Game Design of The Key

Hey everybody!

I've noticed that the game I made at this year's Global Game Jam, The Key has been getting quite a number of views and since I haven't had much IRL or online feedback from it, I figured I'd try to leave these series of thoughts that I'd hope to make a regular posting a bit after the release of projects that aren't simple arcade clones with some hype music thrown in...

As another reiteration, the theme of the Jam was "We see things not as they are, but as we are". With that in mind, I took a introspective look at who we ( I ) are.  And what I found was that we are many things, but what we largely identify as who we are as individuals is due to our encounters, experiences, and memories. We're all different, but so similar on this journey of life and self understanding.

The motif of a journey, and life at large, led me to form the game into a maze. Life is very much so a maze and we have to keep moving forward hoping to find our path towards the end.  The choices we have available aren't always clear cut nor do they reveal all of the pros and cons. Another idea that contributed to the overall design of the "correct" maze path is to always jump on a new path (opportunity) that comes your way. The further you get into it, it's more than likely a good decision to turn onto this new path if it takes you to a new level (color).

The minimum aesthetics that I did implement in those 10-12? hours was a color scheme that takes you from this area of gray, through all the different chakras more simply, all the colors of the rainbow!

From the tooter to the slightly above your head region...

So the maze has 7 different color regions each with 2 different key objects. I never came up with a name for these metaphorical objects, but they can either help you by giving you more time or halt your progress of self discovery.  Each of the good keys, has a meaning attached to it in the form of a short sentence that should elicit some thought/emotion/memory of your own life that is related to the chakra of whichever color region that you're in (Red = Life, etc.).

The bad keys, conversely, are the hidden evils or setbacks of life. Instead of the thought provoking messages with the good keys, the bad keys include funny (to me) references and messages to hopefully make your mis-steps not as punishing.  A few even offer things to consider in life: "All that glitters is not gold."

Beyond the maze of self-discovery and enlightenment, there is also The Darkness, another realm inside your mind in which you find yourself isolated and possibly lost. Besides yourself, the floor, and what little bit of light that you have left within yourself, there is the slightly ominous sound of The Darkness. It beckons for you to show you the way out and get you back on your journey. Or you can stay and endlessly respawn into the darkness.

That about wraps up the higher level designs for the game, the game has an intentionally small view port so that you can't see the too much of the rest of the maze beyond your immediate area. It also is controlled via keyboard arrow keys, that's transferable to a controller also, but I've wondered if I should toy with a touch guided control scheme if this project gets revitalized and ported to mobile. 

Overlaying the mechanic of searching for the end and finding the correct key, is a time mechanic. It could be metaphorically linked to the notion of our limited time in life to do the very same act, but I added it in as more out of a "need" for a sense of urgency for the player. After observing the one actual real life playtest that I was able to have and getting his feedback, the time mechanic could be lightened somewhat, but I'm not sure to what extent I would do that (more fun tweaking and testing!)

That's all that I think that I can go on about right now about the game. It may or may not be revitalized, fine-tuned and prettified, but for now it's on ice.  If you haven't actually played it, try it out. Otherwise, share the game with others if you're a fan!

And as always, feel free to let me know what you think about the game or my design behind in the section below or on Twitter.