It is, sadly, past 6:00. Fortunately, I only told my day 1 tester ‘the evening’, so it turns out giving myself a fake deadline was a good thing. Because a game… exists! And there’s a puzzle of sorts! And a bunch of descriptions, and an actual map, and worldbuilding.
There’s also a decided lack of things that the judges (rightly) worried I might be certifiably insane for adding, like NPCs that follow the PC around, and multiple puzzle solutions. I reserve the right to add both later! Part of the charm of this endeavor (especially trying to play it ‘completely open’ as I am) is that you’ll get to see all my false starts and design dead ends in real time as I discover them myself.
And while I predict that my github page will be more valuable in retrospect than as something to watch/check in real time, that doesn’t mean that anyone watching can’t…
Hang on, let me get into character again.
[adjusts wig, picks up cane]
Lucian springs up from his desk, crowing ‘Finished! Ha ha! Or, you know, finished for the nonce!’ He pulls out some sort of 3d-printed save icon, inserts it into his computer, performs an arcane ritual, then pulls it out again. "Hey! I have it! He peers into the audience, then frisbees the icon into an unlit corner of the arena where a quiet hand snatches it out of the air, and moves away. Lucian peers out at the crowd. “Hmm. You know, you don’t have to all just sit there like lumps, consuming this media circus we’re making for you. It’s a very fine media circus, but, you know… I got it!”
He runs into the wings, returning with a giant machine with a hopper at the top. He attaches a cable from it to his computer, then picks up a giant cardboard box you hadn’t noticed before, and dumps a metric ream more save icons into the hopper. He flips a switch, and icons start flying into the audience!
“Pick one up if you want! Works great, tastes terrible. You can find out what uncooked game tastes like! Or stash it for later! I don’t care. OK, I gotta get back to work. And I gotta sleep. We’ll see which one wins.”