I was not planning on participating in this April’s Ludum Dare Game Jam because I, along with several people from Louisville Makes Games (our local Louisville KY game dev community) were attending and speaking at Vector, a local conference similar to GDC but on a much smaller scale.
I really liked the theme “A Small World” and came up with the concept of a simple sealed terrarium where the plants grow and die in a constantly repeating cycle. I talked with Cara Smith about the concept and she was interested and started doing the artwork.
I programmed the game using no engine just JavaScript with PixiJS to handle the rendering.
I wrote a small story with Cara’s help with proofreading and suggestions. The story is about my struggles with depression and anxiety. It was interesting channeling the feelings I have when I am depressed because when writing the story I was not depressed. I feel like people, especially those in the game development community, talking openly about mental health issues has helped me a lot with my own. I want to write more and try making more narrative-based games, and work on my writing and storytelling.
While this is not really a game or very interactive, I wanted to put out what we created and call it finished.
The game will only work on a computer in the browser with keyboard for controls.
There is not much interaction, just use right arrow key to advance the story, left arrow key to go back.
Click here to play ‘Fog and Glass’ by Alex Bezuska and Cara Smith
-Alex
