> Minnesota Bones
> LIU Game Jam
Over the years, I have been part of my fair share of game jams. For the last two, I have actually helped organize them! It is an event hosted by LiTHe Kod where the goal is to create a game in 48h hours. This encompasses both creating the ideas, programming, art, music, game design, and more. During the jams, I have mostly focused on the aspects of game design and programming, but have also contributed a bit of music here and there.
> About the Game
Minnesota Bones is an evil puzzle platformer where you play as the undead adventurer Minnesota Bones. For an age, Minnesota were sleeping down in their crypt while their servers mined crypto currency for them. To their horror, they were corpse-napped away in their sleep by greedy archeologists (the British museum?). They now have to return to fetch their crypto wallet, while something evil lurks in the deep. The theme for this game jam was duality. It spawned the idea of a platformer where you have to first solve puzzles that sets you up for your return. It is easy to get down to the crypto wallet, but if you don't think carefully about your path, you might not be able to get back. The idea was fun in theory, but our game design was outright bad. We thought it was way too funny to not give the player hints about the fact that they had to return. We also tried actively tricking and trapping players with the puzzles. Finally, it was also way too hard overall, and with no checkpoints, players just got frustrated. Lesson learned: Fun for the developers doesn't necessarily translate into fun for the players.