Debreifing Jack in the Dark

Jack in the Dark is probably my most successful game to date. It was original, it was kind of fun and the feedback was great. It was also my first Godot project. I think I was able to create something really unique.

I made Jack in the Dark for LowRezJam23 and it was the first low rez jam that I had participated in. I really enjoyed trying to work around the limitations of a 64 x 64 pixel requirement. I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to make. So I started where I usually start games, in front of the piano. I created the opening song and that really set a tone for the game. Whenever I was stuck, I would listen to that song and it would usually get me over any creative block.

I chose the 'hidden in plain sight' theme from the theme list set by the jam creators. I started by giving the character a crouch and when using the crouch, the monster couldn't see the player. This worked well because originally the mansion map was well lit and very bright. Somewhere in the development process I decided to lower the lighting and totally forgot about the hidden in plain sight theme... I tried to add keys that were also hidden in pictures to make up for my oversight later, but they were quite hard to see.

In any case, the programming was quite simple. I made a character controller, enemy character, keys, doors and pickup items that would set a global boolean to true when overlapped. It was actually much simpler that I thought it would be.

I created all the art myself using Aseprite. It was also the first time I had used the program. I was very addicted to the animation features and wasted a lot of jam time just playing around with them. I think the final art of the game moves the story forward well. I really want to get better at pixel art. Need to keep practicing, I guess.

I also experimented for the first time with web exporting. I was able to pretty seamlessly export for web. I did have some problem with running games on mobile iOS, but that was a limitation set by Godot at the time. I think it's fixed now??

I think the finished product is the most polished jam game that I've ever made and it was so much fun to make. I feel like Jack in the Dark represents what jams are supposed to be:  growing as a programmer or artist and learning new things, but also just having a good time!

I would love to revisit this idea someday. Should I make a 3D full version of it someday?