2024.06.23, 11:48pm

So I’m finally free to work on my entry for Bluebeard jam. I couldn’t ignore that my magnum opus has quite substantial lore inspired by bluebeard (not intentional and it for many years didn’t click lol). I had other ideas, but my conclusion is it’s better to finally deal with the elephant in the room that I keep ignoring. I couldn’t come up with a good entry project to introduce my magnum opus with, but brainstorming for the jam today helped me to figure it out.

It will be a simple first person walking sim. Lore is already established very long time ago, I just picked from whose POV this particular project will be told and how much of the lore is revealed to the player. It was always my problem: i have more than a decade of lore, but i was pondering which part to start with to keep the mystery for the rest of that massive story at places where i want to keep the mystery.

I finally came up with a relatively fresh take (i haven’t considered that perspective and that time frame deeply before, i just was aware there was an event along these lines).

So, I didn’t have to do much research on Bluebeard and some other quick ideas i had will be in my ideas folder for something else.

I guess i partially got stuck on going with magnum opus bit because i already did 2 branching adventure stories in a row and i am a bit tired, they already fill in the space and brainstorm themselves on the background. But I have my lovely magnum opus that i don’t need to work on much, lore wise.

So, i know what happens in the game I am aobut to make, locations and basic interaction that i need to do. I have roughly 10 more days, or 50 hours to build a realistic walking sim in Unreal Engine based on what i came up with today. Gladly, there is nothing much to do, just build the environment and do relatively simple interactions. I haven’t done before certain moments, but i have enoguh time to figure it out.

Player needs to explore and complete the mission and that’s it.

Of course, as usually it goes with my ideas, you can layer on a ton over it, especially with magnum opus project that has a lot of stuff going on at that location at different times. but that’s not important now. And compared to my other ideas for the entry project (way before bluebeard jam), this project will not exactly spoil things, mystery will still eb there, it is a good opening scene in a way (tohugh can also be a cheap trick like “you msut be wondering how i got there”, if i fail storytelling it well).

Tomorrow I will plan the technicalities and compare my assets with what i may need. My emphasis for this project is to build realistic environment with a very bare interactivity. Ideally i want a mission with submissions, but if i won’t be able to program it fast, i will simplyfy this to soemthing that i can do at the allocated time (1-2 days for barebones).