6/24/2025 - Colors and Oceans

Wow, it's been a while.

As I mentioned in my last devlog, I cancelled the "Cooking with Giants" game, as I just didn't have any motivation to finish it. It's hard to work on a game you wouldn't play yourself! That being said, I starting experimenting and working on different projects, and luckily, the next game jam on my docket was from Blue Ocean Games, where you had a month to submit a game trailer. This wasn't technically a game jam, since there was no restriction on what you were submitting, and many projects were clearly already well into production. However, it was the best oppurtunity to decide what I wanted to make.

So, given all the puzzle games I play, I realized that I needed to make a puzzle game. I have my reservations on making a puzzle game because I simply don't have any idea how to design a puzzle, but I'm not going to get any better at it until I try! I dug out some old game concepts and characters from several years ago and revived them for a new project. A game where you have to direct light to hit targets. Different colored lights go to different targets, then you will need to start mixing colors and re-tinting different stage elements to move forward.

This was a huge challenge for me, but now that it has been completed I feel much better prepared to take a game to release.

• The programming was challenging but nothing that I wasn't able to figure out. What is light but a series of single direction beams?
• I finally sat down and just started drawing. I had to draw a ground and stage elements and accept the fact that it will probably look bad no matter how hard I tried. I had to switch my mindset to making something "good enough", not just good. And in the end? I think it looks great and I'm really happy with it! Though there are things I'll need to redraw just because I switched brushes midway.
• Luckily, I was experimenting and had a song "on standby" that I was able to repurpose. If I didn't have that I might have not had it on time...
• A lot of the story is figured out, though very little of it is actually shown in trailer. Enjoy the mysteriousness of it, I guess.

And so, treating the game like a part-time job for a month, I got just enough to make a completed trailer. I was up until about 4AM the night before it was due, but it was worth it.

And with the results in... place 621 out of 1066. I had stiff competition and there's still a lot of polish needed, so I'm still happy with where it was placed because of that, it's more than I expected.

And so, after the two week break I took because I got burned out, we went back and planned out the rest of the game to the best of my ability. Most of it is planned, though the specifics still need to be hashed out. But now, I have a clear plan of action, a sketch of a map to build out, and a clear to-do list split in small chunks. The future looks good.

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