04:55PM

So the theme for this Jam is There and Back Again. That makes me super excited. I had a few ideas for some games that I was thinking and I actually got an idea for one I think would be extremely fun. I was so nervous though that they would add in a theme that would be completely incompatible with my idea.

GOALS:

I want to talk a little bit about my goals for this jam. I don't plan on doing anything revolutionary in the gameplay department. I'm not a great coder and my art is passable if somewhat ok, depending on the sprite. Where I really want to focus this jam is Polish and Organization.

Up until this point I've made a lot of goofy games that aren't going to take anyone's breath away, but I think they're fun. One thing that's clear about most of them is that they look like they're done by a hobbyist, not a professional. I would like people to assume I'm the latter based on this jam, but hey, maybe no one will even play the game.

My other focus is organization. I've dropped many a game just because I came back to it one day and just decided I had no idea where I had left off. I would like to make my game as organized as possible. This will probably require leaving lots of comments in my code directing me to other objects and scripts as they apply.

My idea:

I started thinking about this idea a while back. I actually hated the collectable theme at first. My mind kept going straight to deck builders and cards, I'm not sure why. Probably because my personal project at that time was one of those. The problem is, those games use a lot of tricky code that I'm just not experienced enough with yet. I wanted to do something original but also had to think of something within my coding ability.

I had a few ideas: The first was restarting my deck builder which I did not want to do. I thought a fun play on collectibles would be a debt collector, and then I thought of Home re-posession and how you could walk into a house and beat up all the inhabitants and add that house to your collection. As hilarious as I find that premise, I ultimately decided it was very uplifting and it got a big raised eyebrow from my wife. Then I thought instead of home repo being bad, you could be a batman like character and steal houses from mob bosses and turn them into orphanages that you could walk through in the end and play with all the children. While I still like this idea, I think I'll save it for another jam possibility.

For my last idea and the one I ended up choosing, I thought of collecting costumes and getting different powers from them in a metroidvania style game. Instead of just finding an ability, you could use coins to purchase the tops, kill enemies to harvest leather for the pants, and find a secret magical substance for the mask. Put them all together and you can craft a costume!

I think this would be a lot of fun for a full-fledged game, but as I started coming up with a fun story to go along with it, I realized it would be too darn long. No one would finish my game, and no one would see the ending I've come up with which I think will be really sweet. Hopefully the ending doesn't get cut for time.

Before I go to sleep tonight, I think I'll start making a list of all the things that I have to have and things that I might need to cut for time or because I just don't know how to code it.