Litbub's Idea Delivery Service

What's a light bulb gotta do to deliver an idea from one mind to another?

Premise

Made in <48 hours during the overlap between #JimJam and #GetaGameJam, the themes for the two jams are "Inspiration" and "Signal Lost" respectively. I interpreted this as an "idea light bulb" trying to transmit inspiration from person A to person B, with a social network maze of people in between. Storms of distraction and negativity can sap inspiration and break the trail of inspiration, so you must build a robust and redundant network of inspiration.

Chain of Inspiration

The inspired minds need to be in a chain from the start point. If the black clouds break a link the chain, then the minds that are not connected via a trail of inspired minds to the start point anymore will lose their inspiration. So you need to build robust redundant trails so that even if one link breaks, then redundant links will still carry the trail inspiration.

Still To Do

There are 4 hastily configured procedurally generated levels, that aren't always fair. Sorry, I ran out of time and didn't get a chance to make a title screen, final victory screen, or Mac/Linux builds during the jam.

The uploads are locked for now, so I can't update it.

The Jam Experience

I gotta admit, this was one of the most incomplete, unpolished, buggy game jam game I've made in a while. I had a mental block on trying to combine the themes from the  two jams. I didn't actually start until 1 day and 16 hours left on the clock of JimJam, which ended a day earlier than Geta Game Jam. However, I had a full night's sleep each night, and even spent a few hours out for social activities with other humans, voluntarily, which I almost never do!

Known issues

• The countdown timer is not displayed ever again if you let the time run out before completing the level.
• Also sometimes the procedurally generated levels and the storm clouds' AI are just unfair/unfun. I didn't have any time to test the levels before submitting.
• The title screen and final victory screen are missing. After you finish the Level 4, it just brings you back to level 1.

Tools used: Unity, Blender, Substance Painter, Audacity.

Third party Attributions: Music: Thinking Music by Kevin Macleod (incompetech.com) (CC-BY). Hell ambiance 01 sound from Soniss GDC Game Audio Bundle. Unity's Cinemachine (for camera movement) and Unity's Postprocessing Effects Stack.

Youtube video of the game by @GameJamCurator.