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My final prototype prompt was "romance", so I wanted to go back to a visual novel, similarly to my first prototype game Dark Refuge. I'm not that experienced with romance games, so making a simple visual novel was the easiest solution that I could come up with. I didn't have a lot of time nor ideas to work on the game, so I mainly focused on the narrative instead. It felt relieving to come back to the beginning by making a simple visual novel to end off my semester of making prototype games every week. I wasn't proud of all the games I made, but I aimed to push myself each time and because of it I have become a much more confident game developer and designer.

My twelfth prototype game had the prompt Shattered Dreams by Johnny Hates Jazz. Similarly to my previous game Cozy Cabin I based the game off of the vibes it gave to me when I first listened to it. The nostalgic 80s music reminded me of the car rides I would take going back home from college late at night with 80s music playing on the car radio. I aimed to recreate that feeling by making a driving simulator with a selection of twenty 80s songs on the car radio that you can switch to. It was hard making the car function the way I wanted to, but it was fun working on the environments by using Unity's built in 3D tools.

For my eleventh game the prompt was the song Peach by Kevin Abstract. When I first heard the song I got relaxing summer vibes, so I incorporated those feelings into my game. I wanted to experiment with Unity's 3D tools to create the environment, using the grass, tree, and landscaping tool. I modeled everything within Unity by finding ways to put blocks together in interesting ways. Making the game was a nice exercise in environmental design and felt refreshing to dive into a genre I haven't made before.

My tenth game's prompt was Ozymandias by  Percy Bysshe Shelley. I interpreted the theme of seeing the ruins of a fallen kingdom as going through the ruins of someone's mind. I was inspired by my previous game Dream Diver to make something a lot more interesting and more in-depth. I heavily enjoy exploration games like Yume Nikki so I wanted to create my own by using RPG Maker for the first time. It was a fun and challenging experience that I poured entire days into creating, fueled by the disappointment of Dream Diver. I'm very proud of this game and glad that I spent so much time into making it.

For my ninth game the prompt was "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. I was inspired by the theme of dreams and used it to create a game where you dive into a surreal dream-like world. I struggled a lot with ideas for this game and didn't have a lot of time to create it in an interesting way so I went with a very simple and generic game instead. I enjoy challenging myself to learn new things so I experimented with how the camera worked. Overall, I felt disappointed in how I let myself only have 2 days to work on a game that wasn't as unique or interesting as my other games. Without knowing it I had fulfilled the prompt for the game in the process of creating it by having my own dreams deferred.

For my eighth game I had to use the game engine Bitsy as the prompt. Bitsy is a very simple program that requires no code so it was simple to understand, but I wanted to challenge myself. At first I wanted to try to make a FNAF game in Bitsy, but since I didn't know anything about HTML code, I decided to make my own version of a FNAF inspired restaurant in a different Bitsy engine called Bitsy 3D. It was difficult working in a 3D space in Bitsy since the program relies on layers, so I had to manipulate and organize layers in order to get the shapes I wanted. I was also able to easily translate the 3D version into the 2D version by importing it into regular Bitsy. Both games function the same, but are two different perspectives with some extra features than the other.

My seventh game's prompt was the program Scratch, which is a program that I have never used before. I was able to figure out how the block coding worked, but because I was used to having a large canvas in Unity where I could place objects off screen, I wasn't entirely comfortable with Scratch and didn't know how to make any complex games, so I decided to make a simple point and click adventure styled game since I was interested in games in that genre.

For my sixth game the prompt was "space". I interpreted this as moving in between spaces and using Spacebar on the keyboard, which led me to a flappy bird inspired game. I also wanted to challenge myself by implementing 2 different spaces that the player will have to travel between. Having to create a pausing mechanic for the game was the hardest challenge for me since I've mainly been used to using different game scenes in Unity for different game states and backgrounds, but for this game I had to make sure that both the game and the bedroom scenes were running at the same time.

For my fifth game the prompt was "time". Some of my favorite games like Rhythm Heaven and Guitar Hero came to my mind when I thought about time, since rhythm is about timing yourself to the beat. This inspired me to make a rhythm game about collecting vegetables on a farm. It was my first time making a rhythm game so finding and creating a system that worked was challenging, but I was able to do it in under a week. I had to manually set the BPM of every song by experimenting, but everything else was super simple to make.

For my fourth game the prompt was a lot more vague, being the two tarot cards 9 of wands and page of pentacles. The card 9 of wands reminded me of a forest so I created a game where the main setting is inside a forest, while the page of pentacles made me think of games like Slenderman where the goal is collect 8 pages. Because my previous games were more complicated, I decided to make a simpler game with very few mechanics. I was partially inspired by FNAF 4 and Sister Location due to being able to move around in a single setting that reacts to you, such as the background moving whenever your mouse is on the left or right side of the screen. I wasn't able to mimic that mechanic so instead I decided to make it multiple points of view that you switch to instead, which then inspired the mechanics of how the bird, wolf, and bear work.

For my third game the prompt was "tweed", so I immediately thought of the character Yarny from Unravel. I was interested in the game mechanic of being careful of how you moved around in the world, making too many wrong moves resulting in you getting stuck since you ran out of yarn. I adopted that into this game where it's a platformer, however if you don't move efficiently enough you will eventually run out of yarn and will have to start over. This game was more complicated than my previous games since I had to figure out a grappling and wall jumping mechanic, but I was able to learn a lot and had fun making the game.

For my second game I wanted to make a more unique game where you have one chance to reach the bottom by avoiding fish for the prompt "missed opportunities". Because I enjoy fishing games and their mechanics, I made my own with the twist as the player being the hook catching fish and trying to go deeper. This wasn't a difficult game to create, but because I mainly focused on the mechanics of the game I didn't get enough time to care for the UI. Regardless, I was able to get more confidence moving forwards.

This is the first game in my prototype game collection, given the prompt "new beginnings". I have always enjoyed text based games, this one being inspired by The House Abandon from Stories Untold. I wanted to craft a text based game that uses visuals and sounds for an immersive experience. I also made this game coming back from college after the summer so I wasn't totally confident in my skills. Nevertheless it was still fun to make and I'm happy with the project.