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A jam submission

PenumbraView game page

Platformer minigame created for Games Now! - Game Jam 2023
Submitted by DawnDew — 1 hour, 29 minutes before the deadline
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Penumbra's itch.io page

Link to gameplay video
https://youtu.be/9bhjWLHewo4

Team
Jenni Suong Mai Bui - Game developer, level designer, 2D artist
Tuure Saloheimo - Composer

Tools and Resources
Clip Studio Paint
Gdevelop 5
1BITDRAGON

Estimated work hours
47+ hours

License
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Short description of the game
A simple platformer, where while the player plays, there are bits and pieces of a fragmented story scattered throughout the game you can find. The short game is meant to be seen as an intro to a larger narrative.

The player character is unknown, but they wander into a cavern, slowly going deeper to uncover secrets. What’s their connection to the story?

Theme
This game was born from the idea of “someone being lost”. There’s storyline to the game that was deprioritised due to the time crunch and can’t be found in the game. The player character is looking for a person (whether this person is a friend or someone else is a mystery) and falls into the cavern by accident. Now lost themself, they go looking for an exit, going deeper into the caves. The theme “Missing” can be intrepert in many ways. Player is looking for a missing person, are missing themself and missing the entrance. It may also mean the player is missing someone, maybe a loved one and is looking for them. The narrative is limited and hasn’t been expanded on in this game. (So the story shall stay a mystery!)

Development Process
I was originally a part of a team but went solo and started my own game on the 4th day of the jam. This was a decision made on a whim after some struggles with the team.

The game was developed using Gdevelop. My friend suggested the engine and after installing and tinkering a bit with it, I committed to doing a solo project the next day. This is my first ever game! I have no experience in game design or development nor do I have much coding skills. I went into this jam expecting to do art mostly, but took the chance to try game development when a friend and fellow jammer suggested it as an option for me.

The development was slow but I learned a lot during the process. A lot of the time was spent trying to learn Gdevelop and how it worked and mostly redoing things because they did not work the first time. I also attempted to do some animation but also had to scrap most of it because it took me too long. For music, Tuure Saloheimo helped me! I wanted something sombre and atmospheric and I think it fits perfectly.

I’m sure there were a great many things I could’ve done more efficiently with experience but I’m proud of what I managed to create in a short time. Making this game has me excited to work on more projects in the future!

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Comments

Submitted

I love the art in this game so much! Especially the dashing! I can't believe that this is your first game. It's absolutely incredible!

Developer

Thank you so much! It means a lot :D Thank you for playing!