There was one big learning this week, so this is gonna be brief: Details can make a huge difference.

I juggled between a bunch of "falling" ideas, but none was really interesting. I wanted to work with the more physical interpretation of "falling", but without doing Downwell again (or, you know, Probability 0). At some point I decided to add various paths, but it was still a very bleak idea. But the weekend was starting. I could keep on struggling to find the perfect idea, or just embrace what I had and try to make it into something kinda nice. How to add elements to make a too simple idea into something interesting? And also, with very little resources. Let's break it down:

First: texts! A small funny narrative that transformed an empty experience into a playable joke. I could also add alternative endings. The art was fair enough, I tried to make a Droqen-like style for the art (I asked Droqen to be allowed to do some droqening). I added everything I could to the visuals, cause I know it is what I do best. I did a bunch of animations for the character, crystals and the final falling, and made tiles variations and added parallax. I also did some extra assests as decoration. Environmental storytelling!

For the music, I wanted some arpeggio in a minor scale. I stole the first chords of a popular song from my city, and then I basically improvised for a minute or so, and that was the final take. Chords are Em | Em/D | Cmaj7 | Am Bm ||. The crystals are two heighths of E, panned. The rest of the sounds were recorded with my voice or similar. This is the important thing I realized: Sound design can completely change the feeling of the game. I mean I know that, I work with an amazing sound designer in my team, but I had never done it myself. Two easy and cheap tricks: Music starts playing when you enter the cave, and fades at the end. The steps echoing in silence make for a cool vibe. And when you get to the black and white part of the cave, all SFXs are replaced with a reverb version, and that absolutely changes the experience. 

Putting some effort and creativity into those details, transformed a forgettable experience into something a bit more enjoyable that made people laugh. Of course it's still not a great game, but hey, it's there, and I'm happy about it. I hope it makes you happy too.