As with most game jams, there was little lead time to figure out what type of game to make, much less the technical design of that game. So, as usual, I plunged in head-first with a general idea of the type of game I wanted to make.
Starting off at the beginning of the game's story, I quickly realised the project was going to require a lot of assets. 30 sprites were required just for the opening scene set in the protagonist's apartment - typically, I find, a tile-set for a game jam game might contain 50-60 sprites for the whole game. Initially this dissuaded me from continuing but I quickly put those thoughts away and pressed on. By the end, nearly 300 sprites had to be drawn for the whole game.
The second main challenge was dealing with changes to the main world. Normally, my games proceed linearly through the levels - 1,2,3,4... game over. With an adventure game you can re-visit earlier levels, but given that data is reloaded, all the content is reset. So, I needed to store changes that had been made so the player wont find an item where one had already been taken. This all occurred to me late in the project, so some things re-spawn when they shouldn't, dialogue repeats etc. I felt this didn't impact the game badly so left it for now.
The humor aspect of the design was tricky, particularly when trying to blend with horror elements. I elected to write all of the dialogue in the first-person. This gives a more personal feel for the player and provides a good base for a stream-of-consciousness narrative; the protagonist is 'thinking out loud' and making quips about the situations that occur. I can't writes jokes from scratch but can make facetious remarks about present events, so that's the type of humor that went into the game.
As someone who doesn't enjoy gory horror or occult themes, I steered the story in a more mysterious direction. The dialogue doesn't answer a lot of questions or go into any detail as to why there are machines placed in the town turning people into shadows. None of this is addressed as there wasn't time in my 5-day schedule to implement a deeper story. So, the game is presented as a taster or introduction to the town of Fairview and the events taking place there.
Given the rushed nature of development, there are a few areas of code that would need re-writing if I were to continue with the project. It may be a little while before I undertake this - once the post-submission feelings of anticlimax have subsided.
