GMTK Jam 2021 Experience

Red vs. Goo is my first actual game jam submission. I didn't get a finished product which was unfortunate, I took an unintentional nap with 1.5 hours remaining to submit, which didn't help. Though to be fair, there was a lot of largely wasted time on the first day working on idea generation and brainstorming. I originally was going to make a completely different concept in Unity or Unreal Engine that would have been a puzzle platformer named Octogoo Loo about an octopus that was experimented on and turned slimy so he has to escape, but that goo would get stuck to anything he touched, picking up any items he walked over, those items would be used to pass obstacles; plus, there would be areas that had running water that would allow him to separate from the items and reset. Unfortunately I spent most of the first day working on that but to no avail because I was not experienced enough to create the really cool but semi-complicated concept that I had in my head. Near the end of the first day I was feeling a bit disheartened that I couldn't make what I was initially going to, but after getting some food and talking with my dad and my kids about it I switched gears and began work on something I knew that I could do: an rpg.

I've been working on The Lost Spellforge off and on for over a year now, so I am familiar enough with RPG Maker that I was certain that I could churn something out fairly quickly and have it be halfway decent. Some more time brainstorming and I had an idea that was related to the goo idea but this would be about different goo that was covering the land and absorbing the elemental energy from whatever it consumed, like if a goo consumed the earth elemental energy from a goblin making a gooblin, etc. Then there would be different elemental powered goos that would join together to make unique type matchups leading up to a final boss that would be a Gigantigoo. Then there could be a few heroes who would have robots that would join together to fight the final boss like Power Rangers or Voltron and the last battle would be a Kai-goo battle... That was the idea that spawned Red vs. Goo. 

My idea was solid, but I struggle with a problem of over-inflated scope, so it quickly developed into a whole world instead of just a few key locations. I decided that was fine and that the game jam version would just be the first part of the story, like a pilot episode to a full series, that showcases the themes and premise and mini-version of the bigger plot. That narrowed scope seemed genuinely achievable. I created a set of towns based on tweaked and adjusted sample maps that would allow multiple locations for the collecting of a party of adventurers, I used the standard assets of the program to put together a set of enemies to face and elemental abilities to learn for the heroes and enemies alike. I made a small cave of goblins that have escaped being turned into gooblins and broken the bridge behind them, and have caused the locals to put out the call for adventurers to get rid of them and fix the bridge, with the intention of starting out like a normal quest to kill goblins turning into a plot hook that draws you into the bigger story of the goo threat. I created a final boss fight that involved the boss summoning some of these joined together multi-type goos that you face down first as a multi-stage final fight of the game/pilot. I put in a few references that I thought were funny, because I don't know how to not to lol. I added a lost forest maze that I am actually quite proud of. I added a dungeon styled as a tower with a secret legend-(wait for it... of Zelda...)-dary sword to get that would make the boss fight more likely to actually win. The only thing I was missing was... all of the people in four towns to make this story cohesive and real instead of just in my head... So I started working on creating npc events in the towns when I had an accidental nap and woke up with the game jam over and my unfinished project unsubmitted...

Sadly with only one day really to work, due to a lack of realistic self-assessment of skills, I didn't get it completed enough to submit. As of right now, the plan going forward is to spend another hour and a half working on the project to see what more I could have gotten done if I had that time back. Depending on how that goes, I may grant myself that first day back again with this new project so that it is truly reflective of 48 hours of work spent on the same project idea instead of the final product of the actual 48 hours timeframe. If that goes well, the possibility of fully fleshing out this game and its world could very well become a reality. However, if I'm being completely honest, it is also possible that at the end of that full 48 hours I may decide to dedicate the rest of my time elsewhere and leave this as a time capsule of sorts, showing what I was capable of doing in 48 hours of work on my first game jam, before I move on to other projects both unfinished and as of yet unstarted.