In the interest of transparency, I should say that Nina and I discuss the themes in advance of the announcement, so while I'm just starting to work on the project, I've been think about some ideas for the Doll theme for a while now.

1. My immediate thought was this singing android video that I and some other drawing students discovered Freshman year of college.  I don't even know if it qualifies as an uncanny valley thing, because it's just so weird, and it ends with some serious David Lynch vibes.

2. Amma's dollhouse in Gillian Flynn's amazing novel Sharp Objects, which has also been adapted into an equally solid HBO miniseries. The dollhouse is both an important plot point and thematic motif, so I won't spoil it here, but if you haven't read/watched it, it's well worth your time.

3. Robert the Doll is something of a precursor to Chucky. It's an adequately terrifying doll that belonged to the painter Robert Eugene Otto from his childhood till his death (yes they shared a name, but the child went by Gene, so it's probably fine, right?). Stories say that Robert the Doll had a seat at the family table and that it was not uncommon to hear mischievous giggling throughout the house or Gene talking to himself with different voices when the door was closed. Some of the more fantastic stories are recounted in Episode 15 of the Lore podcast, titled Unboxed.

So, how do I make a game out of these ideas?
One important personal restriction for this jam is that I will be traveling for a wedding over the weekend, so my time will be limited. As much as I would have liked to create a 3D dollhouse with mysteries to uncover, I definitely wouldn't have the time for that scale of project. It would also run the risk of being very similar to my last jam project, and I'd rather use jams to try out some new things.

With all this in mind, I've decided to try out some narrative design, based on some of the themes I've referenced above. I've messed around with Twine a bit, and it seems like a good way to get out something relatively polished in a short amount of time.  It's also something I can realistically work on on a plane.

Progress report: I have the intro all set, with the basic structure of the narrative outlined. More importantly, I have a doll! It's modeled after cutout paper dolls that I remember my sister having as a kid with pins in the joints so you could pose them. My original idea was a scary moment that resulted from moving the doll parts around in certain ways, but I couldn't really think of any gameplay beyond that, so I'm going with a more narrative approach.

Well it's a day and 1/2 after the submission deadline, but I'm back from my friends' wedding and ready to pull together what I can on this project before Nina streams the games tonight. I've been having fun putting what little HTML/CSS I do know to use and have the basic layout and theme set up. I have some ideas for dynamic elements in the art and narrative that will occur based on your choices, but those may have to be put to the side for now.