order. The level design can suggest a path.

making the game 🢆

The puzzle design, while done hastily, was still trying to make an interesting difficulty curve: the game introduces a new element pretty often and introduces it using text popups, the most challenging ingredients being presented towards the end. The end of the game was supposed to be a transition into a second level with branching puzzles, but neither did I have enough time to make it happen, and since the game would turn out to be really difficult, it didn't really need one!

The sound design was done in the heat of the moment, using effects, sounds and samples that were already in my library, while the music was done in major part using FL Studio presets and Chrono Trigger soundfonts. Celeste's soundtrack by Lena Raine served as a little inspiration for the level music...

after the jam 🢆

This first game jam experience was a blast. Not only is it an exciting process to make a game in such a short amount of time, but it gets even better when you get to try everyone else's! The differences in everyone's perspectives of a common theme makes exploring the games produced during a jam an extremely insightful process, and can initiate you to different design or even production philosophies.

The game finished 15th overall out of the around 200 other entries at the time of completion, ranking #9 in "Enjoyment".