lambotus@gmail.com
The games posted here represent the very beginning of my journey into game design. They utilize the formats of puzzlescript and Bitsy. While I found both to be a tad restrictive in terms of mechanics and aesthetic design, I found several elements within both that resonated with me.
My first project, "Sandwalk," is a puzzle game made within puzzlescript. I wanted to create a logistics focused maze puzzle where every move had a consequence and every level grew in the amount of complexity and moving parts. While I wasn't able to execute some of the more complex mechanics I had envisioned, I'm glad I started with an extremely simple, high-level programming format like puzzlescript. It gave me a greater appreciation for how even the most basic of mechanics can create thought provoking challenges when put in concert with each other.
"To Each Their Own" is a small narrative-driven game made in Bitsy focused on providing a simple yet (hopefully) engaging satirical message. Players can expect a restrictive and repetitive narrative loop at first glance. The goal of this is to provoke an emotional response in players that brings them in opposition to the characters and situation that has been forced upon the player. It is that feeling of rebellion and independence that I hope to reward in To Each Their Own. It was in this project that I gained a greater appreciation on how to use mechanics such as optional interactive entities, level exploration, and branching lists in dialogue to help facilitate a more personal feeling linear story.
While I really enjoy game design with heavy narrative elements, I plan on creating more educational and serious games in the future. The target audience for games continuing forward will be students interested in learning music theory and language of varying levels of difficulty. Through formats such as p5js or even analog games, simple systems that help accelerate learning/memorization of notes and word structures will be the primary goal.
