Shiftwork: The First Devlog

Shiftwork Devlog 1:

3/15/26

I started this game on 3/1/26 for the Godotver 25 Game Jam: My Body Hurts.

Godotver 25 is a discord for Godot developers 25+ aka, older folks trying to fit dev stuff into our busy adult lives. We held a vote for the theme of our first jam and My Body Hurts won (unsurprisingly).

I wanted to try and come up with a somewhat creative interpretation of the theme and this was the first solid idea that I came up with:

• You’re a ghost
• Your coworker ropes you into taking their shift
• You possess someone and are hindered by their back pain

The idea was pretty straightforward, but actually implementing it was challenging.

Once I had the characters and the world made, I was stuck wondering what kind of things a ghost would do that could be hindered by a body’s back pain. I sat with that question for several days.

Ultimately, given the scope of a game jam, I decided the simplest implementation would just be to redecorate the house in ways that allowed the ghost to comment on the person they’re inhabiting. My original idea was to have the ghost physically move things around or try to move the body in weird ways, but that would have been considerably harder to rig and animate.

Doing it this way allowed for a lot of humor and atmosphere that made the game feel entertaining despite being short and simple.

It still needs some polish, but as of right now I think it’s polished enough to share while I make some improvements.

I hope you like it!