Finding Inspiration (prototype)
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Entry for GGJ 2021 on the theme: Lost and Found
You must finish writing your novel but sometimes lack inspiration and motivation... Balance research, writing and leisure to make quality work while leading a healthy life!
GGJ game page: https://globalgamejam.org/2021/games/finding-inspiration-5
Status
The game is still an early prototype, there is no gameplay besides clicking on some furniture and Write to quickly finish the novel.
How to play
To win, you must complete the writing of your novel, whose progress is indicated as a percentage in the gauge at the top-left of the screen. While doing so, you must manage your other resources, namely:
- Time
- Research material
- Physical health
Click on a furniture, then click on an activity to execute it. Each action consumes a certain amount of time, and modifies your resources (visible on the gauges at the top of the screen) in different ways. The result of the action may also depend on other stats.
| Furniture | Actions |
| Desk | Write, Research |
| Bed | Rest |
| Action | Time spent | Effect |
| Write | 1 | Increases Writing progress. Consumes Physical health. Consumes Research material (if any) for extra progress. |
| Research | 1 | Increases Research material. Consumes Physical health. |
| Rest | 1 | Increases Physical health. |
Press Escape at any time to show the Pause Menu. From there you can go back to the main menu, then exit the game.
Changelog
v0.4.3 - 2021-03-20
- Added Clarity gauge
- Added Study activity to increase Skills
- Revamp activity balance: Write has base increase and extra increase based on time consumed and physical health consumed, as well as whether physical health is low (<= 15), although it only matters when they reach 0. Write increases Clarity (currently unused for Victory condition). In addition, Skills contribute to faster Writing Progress and better Clarity increase.
- Pause Menu now blurs background and makes it impossible to click on menus below
v0.4.2 - 2021-02-13
- Add BGM and SFX (made during GGJ but not integrated at the time). The BGM is dynamic and depends on the current Physical health.
- Add custom images for UI and HUD
- Add character poses for each activity. They fade in and out when character moves around the room.
- Add resources: Time, Research material, and replace Motivation with Physical health
- Add activities: Rest, and actually make Research do something
- Reduced build size by 130MB by importing audio as Vorbis
v0.3.0 - 2021-01-31
- Initial GGJ release. Almost nothing to do but repeatedly Write until you win.
- Remains available for download in the ggj2021 channel.
Download
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Awesome game :D
Thanks, but I see no recent downloads of this game in my stats, and there is no web version. I also noticed you serial-commented on several on my games with quite generic feedback, giving me the impression that you are giving nice comments for the sake of it - maybe with the intention of helping devs get some visibility.
However, I’d rather you actually played each game thoroughly, even if it means spending more time on one and commenting on fewer games in the end, so I can get more qualitative feedback I can use to improve the game, or my other future projects.
Thank you in advance for your understanding.
You're welcome, I'll try doing my best of adding feedback on one of your games next time 👍
Looks like you’ve been adding more comments on my games and even some YouTube videos, and in fact, on Unsatisfied, you gave positive feedback on a specific line of text in the game that you liked, which was great!
But for the others, you ignored my suggestion and kept posting very generic one-line comments, which again made me wondered if you actually played/watched every video… It’s not a problem that various people come and post short comments, but when the same person serial-comments with one or two words of every work of the same author (and that person is not a close friend), it gets a little weird.
Honestly it’s not critical if you can’t find the right words to express your thoughts - but if you only want to post quantitative feedback to say that you like or didn’t like something, but don’t know better words for that, rating is just fine. On itch.io, there is the rating button at the top-right with a star icon, where you can give a rating and commenting is optional. On YouTube, it’s Thumb up (or Thumb down if you didn’t like it). These sounds like better options when you want to support a work by helping it stand out on the website thanks to the promotion algorithm, but you don’t have any qualitative feedback to add. This also reduces my notifications which can add to my mental workload (I don’t receive notifications for ratings on itch - I just check the average ratings of a given game when I want to).
Again, I enjoy seeing new people give me one-liner like “That game was cool!” but when it’s the same person every time and they never said they were dissatisfied with anything even in my worst entries, the satisfaction starts wearing out and the value of the congratulations starts dropping. So, better use rating / thumb up in that case.
Now, if you really want to learn how to write good qualitative reviews, have a break from posting comments and look at how other people do it. For instance, try to read the top Steam reviews of various games, especially those of medium and big length. There may be very deep and detailed. You don’t have to go that far but if you really like the games you play, you can probably find at least one or two sentences to write about them.
Of course, don’t go the opposite way either: writing paragraphs for the sake of writing paragraphs. If you don’t know what to say, a few lines, or even a pure rating without text is fine.