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(4 edits)

Hi!

Great write-up, but I'm still not entirely clear on whether my team's idea will be alright, so I hope it's ok to ask here, mainly in regards to these rules:

  • feature a character with expression changes and other alterations analog to sprites
  • feature simple crowd silhouettes, or suggestions of people without identifying details

We're going to have a big "painting" and have the camera zoom into different parts of it to tell a story (this image will be in place of sprite/BG). The story only features one character, but it's in separate moments of her life (childhood to adult). Her father/mother will be shown but without clear detail in their faces. If it's the same character but at different points in life, does it break the rules? If it does, can we "circumvent" it by making her features unclear in these small images?

(As a side-note, the idea is very inspired by this game from last year which used camera movement and a single sprite to create more than one character for the story, while still only having one asset!)

Ultimately, the camera will zoom back to reveal the whole image, revealing that it's a pinboard of different images. In the middle of this we'll have a high-quality version of the character.

Does this follow the rules? :) hoping it does because we're so stoked about this idea lol

And if it doesn't, how can we tweak it to make it fit?

Oh, another question! In regards to "no changing of the title menu". Can the title menu change if the image on it changes to the one from in-game, or is that still breaking the rules?

Thank you! :)

(+1)

Hello! That sounds like a very clever idea. 

If the features on the painting of the protagonist are vague enough this will be allowed. I’d highly encourage you to think how you can convey this is the protagonist while working with the limitation of trying to make those as simplistic as possible.

Follow the mentality of the silhouettes. What is the Minimum viable protagonist-lifestage -representation? Maybe using a defining colour for the protagonist???

This will be hopefully a challenging limitation that will make you push your limits in abstraction.

(+1)

In terms of the second question: Can the title menu change if the image on it changes to the one from in-game, or is that still breaking the rules?
Can you give me some more detail so I can fully understand what you mean?

Sorry for being unclear!

Our idea is that somewhere on the title screen there will be a blurred image, and then when you complete the story the blurred image will turn into a part of the main painting (as featured in-game). :) Just as a nice little visual bonus thing after completion.

(+1)

After some deliberation, and as the jam hasn't started yet we have decided we'll change the rule to allow for changes to the Title Menu. So yeah, feel free to do this!

Great, thank you! :)

(1 edit)

Thank you for the reply and clarification! That sounds great. Solid tips, too. :)

Just to doubly confirm: we can still have the middle part of the painting be full quality just as long as the rest of the images on it are vague, right?

(+1)

Correct!