Constellations Round 2

Hello all! I'm so excited that game jam season has rolled around again! I'm also especially excited that Donny will be participating this time. Oh the memories of Creating Games 2012.

For this game jam, I will be continuing work on my game from last time called Constellations, a game that features puzzles that will teach you some of the ideas of graph theory and mathematical thinking as you play. For full details on the game, click here. For a link to the game's current state, click here.

For this jam, I will have much less time to work because I am doing research at the SMALL program at Williams College. Also because of this, I am forced to spend my 48 hours starting Friday @ 8:00PM and continuing until Sunday @8:00PM. My weekdays are completely booked with other sorts of mathematical fun!

Without further ado, I present the additions to Constellations that I plan to work on this weekend!

• I want to fix a number of UI issues that I had in the previous version, as well as make the game feel more relaxed and streamlined. To do this, I will remove the need to switch between line and star tools, and I will include a controls option in each puzzle screen. I will also make some of the buttons bigger and make it easier to figure out how to traverse menu screens. I would also like to switch from using JavaScript generated text to using photo-shopped images instead. This way I can guarantee that the text appears in the font and size that I want it in (as in the current version, it looks different on different devices.
• I want to add a whole new type of puzzle to the game, which I will call traversal puzzles. In these puzzles, the constellation will be given to the player, and they will have to interact with it in a meaningful and creative way. The controls will be basically the same as in the drawing puzzles, and I'll maintain the dark, soothing color pallete as before (Although I'll chance the background image slightly! Also since these puzzles are intended to come after the drawing puzzles, I may begin to brighten the sky, as dawn approaches)
• (Stretch Goal) I want to cut down on the graph theory language in the actual puzzles, but make it available to the curious player. I want to add a third mode to the game called the journal, which will update as the player progresses through the game. The journal will fill up with pictures and text that detail the concepts the player has encountered, but will be written in first-person prose, as if these were the thoughts of the player as he/she played with the stars.

My final goal with this game is to have it published and available on the iTunes store, and after this game jam I will be one step closer to this goal! That's it for me, leave me a comment or two with your thoughts/suggestions!

Philippe Demontigny