Shadowdark 8-Bit Game Jam Diary #1
What Have I Gotten Myself Into?
I like "DungeonTube". Plenty of good ideas for gameplay and mechanics, though I think that the creators should focus more on session/campaign prep and debrief "vlog" style videos. Or make stuff like the early DungeonCraft videos. Maybe an article on that later?
Anyway, never done a game jam before but damn do I love Shadowdark and I'm in the process of necro'ing this blog, so I'll give it a go. February 11th is my deadline so under 20 days to submit something.
I set a timer for this first diary of an hour and 10 minutes to allow myself to learn about the games and write up this post. I've experimented with doing that with my personal prep and I think it forces me to just get my ideas out in the world.
Without further adieu, lets look at the games and get initial thoughts out!
Pin Bot
First one I looked at, honestly kind of surprised me. Apparently there's this guy (Python Anghelo) who was a big pinball dude and this is his magnum opus? The game is inspired by a poem and is supposed to demonstrate the relationship between man and computer....okay, that'll get unpacked later. Here's my initial thoughts on the game:
- Essentially pinball w/ enemies
- Enemies that...
- Eat the ball and spit out fragments
- When hit drop a missile that hits the flippers
- When hit grab the ball
- Themed after the conquest of the solar system? Start on pluto, gain extra balls on different planets. Not sure if that was just the arcade version or if it made it over to NES too.
Rygar
WOW! How fortunate that I got a "-vania" style game. Argool was a Utopia with 5 Indoran War Gods. Eventually this evil figure named Ligar invades from his floating castle and subjugates the land, establishing the Kingdom of EVIL. The people put their hope in a prophecy that eventually a hero will return from the dead to vanquish Ligar...that hero is named Rygar. As Rygar you wield the Disk Armor (spinning razor shield on a chain that acts like a yo-yo), vanquish Ligar's minions, and retrieve items from the Indoran War Gods that allow you to eventually access Ligar's floating castle and defeat him...honestly this rocks. Initial thoughts:
- Enemies seem to be themed after crosses between animals like turtles, lizards, bats, tigers, roly polys, snails, spiders, and lions.
- Enivronments include a wasteland, central hub island, something like a logged/devastated forest, underground tunnels, mountains, and Ligar's floating castle.
- There was a three volume manga and a reboot that got a significant retheming.
Blades of Steel
&^%$ it, a sports game. I didn't grow up with hockey but my cousins were obsessed with it. There's a fighting mini-game in the middle of the hockey game, so that's pretty cool...pretty barebones so I don't have any other thoughts besides that.
Initial Ideas
I'm thinking of a mini-setting hex-crawl across the plateau of Groola to free the Dorani people and their deities from the Vile Dominion established by Rigal from his flying fortress. Rygar was going to be the easiest to include but how do I include the other games? Initial thoughts:
- Pinbot is either gonna be a minigame or a magic item/NPC faction.
- Blades of Steel is going to be the inspiration for the town. One of these two premises for the town....
- Rigal forces the surviving humans to fight in bloody games for his amusement, placation, and to be selected as 'champions' (fodder for chimaeric experiments).
- The Dorani people have always practiced bloody games to appease their deities and believe that their gods abandoned them to Rigal because of a lack of faith: they must cull their number with nightly blood games to earn back the favor of their gods.
Done with actual content of the post with a minute to spare! Time to proofread and format annnnnnd...only took an extra 15 minutes.
I'll spend a few days ruminating more about this and then come back with another design diary. Honestly, I'm pretty excited.
Until next time!
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