Here's my submission for Devtober 2021, a point and click style adventure game prototype using GB Studio.

I had a few things to aim for with this jam:

I mainly took on this jam as an exercise to learn GB Studio and its limitations. It's been a great learning exercise and looking forward to developing more games using the engine. I find its limitations inspiring creatively and technically. By far the most useful feature of the engine is the compatibility for mobile and familiarity of the controls for users who have played old hand-held console games.

Background art from various genres, including adventure games to fighting games, have been a constant fascination and inspiration for me and really wanted to give detailed background art a go with this jam. I found the challenge of downgrading and optimising my photography into useable backgrounds in GB Studio to be a fun challenge.

I aimed to base the narrative in the Philippines and utilise my photography from my travels in South East Asia. It's been a great way to reconnect with places that are far away via this game jam, especially during these pandemic times.

Speaking of narrative, I come from a background in explainer videos and motion graphics which rely heavily on pre-storyboarded and concrete narratives prior to beginning production. I really wanted to experiment with a looser narrative for this project, similar to more abstract films such as In The Mood For Love and Tree of Life, which relied more on spontaneous narrative development.

Lastly, I wanted to create a quick prototype that I can test out and hopefully develop into a more finished game in the near future. The relaxed atmosphere of this jam was super inspiring and helped to encourage the development of a smaller prototype.

I definitely have a few key learnings though:

In relying on a more spontaneous approach to the story, I definitely backed myself into a corner and ended up with a narrative that needs to be more fleshed out at a later stage.

Point and click experiences definitely need deep world-building. Even though what I'm submitting is a quick prototype, some more touch points to tease out the story further would help. Definitely something to keep in mind when I develop this game further. 

Biggest learning though: test the final build as early as possible, especially if it's something I'm unfamiliar with. Because I didn't test this early, I've encountered a problem where sometimes the game is verrrry slow to load and play on mobile. I'm not sure whether it's because my backgrounds are too detailed or some other problem, but testing this early would've allowed me to figure this problem out and allowed me to optimise the game so it runs smoother.

That's it so far. Thanks in advance if you get a chance to play my game! Hope everyone who participated had fun and learned some new skills. I'll find the time to play other people's games once the deadline is up. Cheers!