Intro:

In this post, I want to share my experience participating in my very first game jam. I’ll talk about how I built the game, what went well, and how the whole process felt. I actually found out about Ludum Dare from my gamedev teacher, and I felt so inspired that I decided to dive in and see what I could create.

The Beginning:

As soon as the theme was announced, I started googling every possible meaning of the word "Signal." From the start, I wanted to do something with deep space signals. Part of the inspiration came from playing Voices of The Void a few days before the jam, where you find and process signals. However, I wanted my game to have a manual decoding process, forcing the player to actually decipher the encrypted data. That’s when the name DECODE was born.

The Mechanics:

The first thing I implemented was the frequency slider and the "garbage text" effect. When you hit the right frequency, the signal becomes clear. Originally, I also thought about adding a search for the signal’s coordinates, but it felt too complex to add. So, I focused on the core loop: signal tuning, Morse code, and Caesar cipher decoding.

The Challenges (and the "Input Box" situation):

The feedback I received highlighted one major point: the input panel. I wanted the game to be challenging, so I intentionally made the input box overlap the frequency slider. Initially, the panel opened with a manual button, but during testing, I found it annoying to click back and forth. I decided to make it automatic: it pops up when the signal is perfect and hides when the signal is lost. Combined with the long satellite names in Morse code, this became a "irritation point" for players, so to complete Day 2, you actually needed to make everything perfectly. ,_,

The Future:

After the jam ended, I didn't stop. I’ve already uploaded a slightly updated version to Itch.io, adding the music I didn't have time to implement during the 72 hours and fixing some visual bugs. Here's some screenshot of before and after: But I’m not stopping there! The feedback has been amazing and truly motivated me to keep going. A friend sent me a massive list of ideas, and another player suggested adding a story twist. I’m definitely going to work on a more polished version with better UI and maybe a small plot. If you’ve played the jam version, I’d love for you to check out the future updates! :D

Fun Fact:

While playing other entries (which actually feels very cool, seeing what people created in such a short time), I found a game with almost the same name: Decode. It’s a great project, you should definitely check it out too!