Week 1: Art and Concepts

Welcome or welcome back!

Whenever I do a game jam I like to write devlogs that talk about how I work on the game each week. Its a fun thing for me to look back on how a project came together, and is something to show people when they want to know more about my games.

- The Game Jam -

This game is being created for the UMD GDC Spring 25 Game Jam, which will be my 6th UMD GDC game jam I have submitted a game too. Usually I like saving my larger narrative style projects for the spring, and stick with simpler concepts for the fall. With this in mind I was really struggling to think of something I could do a narrative game with during the voting for this year. The themes for the game jam are Death is useful, Gambling, and Hallucinations, (I may have done some light vote manipulations to make sure gambling and hallucinations tied, but that's not important). As  you may have noticed, that's three themes! There are typically only two, but due to a tie we got a triple theme this time. During the voting process I was a bit upset by Death is useful being the top theme voted by a wide margin, as I was really struggling to come up with a narrative style game that did not end up being extremely morbid. However with some creative interpretation I eventually decided on a game idea that I was happy with.

- The Idea -

Thinking of ways death could be useful without having to repeatedly kill people or my main character lead me down some interesting paths. Obviously the main intention of the death is useful theme was to make a platformer where you have to find a way to die to progress, but since I wanted to do something with narrative I did not want to do a platformer. For a while I was hoping hallucinations came second because I had an interesting idea for an Observation-Like game involving a room full of "haunted" dolls that you would have to manage and eventually kill. While this would be a good re-use of an old game concept I had, the idea of having to create all of the assets and animations for so many unique characters was daunting. Another plan I had was about interpreting "death" as "deaf" and doing a game where ASL was the main mechanic, but knowing nothing about ASL and not having any relation to the deaf community, I didn't believe I could do the concept justice. 

Finally I ended on the idea that forms my current concept for the game. Its a bit of a stretch but one use of "Death" that I could see (especially with conjunction with a theme like gambling) was the 13th trump card from the major arcana of the tarot deck which is very helpfully called "Death".  Inspired by learning recently that the tarot deck was not always associated with mysticism and at one point was a fully playable card deck for different games, I decided to try and make a gambling game that uses the tarot instead of poker cards.

- The Game -

The idea for the game (currently has a working title of  "Lifespan") involves the fact that the major arcana can be used to tell stories and is often referred to as "The Fools Journey". The game will start with someone playing the fool card (which will be dealt so a player always starts with it). That player would end up being first in the turn order. For a four player game each player would be dealt four cards, and since the game uses one set of major arcana cards there are only 22 cards in the deck. After the fool is player the play goes around the table and lets every player play one of there cards and place either a low, medium or high ante. The lifespan aspects, and the "Death is useful" aspect, comes from the fact that the round end only when the fool is killed. The easiest way for this to happen is for someone to play the Death card, which makes it very valuable to control. The other way is if the fool encounters 3 misfortunes. Since the cards of the tarot are entirely art the actions of the cards must be entirely interpretative (kind of like people figured out when they started using them for fortune telling) so the cards are given an action that is loosely tied to their meaning. Because of this 6 of the cards are labeled as misfortunes. When the fool dies all of the chips in the pot are typically given to the player who contributed the most to the pot (or split if a tie for equal claim). This isn't guaranteed however as 4 of the cards are "pot conditions", which means that if whatever the last pot condition played determines how the pot is split. This ranges from splitting the pot between the top two betters, to straight up giving the pot to whoever bet the least. This makes the proper betting decision to be based on what information you control by what cards are in your hands and your part in a fairly complicated series of events. To add to the randomness of the game, an equal amount of cards to each of the players hand, plus whatever cards would be left over are relegated to a pile called "The Shadows". At the end of every turn a card is drawn from the shadows which is totally random.

- The Themeing -

Since the other themes for this game jam are Gambling and Hallucinations, and from some ideas from friends, the entire game is 1920s mafia themed. This is mostly seen in the design of the tarot cards, which interpret the classic designs and meanings with a 1920s city twist. There where quite a few fun interpretations I had when making the deck. For example: The Hanged Man, who you would think would be someone on the gallows, actually has a closer interpretation to be hung by the feet (a symbol of wisdom). So what would give the mafia wisdom? probably someone they're interrogating? Nope, the hanged man is actually a reference to Harry Houdini. On another hand The Empress is a southern belle type design, who you wouldn't really expect to see in  a mafia setting, but who really controls the mob boss but the mob bosses daughter? (Who may show a resemblance to one of the characters in the lovers card). I also really love Justice, which as you expect from the mafia somewhere has really weighed down the scales.

Here's a look at the full deck:

- Next Week -

Looking towards the next week, I'm planning on getting the core gameplay in place, I would like to be able to play cards, track whos winning, and give the pot to the right people. I'm probably not going to finish making all of the cards perform their functions, but im hoping to get, death, the misfortunes and maybe the pot conditions working.

When I say next week, I should mention it may not be a chronologically adjacent next week, since this game jam actually has a two month time frame. Regardless im planning to only spend 4 weeks total working on the game, but to make my life easier may take breaks if other things take priority.

See Ya, "Next Week"

:P

- Taddaeus Stone