Our new game, Dim, is out now in its first version!

Dim is a stealth-puzzle game about darkening the world and switching control over different characters, made for the My First Game Jam: Summer 2020 which is ongoing right now.

Honestly, we have no clue what to write in a DevLog, so we'll just go with it and see where it goes!

Team and Tools:

The game was made by myself and dschein (itch username), and we worked together designing and building the game from the ground up with the Godot engine and a few graphical tools like GIMP, Inkscape, Tilesetter etc.

Planning and Development:

When we saw the "Change" theme for the jam, we thought it would be cool to have a game where you can "change" characters while playing, essentially taking over them.

We were actually going in a completely different direction with this "change character" mechanic, but ended up agreeing it would work great in a puzzle game with some stealth elements so we went in that direction instead, to make it simple and fun.

The sort of "neon" theme of the game also contributed to the simplicity of the experience and keeping the theme of light and darkness, as well as not having to do graphics that were too crazy for our skill-level. What we got at the end is a very simple art-style with a sort of dark atmosphere around it, ranging from the title to the actual objective of the game.

Gameplay:

In Dim, you are tasked with dimming every object and character in the level. We really wanted to give the player an opportunity to plan things out their own way, make a unique path so he can get all objects in the level while also not being caught by the patrolling guards moving around, so it creates a dynamic challenge that we will expand on in future levels.

As for how you dim objects, we implemented a system that lets you switch control over all the light-producing objects in the level. This includes stationary objects as well as enemies, giving us a range of interesting opportunities to work into levels for the game and allowing to player to map out different paths through big branching levels if he wishes. When your controlled character is dimmed, you will return to the previous character, until you dim the player character itself and finish the level.

Due to the light theme, we made damage a visible property in the lighting of the player character. When a red light shines on you, you will start lighting up yourself, until you get a Game Over. Lighting up also causes you to be easier to detect, making it harder and harder to finish the level once you start messing up.

Currently, we uploaded only one level designed to show the main aspects of our gameplay.

Feedback:

We got a lot of feedback from friends and users about the game, and we intend on implementing changes before the Jam ends:

• More levels - the game is too short right now. We intend on adding several playable levels to the game.
• Improved controls - with the current K&M setup, the game is pretty annoying for laptop users. We intend on adding some control options and improvements.
• Music and sounds - the game is currently lacking in the audio department, which would really enhance the experience and feel of the game.
• General improvements - level timers, pause button, clear instruction on how to play, fix bugs etc.

We will update the DevLog with the new versions that we upload, so stay tuned for that if you're interested I guess.