Game Jam Winner Spotlight: The Garden Of God
from the like-it's-1923 dept
Last week, we looked at one of the two titles that tied for the Best Visuals category in our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1923. This week, we’re shining the spotlight on the other winner in that category: The Garden of God by DreadRoach.
As I mentioned last week, any game made in 30 days will need to be creative and cut a few corners if it’s going to feature engaging visuals. Where last week’s Chimneys and Tulips did that with a minimalist approach focused on color and typography, The Garden of God does it by building on a strong foundation: the graphic sprites and convenient capabilities of RPG Maker MV, the most popular tool for making JRPG-like games. But sprites are just one piece of a game’s visual puzzle, and DreadRoach used that pre-made palette to paint some excellently designed environments:
Based on a 1923 novel by H. De Vere Stacpoole, The Garden of God is a short, linear narrative experience that tells a simplified version of the first portion of the story, and manages to very effectively capture some of its key characterizations and emotional beats even as it reduces chapters of text to a few lines of dialogue. The story is short enough that it’s not worth trying to summarize — just take a few minutes to play it through — except to say it’s about a crew investigating something at sea:
In addition to the skilled map design and use of sprites, the game employs a few nice little scripted sequences as characters interact, with occasional bits of background activity. Most of the actual story is conveyed by dialogue, but there are also objects in the world to be examined for more clues about what’s happening, in the style of an adventure game. Though it’s all pretty simple and straightforward, it was one of the only games that aimed for an ambitious and robust visual aspect, and that caught the eyes of all our judges. You can play The Garden of God in your browser from its page on Itch, and don’t forget to check out our other winners as well as the many great entries that didn’t quite make the cut.
Filed Under: game jam, public domain, video games
Comments on “Game Jam Winner Spotlight: The Garden Of God”
Jams
These Jams seem like great short-form projects. I’m glad that these long-dead authors are finally contributing to the commons. 🙂
Re: Jams
"But if they’re contributing to the commons how will their corpses ever get paid?!" said John Smith.
Huh. First one of these where a certain someone hasn’t dived straight in the insult the creators and tell them that their work is useless because it wasn’t made by a major corporation on a production line.
Anyway, not only does this look pretty good, but I’m not introduced to RPG Maker MV, which might be occupying a few lazy weekends in the near future as I now have a few ideas…. Great job!
Re: Re:
RPG Maker is a lot of fun.
If you’re in no rush, wait for a sale – it gets a massive discount a few times a year, in Steam and the Humble Store (or sometimes a Humble Bundle). You can get it for like $20 or less, instead of $80 (and pick up a few of the extra sprites and tilesets for cheap at the same time).
This even duller than the "Weakly Review" -- and will run out!
Just dropping in to HOOT absence of the Review, which you at last figured out isn’t making current look good in comparison.
Back then Techdirt could at least stand dissent. Now you tolerate Zombies and Astro-Turfers but anyone with a bit of substance gets censored.
Re: This even duller than the "Weakly Review" -- and w
And yet again, the LYING "Comment Held For Moderation" – when you say there is NO Moderation here, AND when "Resend" from TOR browser gets the EXACT SAME TEXT THROUGH the (alleged) mighty filters!
Re: Re: This even duller than the "Weakly Review" -- a
Yes, because your lying spamming ass is being reported for being a spamming asshole, and the spam filter is programmed to filter out spam.
What exactly is your problem with a weekly series of articles being published weekly, anyway?
Re: Re: Re:
Oh, don’t worry. When the game jam winners all get listed I’m pretty sure the site will be back to profiling your trolling efforts over the years again.
I’ll grant you one thing though; reading about your tantrums is hilarious. Please don’t stop producing delicious tears.
As for substance, you wouldn’t know it if it forced you to your knees and asked you to wear the Fran Drescher mask.