Really like this game so far and I do want to come back to it later! Super pretty and the sound design matches the overall aesthetic super well (also the characters are adorable). My only issue is that I wish there were a more integrated way to see what you can interact with, like the item being highlighted or something. Love it so far though!
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Skyglow's itch.io pageGame Title
Skyglow
Developer Name
Team Orion
Short Promo Blurb
A 2.5D side-scrolling platformer where players must reduce light pollution by returning stars to the sky.
Full Description
Play as Thalia, an adventuring cat, to help anthropomorphic animals along her journey whose lives have been disrupted by Mr. Mayor, who has been stealing the sky’s stars to power artificial light sources. Skyglow takes the player through three main levels where you meet Motholomew, Frogert, and Shellie. These three main quests highlight the different impacts light pollution has on animals. As you collect stars on your journey, look towards the sky and see what you can find!
Promo Image(s)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DhQR6qkTZOJoCP1Be-fN8I8xwtxeNvDZ
Promo Video
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uZwyPreaZnWTtGdwriMffD_Bcl2GPLvx?usp=drive_link
Artistic Statement / Use of Theme(s)
The focus of our game, Skyglow, is to raise awareness for the issue of light pollution. Compared to the other types of pollution, light pollution is not as frequently discussed but has equally detrimental effects on animals, our atmosphere, and the environment. The name “Skyglow” comes from the environmental term “skyglow,” which describes the unnatural brightness of the night sky due to artificial, man-made lighting. Our game's story is centered around removing artificial lights scattered around the environment and returning them back to the sky, fitting the Climate Jam’s theme of “Changing the Story.”
From an artistic perspective, the narrative design of Skyglow allows the player to impact change on both an individual and societal level. Controlling the main character as she returns stars back to the sky is aimed at combatting the narrative that individual efforts do not matter, encouraging players to take a look at how doing even small things— minimizing outdoor lighting, turning off lights at night, keeping curtains and blinds draped— can have a positive impact on the environment around them. On the other hand, educating and persuading the environmentally ignorant mayor towards the end of the game also allows players to create change on a communal or societal level. Having players experience the impact of change serves Skyglow's goal of being a call to action, calling for players to take advocacy in their own hands through individual efforts and inspiring policy changes regarding light pollution.
Development Summary
At first, Skyglow was ideated to be an exploration-based and story-based game revolving around discovering stars in the player environment and putting them back in the sky. While we kept this idea of star discovery and returning stars to the sky, we ultimately had to make a major change by dropping the exploration idea in favor of a platform-based story game. This better suited our game’s narrative pacing, as we were able to make more clearly defined stages that focused on different light pollution issues.
When creating the dialogue and story, we wanted to be conscious of the realistic impacts of light pollution. To achieve this authenticity, we let our research come first and inform the problems and plot points of each level. We were most surprised by many of the impacts that light pollution had on animals; even obvious ones, like moths being drawn to lights at night, had a surprising amount of depth when considering new context, like their usage of moonlight as a navigational compass.
From a technical aspect, learning how to share a GitHub Repository and develop games when collaborating with nine people was our major challenge. This was the source of most of our pitfalls, ranging from miscellaneous coding errors to almost losing our entire project. It was a new experience for many of us, so it naturally took lots of adjustment and communication; however, it made the reward of developing an efficient workflow all the more worth it. Having nine people working on our project also helped greatly with scaling up the goals and length of our game.
Our 2.5D perspective was also a challenge, as we had to change the position of the camera, and thus almost every asset in our game, quite late in development. However, the benefit it gave of drawing the player's attention to the environment and atmosphere of our story was in line with our goal of calling attention to the impact that light pollution has on wildlife and the environment.
While many design ideas and choices came and went from our project, one of the most difficult things to cut from our project was having the environment change over time. Our original plan was to have the environments gradually blend between and within each level. While it admittedly may have produced a more immersive product, we believed our efforts within the constraints of the jam were better focused on creating efficient, tessellating backgrounds that still did not sacrifice any aesthetic appeal. Additionally, we had to cut parts of the levels to be shorter, as we wanted to preserve player enjoyment over shorter periods of time and focus more on the story.
Release Plan
Our game is currently finished but we do plan on polishing it a bit more in the coming weeks. We are planning on adding more sound effects, more cutscenes, and bugfixing a bit more.
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