My dear friend Frey and I recently participated in “Not a Game” Jam hosted by stargyaru & Overcast this past weekend, so I wanted to document my POV of the process here while it's fresh in my mind (and while I'm waiting for Dawntrail maintenance)! I'll be talking about some of the stuff behind the scenes, showing some of my process work, & sharing some of my thought process. I can't speak for Frey, but I feel like we were on the same page for most things. I had so much fun & it was a pleasant reminder that I have the most fun creating something that's just for myself, my friends, & maybe 3 other freaks who have similar tastes & sensibilities as me.
If you'd like to view our entry LYCH-GATE, you can do so on my itch.io here!
This is a bit of a meandering ramble, but nonetheless, I hope you find some sort of inspiration, relatbility, or whatever have you. Hope you enjoy ~
About "Not a Game" Jam
The premise for “Not a Game” Jam was to create images, videos, or anything that isn't interactive for games that don’t exist. The submissions can take the form of fake screenshots, videos emulating in-game cutscenes or gameplay, fabricated achievement guides/game walkthroughs, or even fake game cover box art. I've done some of these in the past for my OCs, & I thought it'd be a lot of fun to do it again when I heard about this jam’s theme.
I made these pieces as extras for my friend's anthology Snapshot of a Waking Dream
I think if you're interested in discovering more about this topic, firstly, I'd recommend checking out the other submissions in this game jam! There were so many interesting & cool concepts presented! I spent a lot of time combing through the other entries & I was super impressed to see what other folks came up with. There’s also the Twitter account @thesegamesarefake that regularly posts too.
I'd also recommend this video by Super Eyepatch Wolf where he goes on a deep dive into several other fake games! (I’m personally a big fan & an avid listener of his & WoolieVS's monthly podcast VSWolves haha)
Ideation
The Theme & Our (Not) Game Concept
In addition to the premise of this game jam, the theme was trinket! I think my mind went to several different places -- I made a mind map as soon as I found out about the theme to try & come up with some ideas..
To elaborate on my main conclusions and thoughts from the map, I'd say:
- I’m fascinated at how by definition, trinkets are ornamental objects of little ( presumably )monetary value. Yet in my head, I view trinkets as objects where their value is in its sentiment and nostalgia – they’re filled with priceless memories. I thought exploring the dissonance of value would be a potentially interesting angle.
- In a game sense, I immediately went to thinking about inventory systems and UI. Another potential route would be to explore and experiment with those visually without having to worry about programming functionality for the jam.
Frey and I also have an affinity for horror in general – but particularly survival horror. A lot of iconic games in that genre have such a strong emphasis on being mindful of what you have in your inventory – to only carry what’s most vital – which…can be at odds with the definition of trinket. Also, I just wanted to do something a bit horror man.
In hindsight, I'm happy with the direction we approached the theme. Although we have some literal associations like the calling card coin or the corvid motifs (known to hoard and collect shiny objects), I'm glad we leaned into more of the metaphorical aspects I associate with trinkets – sentimental memory and things we decide to keep close… even if it may not be entirely practical or beneficial to do so.
From there, we thought about horror, and the body as a collection of objects - with viscera and organs as trinkets. We bounce back and forth; leaping from idea to idea – from how corvids love trinkets and shiny objects to how corvids pick at dead animals and carrion. We escalate and marry different concepts – we eventually get to raven-assisted autopsies of murder victims with the culprit’s calling card trinket in their bodies!?
During brainstorming, Frey casually drops one of my favorite lines mid that I knew we had to keep for the project:
“What are we made up of, other than memories and feelings? They dissolve. There’s nothing to send off.”
A deceptively simple line that elegantly captures how our memories are in a sense trinkets that have no monetary or practical value – yet these memories shape us & we cling to them closely… either consciously or subconsciously, as a response to trauma.
And so after some adjustments – we eventually get to LYCH-GATE. A murder mystery visual novel with some point-and-click elements. The events center around the town of Lych-Gate’s annual Harvest serial killings; a decades-long blight upon the town with a calling card of old coins not seen since the medieval ages. The game follows the perspective of Corvus, also known as The Raven by the local townspeople for his tendency to pick at the vulnerable wounds of the town… both figuratively (during the investigation sections where you might ask questions that bring up painful memories ) and literally (during the autopsy sections you perform as the coroner-taken-up detective)
Other fun tidbits of when we were brainstorming for LYCH-GATE off the top of my head are:
✦ The Raven is a sick monicker, but Corvus is also just as sick I fear. Corvus, is of course, the genus of birds that encapsulates ravens, crows, magpies, rooks, etc. I knew that in the back of my mind, but honestly, one of my favorite hero monkeys in Bloons TD6 is named Corvus.
✦ I got the idea of the calling card being a coin trinket from multiple sources. My brain wanders to indulgences in European history – of medieval churches accepting bribes to lessen the punishment of sins during confession, but honestly, my biggest inspiration was probably the “girl, so confusing” Charli XCX and Lorde remix. The night before the game jam, they dropped the track, and Lorde's verse was the highlight for me. In particular, I was captivated by Lorde's line about how she and Charli are two sides of the same coin that the industry loves to spend. I thought that philosophy fit both with reinforcing the coin trinket motif & helping shape the character dynamics of Corvus, the detective, & Father Veritas, the murderer.
As an average “enemies to lovers” trope enjoyer, I love the recognition of self through the other. I love it when the person who knows the protagonist best is their rival or antagonist and vice versa. I tried to think of them in this sense: A detective who picks at wounds – who confronts and digs up the past for the sake of the future. Meanwhile, the culprit takes the future away from his victims because of repressed, past burdens that can only be confessed in secret. Both seek closure and peace in the present but approach the same goal differently. It's fascinating & what attracted me to those two characters.
✦ The idea of the priest character, Father Veritas, a childhood friend of Corvus, being the killer is totally not because I was raised Catholic. It also doesn’t help that Frey and I were reflecting on the Netflix show Midnight Mass we watched a while back during the night before haha. Frey tried drafting a bunch of names for different things/concepts in the game’s universe, but I immediately thought Veritas would be a fitting name.The name comes from the Latin phrase “In vino veritas” which translates to “In wine, there is truth”. Which…works on multiple levels and blew my mind. My brain jumped to:
- How they serve wine as Jesus’s blood during Catholic Communion
- How the sinful truths Veritas hears in confessionals are often ones people would rather bury and keep secret
- How people often describe being consumed by their religious faith or power as being "drunk" on it
✦ The concept of the killings being an annual harvest kinda came to me because I’m not immune to works that explore cycles of trauma & intergenerational trauma. If we continue with the thematic throughline of memory and wounds, the annual harvest is kind of like a wound that the town never heals from… until Corvus confronts the source of it.
Behind the Scenes
I can't lie -- I didn't think I'd be able to pull through and deliver. But I'm pleasantly surprised at myself & how much I was able to crank out during the weekend without sacrificing sleep or food. Some folks were surprised at the quantity of how much we produced, so I think if I had to give "advice", I'd say that:
I kept some assets modular and organized image layers so I could reuse them. For instance, the town square statue is all from the same drawing. I separated each element into different layers – I would duplicate to have multiple sets and make slight, minor edits to them. I’d alter the colors and add more corvids in the background to imply the passage of time throughout the game through our submission screenshots.
Additionally, in my personal work and projects, I’ve used 3D models in Blender to block out backgrounds & speedrun or "cheat" perspective. I do that again for the town square background in the investigation screenshot.
I should’ve timed myself, but it didn’t take me too long to model and paint this background. Maybe 2 or 3 hours if I had to estimate. If you’re doing a similar approach to save yourself time, I’d recommend focusing on blocking out the big, primary forms and shapes. I honestly just use the basic block prisms and cylinders with only tiny edits on the model. Besides, you can always paint the details in later.
I would also say that working with a limited palette for nearly everything helped with quick decision making, and making the project seem waaay more polished and cohesive than it actually was. By limiting your palette, you greatly reduce your scope of decisions...and hence the time that would be consumed by decision paralysis and perfectionist tendencies (something I am unfortunately prone to).
Also, I'm biased since I already love this palette -- I love a bold, oversaturated red with either pink or light blue as highlights.
Miscellaneous Tidbits
aka Things That Didn't Make It In, But I Need to Gush About
I preface this by saying, Frey’s writing is incredibly underrated. I can’t even lie, I made the “Back of the Box” style edit at the last hour because I just wanted an excuse to fit in even more of their writing for this game jam.
Not me finishing this 2 minutes before the jam deadline…
In our shared Figjam board, they wrote multiple drabbles that were already so fleshed out and multilayered in the context of the game’s world that I’d pause my tasks just to read and fully appreciate it. I sketched a potential climax cutscene that we didn't include in our submission for the interest of time. It fits the energy of this one snippet Frey wrote, so I’ll just present it together…enjoy!
“How long do I have to prostrate myself like a dog, begging for an answer? I drank the blood of Christ and spent the next 30 years lapping up the blood of my people. How long until I’m given answers? How long until I’m given a choice? How long until the wounds close, and you— how long until you let them stay shut?”
Anyways, here are some other tidbits that popped up in the back of my head, but didn't quite know where to put them in:
- We've been super into Season 2 of AMC's Interview With a Vampire TV adaptation as of late. I’ve been personally obsessed with episodes 5 and 7 from this season. No spoilers, but the way these episodes play around memories and storytelling was fascinating. We didn't do anything outright with it, and we await the season finale with bated breath, but those themes were definitely in our subconscious...or mine at the very least.
- One of the nights during the game jam weekend, we also watched Velocipastor! (Technically, me rewatching it.) It's kind of wild how much of it did work as both a fun decompressor and also as inspiration for Veritas in some ways!? If you're into campy, so bad it’s good films or Catholic repression of desire as a monster metaphor then I'd recommend it with some content warnings for blood, gore, & a sinophobic trope I’m particularly not fond of even if it’s meant ironically...
- Not intended, but fun to joke about as an inspiration is Bloodborne.... genuinely did not realize until partway through ideation & then it became a fun inside joke.
Future Plans
I’d like to say thanks for all the love and kind words! It was an incredibly fun gane jam and we had a blast creating LYCH-GATE. There were so many moments during development that easily clicked for us and we easily riffed back and forth.
Currently, there are no concrete plans set in stone, but we’re definitely considering development for this project in the future. I’m in love with the world and characters of LYCH-GATE & had so much fun creating it. I often only keep my indulgent creative endeavors to myself, but I’m so glad that I was able to share this with Frey & come up with something we both like together.
Thanks for reading! For now, I eagerly await Dawntrail
As always, take care and be well,
-janel
please do not edit, redistribute, or repost any of my artwork.
