Really liking these Flowjam follow up posts for games to share design aspects and insight into game creation, so I’ll keep up the trend! My game was The Curse of The Were-Loaf which was created in about two weeks for the Summer 2020 Flowjam following the theme “time.”
The game is here: https://flowlab.io/game/play/1457150 : )
I pulled inspiration from a lot of sources to make this game, but the ones I believe to have made the biggest impact were Stardew Valley, Minecraft (Mostly in the art), those Papa’s games on online game websites (you know the ones,) and of course The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask which I think had the biggest influence for me gameplay and design-wise.
I also kept a journal for my game which is something I would suggest for any developer whether they’re competing in a jam or not! They’re very useful for tracking concepts, art and doodles, and also numbers which was the biggest use for my journal.
As you can see, even in this small snip it of one page of my journal, many ideas were thrown around, scraped, or even implemented in some cases.
Due to the lack of time in my game to implement hints and super clear mechanics, my game was becoming increasingly obtuse and increasingly like Zelda 1. To avoid forcing the player burn every figurative bush in the field to find the next dungeon like in that game, I realized I would need a game manual which was just as clear if not more so than the one from NES Zelda. Although mine isn’t as in depth as said manual, I did include more obvious pointers as to where to go and what to do including a video thanks to the advent of technology. This is the first time I have seen a game manual created for a game in a while so I figured it would be a cool opportunity to stick out from the crowd! That being said, ideally you shouldn’t have need of a manual since games these days have more opportunity to flesh out mechanics and story. Learn from my mistake and make your game obvious with nuances that the player shouldn’t require outside help for.
Manual here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vSfpPz74J2huFk8nqCQjeLPe9gTSETYzLIU9KCSQwE-ZFIQdAujK9tM29ZyHCVdzkXjZTMHF4t68iz3/pub?start=false&loop=true&delayms=15000&slide=id.p
At first, following the end of the jam I was planning on stopping there, however, I once again have the ambition to continue working on the game because I think it still has some potential even past the competition! If you all have any suggestions/criticisms I would love to hear it because the Flowjam ratings only tell so much of what people actually think!