The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they could build the city no longer.

What remains?

BABEL is the story of two lovers dealing with the catastrophic loss of their community in the wake of the divine intervention against the tower of Babel. The story opens with the player character's return to the city after weeks of searching following the sudden divine removal, because it was the only place they had a chance of reuniting with their lover. Miraculously, the two do indeed reunite, but soon discover that they no longer speak each other's language. In the months and years following their reunion, they slowly settle into their new life, building new communities, relearning how to communicate, and dealing with the trauma of the intervention.

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Hi potential friends, my name is Nell Evangeline and I love sinning and that is why i am making this gay ass twine game

It's the first game i've ever made but I have plenty of writing experience, which is why I'm going for something small and simple that my writing can carry. I don't intend to do anything especially ambitious with my coding, just figure out the basics of the system and use it to make something with emotional impact. A more polished deluxe edition could be fun, but not until after the game jam. I'll be shooting for around 5000 words and multiple endings, ideally 4, and after the first day's progress (some nice well-laid planning documents filled out) that seems like a completely manageable goal! :3

My biggest inspirations in games are Eva Problems, Kitty Horrorshow, Mia Schwartz and Aevee Bee, especially for the games i've linked in this sentence. If their work is of interest to you, I hope you'll find something to interest you about BABEL, too! And if you don't know their work, I'd highly recommend checking it out.

Im rlly looking forward to this, love the plot !!

ohhhhhhh mannnnn this is my entire shit i love (gay) biblical references in games.... (and your inspirations are also mine aaa) also your concept is really interesting, and i can't wait to play this!!

that sounds really good!!

good morning everyone! it's the start of day 3 of the game jam and my sleep schedule is already irrevocably fucked. On the bright side! since i started working around 3am i've finished 1200 words of story, 500 words of planning documentation, and a color coding system! It's amazing how much easier it is to work on something I actually like, I can even keep my focus well enough to write when i'm tired, and i got ADHD! Well, i can focus well enough for a first draft at least.

So! here's the plan i put together in short: Tonight I completely mapped out the structure in scrivener. I'll be writing out my whole first draft there then transferring it to twine to see how it feels and wrestle with any tech troubles. Once that's set up i'd love to share it with anyone willing to beta my work! I'll use that feedback and my own conclusions to polish it until the time limit.

In terms of writing, I love the progress I'm making so far. Characters are starting to go from nameless representations of forces acting on the setting to actual fleshed-out characters! still nameless tho.

I feel like a devlog for what is essentially a writing project isn't as fun as devlogs for more complex games but only because it's hard to share my creation until the first draft is done. Sit tight for now, it'll be ready before you know it <3

devlog day three: taking the day off, because until next may I'm dependent on my mom for my living situation, and she is of the opinion that my work is worthless and I ought to be more productive. Therefore, she gave me new tasks for the last couple of hours while haranguing me the whole time, and now I'm miserable and exhausted and will be going to bed.

:C

"I feel like a devlog for what is essentially a writing project isn't as fun as devlogs for more complex games but only because it's hard to share my creation until the first draft is done" i've worried about this! i think that is very tricky because i do wish it was possible to share snippets/screenshots without spoiling stuff for text games. either way i hope tomorrow is less exhausting and more productive for you!

Aw that sounds awful :( Yr work isnt worthless !! Best of luck & sleep well

hey its 10 days since i last touched babel for various reasons i dont wanna get into. But now in the last 9 hours of the jam i have free time, a new prescription, a restful night's sleep, and the perfect motivational tool that is an Imminent Deadline. I definitely won't finish in this time frame, but my work so far has been setting up extensive planning so I think I can slap together a prototype release before midnight. If you were interested in this project back at the start of the jam, watch this space!

Yesterday was a really, really good day. as y'all know, the jam's deadline was extended a day for the bunch of people who barely missed it, but even before that I could see i would take at least a week to finish. but i did get one important thing right in my last post: working since then has been Very different from the work experience before it. On my new prescription i'm able to focus, to muster up energy while i'm focusing, to in general work productively on a scale I hadn't thought was possible for me before now. all of a sudden, all the enormous struggles that had to be overcome to reach my goals (in my dev work but really in everything in my life that requires labor) seem so much smaller than before.

This is only two day's impression, but right now it looks like my future in the dev community is going to be bright. Thanks to everyone who made this experience what it was; even though I got only the smallest taste of it, the support and camaraderie and potential friendship and accessibility are EXACTLY what I want from my gaming community. Next jam, I hope I'll be doing my part to make this community as good for everyone else as it was for me <3

Idk if these forums are gonna stay open to posts after the jam winds down but if they do i'll be posting links to the public prototype and finished piece in this thread, maybe put a bookmark on here if you're interested