https://acartlidge.itch.io/anthropocene-museum

Run a museum of human history! Collect pieces to display in the museum, and assemble collections of similar pieces for bonuses.

How to play

Install artwork to attract visitors. Buy artwork from the stone head and use your proceeds to unlock more of the museum. Similar art in the same room will give a collection bonus. Art can be in multiple categories, eg a girl holding a cat could be in the "cats" or "people" collection. Experiment and try to make the best collections you can!

Controls

WASD & Mouse to move E to interact R to remove painting Walk up to the stone head to shop, the empty frames to add paintings, and the ropes to unlock other parts of the museum

Credits

• All artwork is public domain, sourced from https://pdimagearchive.org/,
• Night Sky Photo https://pixabay.com/photos/astronomy-bright-constellation-dark-1867616/
• Music - Podcast Jazz Waltz Cozy Relaxing Vibes https://pixabay.com/music/traditional-jazz-podcast-jazz-waltz-cozy-relaxing-vibe...
• Sounds - Pixabay
• Textures from Polligon and AmbientCG
• FPS Controller adapted from https://github.com/rbarongr/GodotFirstPersonController

Jam Discussion

It's wild to be participating in Ludum Dare for me, this is a huge life goal accomplished! My personal goals for this jam were to try and make a dopamine rich game, and to feel a sense of progress in my game dev journey.

I heard the theme and immediately assumed everyone would be doing collection games, which are quite fun to make but I figured would be exhausting for judges. I settled on the idea of a magic museum, with my big inspiration being the Eyewitness intro from the 90s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR0vRuZkxdw). Initially it was going to have a open/close cycle, and during the day patrons would leave trash, or statues would come to life and grab people and need fighting. At night you would go to a spooky market and buy more art. At the end of day 1 I had a basic level, some pathfinding between art, money, pretty much done right?

On day 2 I struck on the idea of a human history museum, and found it a very charming pivot. I still wanted more complexity, so I spent a lot of time thinking about an affinity system, maybe different types of patrons like different types of art, and you would get different resources based on their affinity. EG an extradimensional being loves modern art, and when they see it they give you antimatter, something like that. I constantly had to ask myself if I was just adding annoying chores or anything fun. In the meantime, I messed around with nav mesh merging (awful) and built a system to manage all the art, loading custom resources from a CSV. I also modeled the museum 3 times, early on it was huge and would've required 2-3x the art objects, which just wasn't feasible!

On the last day I added the dialogue and the collection bonuses, which changed the game a great deal. I actually love where it's at now, and I think the act of matching and organizing thing adds to the overall pleasing cozy vibe. I'm very curious to hear any thoughts on the design or aesthetics. What mechanics would keep a game like this fresh for many hours?