How It Went

This Ludum Dare I told myself to keep the scope small so I wouldn’t get stuck in technical mechanics or rushing to finish too large a narrative. I decided pretty quickly to just write a simple text adventure, no fancy mechanics.

I landed on an idea and the title of Further Below pretty quickly, where the player is the last remaining employee on an underwater facility that’s being shut down. The player would be able to choose what rooms to visit and would need to unlock access by visiting them in an order that makes sense. Then, rather than being exfiltrated, things take a downward turn. Depths!

I liked the idea, it should’ve been enough to motivate me to keep working on the game, but somehow I got stuck without motivation. I kept distracting myself with other things, and when I ran into a simple issue on how to gate one area from the next it gave me this anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach that took even more procrastination to overcome.

Eventually the feeling lifted and I got back to writing. I did want some kind of mechanic for the player to use, so they weren’t just reading a story without any agency. Besides the base navigation options, I added two commands: search and inventory. Search would offer up items you need when used in the appropriate location, the inventory would allow use of the items. After a little while I realized that the inventory aspect was a little too much to do in the limited time available, so I settled on just having a search option. This basically removed any real agency again, but I knew that setting up the inventory would make me get stuck in the technical mechanics I mentioned above.

When I first started writing the story I didn’t know where the end would lead, but eventually things fell into place. There is an eventual choice to be made by the player, and ideally that choice would be made earlier in the game somehow rather than right at the end. However, I had work the next morning and it was late by the time I got to this point, so I once again ran out of time even in this smaller scope story.

The Good

I like the story I wrote and how I wrote it. I kept any real exposition at a minimum, trying to keep things near the player’s perspective and not outright spilling the beans. It’s a simple tale though, so I think the player can come to correct conclusions without much trouble.

There’s limited graphics in these text adventures I do, it usually comes down to finding a good font, deciding on a palette, and designing a fitting logo. I am happy with how those things turned out.

I slapped together the music pretty quickly. Atmospheric ambient cellos over time-stretched underwater noises that are lowpassed. I threw in some thunderstorm rumble as well. Nothing fancy, but I felt it fits the vibe well.

The Bad

The lack of agency and choices with delayed payoff makes this more a story you move through than a real game. The thought that I might as well be writing a short story instead occurred a few times.

As always, time management and motivation were my antagonists in this jam. I couldn’t take Monday off from work, but even if I had I am not sure I would’ve used the time effectively. I find it can be difficult to straddle these jams by myself. When I worked in teams previously, there was always the outside impetus to be useful to my teammates.

The Takeaways

Same as always, pretty much: I need to get a better handle on managing my time effectively, and figure out how to balance mechanics and story. I nearly always fall more extremely on one end of those rather than getting the balance right. And I need to prepare snacks and take real breaks during the process rather than find distractions on my computer. One of these days...!

🎮 ➡ PLAY 'Further Below' (WEB)