Were We Ever?

Created for #AdvJam2016, it's "Were We Ever?" - a quote-unquote 'walking simulator' where all you do is trigger conversations and pick up objects you can't use on anything else.

Christie and her boyfriend Edward are on their way to visit Ed's mom's grave. But something's not quite right in the cemetery. Where is everyone? Why is there a pool of blood next to the church? Why is there a bloody hatchet, and what is it doing here?

To learn the true secret, Christie must examine the clues, piece together the mystery, and finally come to terms with both hers and Eddie's past.

Created in sort-of-a-collaboration with Shaun Aitcheson of Cloak & Dagger Games: We each took photographs of our neighborhoods (I'm in Denmark, he's in the U.K.), and we each had to build a game around each other's photos. Go play his game and see what my neck of the woods looks like!

Thanks to my two co-workers, Camilla and Jonas, for being digital stand-ins for the character sprites at the very last minute. In fact, a lot of this game is very last minute. We had two weeks for the game jam, but other engagements and distractions meant I had very little time to actually work on the game -- what amounts to about four days.

Day 1: Resize the backgrounds and customize the UI.
Day 2: Import the backgrounds, do walkable areas, and start on a bit of game code and writing.
Day 3: Do the remaining walkable areas; do more writing and game code. Photograph two co-workers who happened to say yes on the same day because holy shit time is running out.
Day 4: Do the rest of the writing and game code; do the music.

Tips for playing:

• You can't use inventory items on anything. All you can do is right-click on them in your inventory to see close-ups of them.

• Remove close-ups of items by clicking on them.

• Talk to Edward often. Every time you pick up an item, you can talk to him about it.

• Trigger as many conversations as possible. Some plot advances are optional, but you learn more about the story if you go out of your way to trigger conversations.

Thanks to Cassie and Stacy and everyone participating for a great game jam! Next time, I hope I'll have time to do a more complete game. And thanks to Shaun for indulging in a fun little experiment! And special thanks to my wife Mette for helping me out with the story -- in particular, the timeline of the events. Yes, there is a timeline. See if you can sort it out yourself.
#adventure