Before you read, there are spoilers ahead.
This last weekend I participated in the Game Maker’s Toolkit Game Jam. My game, “A Forest Full of Monsters” pushed me outside my comfort zone of systems and mechanics and focused more on art and overall experience. I am very happy with how it turned out.
If you haven’t heard about it, Game Maker’s Toolkit is an excellent YouTube Channel that produces video essays on game design. Every year, its creator, Mark Brown, runs a Game Jam to explore new, innovative ideas. This year was no exception.
The theme, “Genre without a Mechanic”, required you to innovate. You had to pick a genre and remove a core mechanic from that genre. The theme required you to think out of the box by its very nature.
One of the things that went wrong with the game was knowledge on how I approached the genre ruined a twist in the game so if you plan on playing it but haven’t gotten to it yet, play it now before continuing. Spoiler warning I guess? Here’s another link to the game for your convenience: