Hello! Congratulations to everyone who participated in the jam.
I want to share how I came up with the idea for the game.

Before the jam, I decided to get some sleep. I voted for the jam theme and went to bed. Different thoughts about what kind of game I wanted to make kept popping into my head. The only requirement I had was simple controls—all actions had to be done with the mouse. I couldn’t fall asleep for about 4 hours, thinking about what kind of game I wanted to make. I decided to latch onto this very moment—"pre-sleep contemplation"—and build a game around this part of our lives. But I only settled on the setting and the general message of the game at that point.

When I woke up and saw the theme, I had to figure out the gameplay. I thought about which mechanics I’ve wanted to implement for a long time and which games I could reference.
1. Dungeon Crawler (I’d been playing Wizardry for the past month)
2. Undertale (I’ve long wanted to pay tribute to a game I loved as a kid)

If we’re talking about whether I’m satisfied with the result... it’s more "no" than "yes." I managed to implement about 40% of what I had planned.
Why did it turn out this way? Lack of preparation. Take the controls, for example—I knew what they would be and could have prepared the scripts in advance.

I’m glad I was able to add the main ending—I would have liked to add more gameplay. But the jam is over, and the game will remain as it is. During development, I thought that I’d be happy if at least someone appreciated the game’s overall message.

Thanks!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/light-in-the-dark