http://gamejolt.com/games/other/not-fail/68764/
Not Fail was made for Miniclip Portugal Jam 2015. The theme was “Coffee + Space”. This was a local jam that happened in Lisbon. It was 48h long. I finished the game in less than 36h. I’m feeling very confident about my development and management skills after this experiment.
The last local jam I was in was a disaster, personally. I had the game working in the morning of the last day; I changed the code without making any backup, and the game stopped working at all; all the fixes I tried to do only made things worse. In the end, I had nothing to show. The main problem, in retrospect, was/is that I’m a coffee addict. In events like this I might easily drink up to 10 cups of coffee. I also probably didn’t sleep enough.
Somehow all of this came to mind as soon as I the theme was announced, this time; even though I didn’t decide what game I’d be doing until hours after that.
When you don’t finish a game in a jam, and you know you’ll (probably) never finish it, it doesn’t feel like death or destruction, but rather limbo; as if your game will drift forever in nothingness (like a spaceship running out of fuel); no one will ever see it, no one will ever hear it; except you. It exist, but doesn’t.
Working alone on a game (as I’ve been doing lately in jams) feels also like being in space. Seeing other people’s work is like seeing a planet through a telescope: it’s there, but it also isn’t. You can see things, really far away. All you really see is possibilities, really far away. Success isn’t there, but it is. Failure too. Your thoughts accompany you through your journey, as you make progress, and the emotional stress only grows.
You only understand how colossal your accomplishment was when you think about all the minute-to-minute moments that made it possible; on a big scale though, after a few days, all your effort seems like nothing.
The player only really hears and sees the spaceship once, and distances himself/herself from the experience as he/she plays; as the game progresses he/she will only see spaceship from really far away, and project the early memory of force/energy/effort (represented by and loud noise of the intro and the vibrating animation) into what he’s/she’s seeing.
Making a game is a creative process. You’re there to experiment, test ideas you never saw and/or push your limits. It’s easier and safer to just work without giving much thought to what you’re doing, but there’s not much point to that. On the other hand, rethinking what you’re doing is a gamble; and doing that too much will lead to failure.
Every time the player drinks coffee, the slot machine will generate new thought and the creativity/speed will increase that turn, but decrease in the next one(s); the ideas and the feedback generated are always randomized, but the more the player drinks coffee, the higher the average quality of the ideas become.
There’s purple text, white text and blue text. The purple text is the UI, which represents the emotional environment of the character depicted. The white text represents the character’s thoughts. The blue text represents what other people say to the character.
As the game progresses, the player only sees white feedback.
Contrary to the slot machine, the floating text in space is the same in every playthrough. I had thought of many sentences for the floating text, and my plan was initially to randomize them. I tested it, but I left the text lost its meaning; I carefully chose the right words, and made them constant.
Despite player’s actions and the outcome, that text will always be the same; I believe that will not only make its meaning sink more into the player’s mind but also help him/her picture the mental images it suggests.