I had a total blast at Global Game Jam 2016 in Dublin. The best part was seeing a huge posse of my DT508 students really enjoying their first jam!
Speaking of my students, you should play their games!
After the excitement of arrival, I spent the first evening absorbed in learning Stencyl. After creating a basic maze game and thinking "Hmm, this ain't no Witness" ... I decided to make a narrative game instead. I spent the first half of the second day reading magick books and getting lost down occult rabbit holes. Finally ... as dusk approached on Saturday, in a fugue state of panic, I eventually opened up Unity and set to making a narrative game using Fungus.
My game, "The Promise of Spring", is inspired by the Celtic festival of Imbolc (which is tomorrow, February 1st!) and the Irish goddess Brigid who heralds the beginning of Spring. It takes the form of a ritual to chase away the winter and call in the daughter of summer. Miscellaneous notes:
- I made a custom colour palette based on the Thoth deck tarot card of The Empress (the card which most closely corresponds to the goddess Brigid).
- I used this custom palette along with Super Pixel Time to smush images into some pixelated semblence of uniformity.
- The ritual I wrote is based on an amalgamation of many forms of worship of the goddess Brigid (also known as Saint Brigid) in Ireland, from the distant past to modern times.
- The choice at the end is based on personal attraction to one of the alchemical symbols for the elements, and the "individual" advice is based on the four Aces of the Thoth tarot as they correspond to the elements.
- I did not get everything I wanted to get done in time at all!! It's missing audio and I had two additional puzzle gameplay elements planned, but had no time to include. Next time! It was great to get back into Unity though, especially with Fungus!