Hi everyone!

I've joined My First Game Jam before but never managed to make time for it - but that is going to change this year.

I'm planning on using Twine to create a simple narrative game, based on a story I've had in mind for a while but never properly developed. I'm trying to keep things simple and focus on having a complete, compelling narrative with some simple decision making involved.

I've experimented with making games on the text adventures website before but I've never managed to complete one and have always been a bit too ambitious with the length/number of options/etc.

My main goals for this jam:

- Become confident in using Twine

- Learn more about creating a compelling narrative for a game

- Have a complete, playable game I can get feedback on

Here's my current introduction:

First challenge: find a way to make the the ™ symbol show up in the title!

I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with, I think this jam is such a cool idea.

I was close to making a Twine game, too! It can create such a contained little atmosphere. Narrative design and especially branching paths are so challenging to manage. I'm excited to see what you make, good luck!

Day 2

I've spent part of today mentally figuring out where I want the story to go and jotting down some ideas in notepad. I'm trying my best to keep it simple as I'd really like to have a finished game at the end of the jam.

I'm also learning lots more about Twine which is really fun! I've used my first 'if' macro and I'm starting to realize how many possibilities there are when using Twine. Again, I don't want to get overwhelmed so I'm trying to keep things simple for now.

I've also learned how to edit the CSS of my game and spent way too long playing with different fonts/font sizes. This is what I have for now, but I'm sure it will change again before I'm done.

I've also experimented with removing the sidebar from the game, but have only managed to remove the text, not get rid of the dead space.

I want to focus on getting the main bulk of the story in place next, so that I have a good foundation to make other changes around.

I'm having fun and learning lots!

You game looks like a lot of fun to build! This has also peaked my interest in Twine 

Day 3/4
I'm finding it a bit more difficult to dedicate time to my game now that it's the working week, but I don't want to give up. I've spent the last two days writing notes about the story on paper and adding passages to the game.

When I don't have much time I'm trying to tell myself, 'Just add one passage', or even, 'Just write one sentence,' so that I don't get overwhelmed. I think that completing the project in small chunks is gonna be the best way to go.

Here's a quick screenshot of a new passage. I'm trying to get all the basic story in before going back in to add extra description and polish things.

The plan for the rest of today/tomorrow is to keep developing the story, and to play a few more Twine games for inspiration.

I'm also thinking of printing off some of the Twine documentation as I really like having physical copies of things to refer to/make notes on/etc.

Day 5

I've added a little more to the story today, and I'm enjoying test playing from different points and making tweaks.

I've tested a few different games from the interactive fiction section and got plenty of inspiration.

I've realized that the main factors leading to me quitting early are:

• Fonts that are too hard to read
• Paragraphs that are too long
• Not having an idea of how long the game will take to play
• Too many spelling mistakes/typos/etc

So, I'm going to try and avoid these issues in my finished game. I'm looking forward to the weekend when I'll have more time and can hopefully get a kind of 'first draft' of the entire game complete.

Oh hey! Someone else doing a twine game! I agree on super-long paragraphs  and bad formatting in general being a thing that makes me back out of twine games;  passages should be... digestible, imo. (This is not to say that I'm not guilty of long ass passages, but.)  This looks really cool so far! 

Day 6/7

Was busy with work these days so didn't do much other than add a few passages and mull over how I'd like the game to end. Still not certain, endings are so hard and I'm not sure how many alternatives I want to include.

Day 8

I have submitted my unfinished game to the playtesting thread so it will be interesting to get some feedback. This was my first time uploading something to itch.io so it was a good learning experience, and I can see there are lots of options when it comes to your game page. I'd like to learn more about these to get it looking nice and polished when I'm done.

Also not certain about what size is best for the viewport dimensions, and am thinking a few of my passages are a bit too long - I don't really want people to have to scroll up and down the page while playing.

I'm excited to learn more about all of this side of things!

Link to the game is here: Home™

Days 9 - 13
These days have been focused on typing up as much story as possible and trying to add more options so that the game feels more interactive - this was some helpful feedback I got from the playtesting thread.

I've planned out four endings, and managed to write all of the passages for two of them. It definitely gets tricky to keep track of everything, so hopefully I haven't made too many mistakes. Below is a screenshot showing a bit of my progress.

I'd really like to experiment more with changing the way the game looks, adding sounds, images, and altering the CSS. I'm not sure I'll have time for all that, though, so for now my aim is just to get a complete story with four different endings.

Hoping I can make it in time!

I've uploaded my game!! Take a look here: https://sleepygame.itch.io/home

I didn't have time to do everything I wanted to, although I'm still really happy to have a (somewhat) complete game! I've got several different endings which I'm happy with, I've learned tons about using Twine, and I've managed to make time for game dev in my normal life.

Going forward, I've got a few goals for this game:

1. Improve the look of the game using CSS.

2. Experiment with adding sound to make the game more immersive.

3. Develop some of the endings, particularly the shorter ones.

4. Draw some simple images to add to certain passages.

And goals not related to this game:

1. Make another Twine game using more conditionals, etc.

2. Experiment with two other games engines.

3. Upload two more games before the end of 2018.

4. Try working on a simple game as part of a team.

Being part of this jam has really given me the motivation I needed to make my first game, something I've been wanting to try forever. I'm so happy I joined and definitely want to keep going :D