A Postmortem & Plans for the Future

I am Seere, the developer of "Your World, 50 Years From Now". I made the game in a week for the 5th Bored Pixels Jam, it's a small contest with no real reward. I was still happy to have won it, as it was my first ever game jam. Not to mention my first released game. It inspired me to pursue game development as a creative pursuit. I was not confident about doing so before.

The game was pretty much made on a whim after discovering the jam, and I didn't expect much to come of it. I didn't even expect to finish it, as I have had much trouble completing projects in the past. It was a confidence boost to not only finish something but for that thing to be good. Not perfect by any means but something I was proud of.

Here I will unload what I thought was good, bad, and what I intend to do in the future with my games.

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I consider the game a success, it turned out better than I expected. Even with the few cuts, I had to make to the game, which I will talk about in the next section. It also won the competition, which is always a nice bonus. I beat out all those other people who have had previous games under their belt, I'm not trying to gloat. It shocked me.

The thing I was most proud was most likely the graphics, that's what got people's attention. Not the best-looking pixel art ever, but better than you would expect for the average game jam project. The majority of the week I spent developing the game was on graphics. Everything else I banged out in the last few days of the competition.

I had planned on the color scheme on being much simpler. Everything else besides the dream sequence, credits, and titles were to be monochrome. I soon felt that it did not represent a Cyberpunk environment. That's where the gaudy neon pink came into the picture. In the current day, traditional architecture has all but been replaced by hideous signs that line every street. Every sign competing for the attention of consumers. The other colors visualize that everything has been stained by it's ugliness.

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The music was another thing people liked about the game. I didn't expect so many people to download the soundtrack when I put it up. The style has been something I've been playing around with for years. Dark, ambient industrial soundscapes with melancholic melodies. I was very proud of the compositions, one of which was recycled from an old game project. One that will most likely not be revived, unfortunately. 

The last thing I was proud of was the Artemis OS. It ended up looking good and adding some much-needed interactivity to the game. Like everything else in the game, I wanted to do a lot more with it. I wanted to include the ability to message people back, among other things. Because of time constraints, I had to cut everything but the bare essentials. Only including the things that were needed to make the scene work.

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Despite the game's success, there are many things about the game I consider failures. From the glitches, the short length, and to the lack of sound effects. Yet, the biggest failure of the game to me is its game design. If you have played the game, you will know that there is very little interaction. I properly labelled the game to reflect this by calling it "interactive fiction". But it's so different from my actual philosophy on how games can tell stories.

It's not enough to present a story as a film or a book, but with some interaction. Or mechanics that don't reflect the experience of the player character (s). The potential of video games as a storytelling medium lies in their mechanics. I believe that they should be made to fit the story. In that way, my game was a failure.

The truth of the matter is that even if I had been able to put everything I planned into the game, it would still not fix that. The game's design was flawed from the start in that way. Unfortunately because of various reasons it was impossible for me to make a game that had it all.

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In the end, I am very proud of the game. It has inspired to pursue video games as a creative medium. Although, as I have said the game's design runs counter to my own philosophy on game design. I plan to rectify this in my future video game projects.

I want to implement mechanics as the primary method for conveying emotion. It's not to say I will abandon some more traditional elements of storytelling. The strength of video games as a storytelling medium is using game mechanics to convey a certain experience. It will be a gradual change, but I will get there eventually.

For my next game, I will be creating an adaptation of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" in 3D. Specifically part one, "Inferno". It will not be a visual novel/interactive fiction game like "Your World, 50 Years From Now". It will be a story-focused adventure game, with minimal but meaningful mechanics. I also plan on updating my current game. I will be upgrading it to a "Director's Cut" version with additional content and fixes. Including actual sound effects, more scenes, expanding others, and support for phones.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for playing my game!

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