Loep

Synopsis: A short cozy and cute game about helping the girlscout Loep find gnomes with her looking glass in a tiny world.

Combining overworld exploration with “where’s waldo” type gameplay and experimenting with a 2.5d hybrid look.

Made in 4 days for the GMTK24 gamejam. Ranked #671 overal (7576 entries).

Link to the game: kimzalabim.itch.io

Overview:

Type:	Gamejam
Duration:	4 Days
Primary Roles:	Mechanic & puzzle design, programming & implementation
Team:	1 Artist, 1 Designer (myself)
Engine:	Unity
Other tools:	Sourcecontrol (Git + Fork), Miro

Process:

1. Concepting:

Defining the theme & mapping our own interests and themes.
Collaborative brainstorming in short bursts; associative wordwebbing, sketching.
Real life inspiration: going outside for a walk, write & sketch down everything we saw.
Scoping, planning, and defining the concept.

2. Prototyping:

Gameplay & artstyle inspired by TOEM (2021).
Quickly prototyping simple version of main gameplay loop.
Setting up basic systems: movement and “loep” control, switching between the two perspectives, interacting with npcs, and quest progression.
Testing artstyle implementation.

3. Gameplay / Content

Coming up with the gameplay content: quests, characters and locations, in collaboration with the artist.
Sketching out the quests, treating them quests as “little stories“, using narrative tools to help structure them.
Write out quests in centralized “Quest Document”.
Create ToDo & Asset list for quests, divide work & Rescoping.