So I went to this year’s Global Game Jam with the intention of making something I’d want to work on later, and… it’s been almost two weeks, and I’m still working on the project! This may be a first.

Been making lots of improvements, both big and small.

The waves in platforms are circular now — no discrete tile grid with squares disappearing and reappearing anymore.

You can make shield walls.

You can make skipping stones to jump on.

You can swing from a grappling hook.

The great thing about this project is, I can describe it  to people. With Tinselfly… people ask me what Tinselfly is and I can’t answer.  It’s kind of like Myst. But without the weird arbitrary feeling puzzles, empty, lonely environments, and… those other things that make Myst Myst. It’s kind of like The Longest Journey or Dreamfall.  But with, you know, a completely, completely different approach to game mechanics and character development. It’s kind of like La La Land… if La La Land were a video game… with swordfighting! and spaceships!… and… Mia and Sebastian wanted to be spaceship captains, not stage performers?

But with Null Wave (I’m sure the title will change) I can immediately say it’s like Metroid Prime but lighter and happier. And that’s pretty accurate; a simple x-meets-Y elevator pitch here will do. Yeah, there are pretty huge differences in my goals here — less shooting, less dying, more platforming, more whimsy — but despite all that, Metroid Prime is a perfectly good starting point for talking about it.

Better yet, being able to say that helps me figure out where the project needs to go from day to day. You will explore a strange, alien world, collecting items that let you move in new ways and get to new places in said strange, alien world. And that tells me I need to come up with some fun, cool items for you to get, that let you traverse your environment in fun, cool ways. I know things like the grappling hook and half-pipes and invisible platforms from Metroid Prime are a good place to start, even if they’re most likely not a good place to end.

So working on items and their mechanics is what I think I should do next. I have a template to follow that tells me so. If I’m doing things right, I’ll be thinking of my template in terms of structure, not specific items or levels or aesthetics. The real value in the template is knowing what kinda of questions to ask myself. Already, I’m wondering about the following:

Metroid Prime has a map screen; do I need one, though it will certainly look very different? (Probably.)

Metroid Prime has this whole concept of visors that let you see the world in new ways; do I need that? (Probably not, I’m not big on hidden information.)

Metroid Prime doesn’t, to my knowledge, have any kind of built in hint system you can use if you’re lost; should I try to implement one? (I think so, but I don’t know what form it would take yet.)

Because this is based on Metroid Prime, I know that after I’ve got some power-ups to play with, I can lay out a totally linear, compressed level wherein I figure out what order you get the power ups in, and then I know I can take that and lengthen it a bit and make it loop back on itself like a spaghetti noodle so the game doesn’t feel linear and that’s how I’ll make my game world.

I know I have a plan.

I don’t know if it’s a good plan or a bad plan, but it’s a very concrete plan, and I need practice coming up with those right now.