Punk Jam Game Jam: DEEp Demos with just a hint of gameplay

I really like Itch.io. If you haven't taken the time to check out this Indie Game storefront, just take a second: there are some really cool and new game experiences in there, and a great deal of the games are free.  The site was introduced to me a while back by my friends at Ultra Runaway Games, and if you are looking for a site to host your games or a cool storefront that is well maintained but doesn't have crazy hurdles to get your content on there: definitely check them out.

Itch.io also hosts Game Jams. This is where Punk Jam comes in to play. A counter-culture game jam. One of the rules was explicitly to make games that: "have 'anti-design' or things that go against the grain of 'what counts as a video game'." Perfect! I am immediately invested in this.

Let me explain why...

To do so: let's talk about dungeons. I've decided to develop my dungeon explorer from a simple mechanics demo in to a full game. Up front I'll just say that it is called DEEp, It borrows some ideas from all over including: Zelda, Narnia, The Longest Journey, and choose your own adventure books to name a few. I'll go more in depth about DEEp in future posts, but let me tell you about it's prologue. DEEp starts out in the rain. You just missed the bus, and the next one isn't coming for an hour. Enter the Punk Jam... I am going to make the opening scene to the game for the game jam.

Work in Progress. ;)

I'm calling it BUS_WAIT. What do you do in BUS_WAIT? Why, wait for the bus for an hour of course! There's a bit more to it than that, but there's the general nugget of goodness. There will be little things in the environment that you can explore, and the character will talk to himself at times, and maybe a few other things. However, it's mostly this: you wait for the bus, and then the bus comes. The End.

This non-game is a good excuse for me to develop the visual style of the larger game while making one of the more troll-y (trolly?) parts of the larger story. This will also allow me to spend more time working on the story and planning out the rest of them game before jumping all gung-ho in to the DEEp end. Think of BUS_WAIT as the demo for DEEp. It will tie in more to larger game than you may think, and I think you're going to like it.

So that's what I'm working on. How about you? What are you making right now? If you aren't working on anything currently, or if you are working on something but feel like taking a break: why not try out a game jam? As of today: there are still twenty days left in the Punk Jam. More than enough time to make something grungy. Or you can check out the larger list of game jams on Itch.io. Or maybe you could start your own!

If you want to share, I want to know. I'm always down to geek out about game design and art.