Day 0 - the pregame

Dev Diary Day 0 -

    I signed up for the Scream Jam 2019 game jam. It is a 10 day jam with a general horror theme. This is also the first jam that I have ever attempted. I am trying to keep the stress down by re-affirming my goals for doing this:

1. It's not about competition or "winning". It's merely about seeing what I can do.

2. Apply the skills that I have learned over the past month to creating a "complete" game experience.

3. Recognize my strengths and weaknesses in a "real" situation. I already know that I know nothing about sound or music. This is ok. Experimenting with this will be part of the polish phase.

4. Attempt to apply "soft" knowledge to a media product. I never went to school for film or programming or game making or any of that. It's an interest of mine and, amateurish as I might be, I want to see if I can create a media product that uses themes and techniques that I have researched on my own time.

5. Maybe meet some people. It's difficult for me to "share" or be part of the time. As others who work solo may be able to relate to, my experiences with "group projects" is that other people in the group tend to be my limiting factor be it creatively, energetically, or by virtue of effort. When I take on a project, I have a vision of what the end product should look like and I have been regularly disappointed when I have put forth my best efforts and the overall project suffers because someone else on the team puts in minimal or no effort on the parts that were entrusted to them to complete. I absolutely hate the feeling of knowing that I could have taken on someone else's responsibility and provided a better end product in addition to my own responsibilities. They feel like an anchor around my neck and like they are disrespecting my time and efforts by their lack of effort. The self-aware part of me knows that I am far from an expert in any given field related to producing a quality game. My choice to go solo for this jam is directly related to my inexperience and not wanting to be the anchor around someone else's neck. I need to have something to show what I am capable of under the constraints of a time limit before I commit myself to a project with more experienced people.

My plan is to mostly use the knowledge I already have of the Godot game engine to create the framework of the game. However, my knowledge is still limited so I will attempt things I don't know yet (mainly light radius and npc movement and cut scenes). While I have a dialogue system that "works", it still has fairly limited functionality.

Technical challenges:

1. Music and sound. I do not have enough time to research and train into this. The likely solution will be minimal use of sound and will have to find some public domain music.

2. Programming/coding. I'm still a novice. Use what I *have* figured out and get a basic framework set up first. Then, experiment with "new" mechanics after.

3. Game Design. Wing it. I have a basic idea of what I want to make, but I have no experience in effective methodologies to organize it and implement it.

4. Art. I have some pixel art experience, but I am no pro. The problem with art (and pixel art in particular) is that it's quality is directly related to how much time is spent on it. That is to say, if the base line pixel "tile" is 16x16, more can be created, but it will lack the definition of a base line 32x32. I may have to implement some "cheating" here and use higher resolution on some things and lower resolution on others and just scale up or down to try to make it fit. Pixel art is great for me because I have a problem with perfectionism. Perfectionism in a game jam is bad.

5. Writing. I have a general idea of the story and subject matter, but I have yet to implement a story into a game. Something that personally irks me about movies and games is when writing is inconsistent. I may embarrass myself here.

6. Genre. Horror is difficult to pull off with pixel art from a 3rd person. I likely will not be able to achieve something "truly horrific" beyond the presentation of an idea. Personally, being a highly sensitive person, I tend to avoid this form of media (except for Lovecraftian writing. I also avoid anything with too much gore or intense presentation. Many things are just too uncomfortable for me to experience. As such, I don't play horror or even scary games. I couldn't even play Left 4 Dead on my own.

Personal challenges:

1. Perfectionism. This works with code, but not much anywhere else with a time limit. Accepting "good enough" and moving on from something will be difficult for me, but I already know (specifically with sound and art) that I will have to accept that whatever I can make can be better, but for the purposes of the jam, I can't get hung up on any one thing.

2. Subject matter. Between my own personal hangups about the subject matter of the game and my own exitential despair, this may be difficult to get through. On the other hand, this may be cathartic and therapeutic.

3. Distractions. Family happenings and responsibilities will invade my focus and take time away from the project. I also have difficulty not getting lost in youtube videos or reddit threads. Just. Don't. Look.

4. Depression. While I manage my depression the best I can with trying to eat better and exercise in some form every day, I have lived with it long enough to know how it affects me. The longer I am awake any given day, the less I am able to resist the downward spiral. If I'm not careful, I can wake up already depleted. This can lead to lost time (maybe even days of it). I must maintain a consistent schedule and basically force myself to sleep each night with a sleep aid.

5. Fear of failure. The worst thing I can do is quit and drop out of the jam. Presenting a work online for others to see and experience knowing that it's going to be sub-standard even if I *could* work at maximum efficiency and was an expert in every field is difficult. Knowing that I am far from even being considered "experienced" makes this even more difficult. Vulnerability sucks.

In keeping with the spirit of the jam, I have not constructed any assets for the game yet. That said, it's very difficult to *not* think about the project before the official start time. As such, I have been brainstorming about what I want the game to be about and how I want it to look. I have settled on a few things:

Setting: A convent. Not only is this thematically appropriate for the story I want to tell, it has the added benefit of helping me maintain a smaller scope. I won't have to worry about creating art assets for multiple locations. It will all take place inside one location. Also, beneficially, the characters will all look fairly similar as nuns tend to do.

Art style: Pixel art. What I haven't decided on yet is if I will go for a 3/4 view or an isometric one. Isometric is preferable, but I think it also may take more time.

Content/Theme: Lovecraftian horror, body horror, existentialism, and human sexuality (focused more on the woman's perspective). My own understandings of live, the universe, and everything leave me in a state of frustration and dread. Add onto that the complexities of human social dynamics and culture (a source of never-ending frustration on my part) then I have my own personal hell that I live in. To put it shortly, we don't even know what or who we are either individually nor collectively. We are hallucinating reality and out bodies are merely vessels that have evolved in such a way as to interact with whatever it is that constitutes "reality" in a frustratingly limited way. Yet our primary concerns are wealth and status and creating facsimiles of ourselves to perpetuate the species. I'm supposed to care about these things that other people have made up and gone along with more so than becoming more in tune with the nature of "reality" itself? Humanity has it's priorities twisted and we enslave each other. A woman's sexuality in the culture that I am from is regulated and controlled through social pressures and harsh realities. Is a woman's body ever her own? Is adopting the role of "woman" in a society relinquishing authenticity of the self in favor of being acceptable to the tribe and to fulfill the tribe's pre-set and primary purpose for you as both Madonna and whore? I think yes. And what better way to represent these concepts and explore the horror of entering into this social enslavement than through supernatural forces that invade the body and destroy authenticity?

Will I be able to pull this off the way I want to? Doubtful. But I want to explore it regardless.

The jam begins in a few hours. I will spend the time between then and now taking care of last minute chores (like mowing the lawn) and doing last minute research on game mechanics I don't yet understand, but want to implement none-the-less.