Over this past weekend I went to toronto to take part in the Global Game Jam 2014 where the theme this year was “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are”. Going into this global game jam I knew I wanted to make something very calm and relaxed because of recent experiences I had with other games. Inner came out of this because of how perfect the theme seemed to align with surrealness and experimentation.

Going into this I had these goals

• The player must be able to attain a sense of wonder while exploring

• The player must not feel as though the world is restricted

• ​The world must be unique and interact with the player uniquely

What went Right

1. Lack of planning

While making the game I didnt even know how it would turn out or what it was going to become as I was making it. Due to this the game was able to become more abstract in its nature. It felt like taking a brush and thinking “It would might look cool if I added a bit of this color here” except the brush was code. It enabled me to create without worrying about a goal or objective, it was entirely driven by my whims.

If I were to have been working towards something, the game would have felt more rigid and less fluid. A good example of this would be the yellow part. It’s not bad but it doesn’t seem to have the same spark that the other three colors have because of the fact that going into yellow (the last color I made) I had an idea of what I wanted to do with it and it made my creation of it less expressive.

1. Using unity

This game simply would not have been made if I didn’t use unity to make it. This entire game barely has any code to it. For a lot of it I was using unities built in level building tools. This allowed me to place things easily and quickly. If I had an idea I was able to create it quickly and see if it looked alright.

1. Sense of wonder

I managed to make a unique world and fill players (or at least the ones I watched play it) with a sense of wonder. When they thought they had the world figured out it changed on them. They couldn’t make sense of the world because my world wouldn’t let them. This forced them to stop trying to make sense of it and just to appreciate it for what it was.

What went Wrong

1. Yellow

Looking back on it, and even when I was making it, I really don’t like how yellow turned out. It feels, at least to me, uninspired, boring, and predictable. I’ve been reasured that people are fine with it and it eased my unease a little bit but personally it will forever be the worst of the 4 colors.

1. Lack of direction

A lot of players simply stopped playing the game because they were unable to figure out how to even start playing the game. This was because idea of walking towards each path isn’t apparent unless you know what your looking for or happen to be looking in the right direction. A lot of the time they aren’t looking in the right direction when they start. If I were to go back to this game I will have to make sure to make the direction the player should go towards a little more apparent.