When all you can do is wait

For the GMTK Jam 2020, the theme was announced as "Out of Control". I spent the better part of 2 hours after the Jam theme was announced deciding what kind of game I was going to make. Here's an excerpt from the Google Doc;

==================================================================

• An RTS game where you can't control your units
• Isn't this just Tower Defense / DOTA?
• Try to get to the end of a level without direct control of a protagonist
• Having very loose control of a character
• Indirect Control; Delayed by some amount of time
• The further you navigate away from an antenna the less control you have
• A Robot you can only control within the radius of small antennas
• You must send him off at an angle so that he will travel from one bubble to another without hitting obstacles
• You must send him at the right time so he doesn't hit moving hazards
• He will bounce off of walls and continue traveling in a new direction
• Cursed: A curse makes you do things you didn't mean to with little time to react
• Attack; Could hurt friendly characters
• Theme: Someone you care about is suffering and you feel like there's nothing you can do about it

==================================================================

I didn't want to make a game which controlled poorly in any form or fashion. So, unlike every other Game Jam game I've made, I decided to make this one an entirely narrative driven experience, following the last bullet point from above.

Another departure, this time I was going to be working alone. I've been lucky enough to team up with Ari Lotter for many of my past Jam submissions, and for last year's GMTK Jam I got to team up with Adam Yu.

Over the course of 18 hours, I created a tileset, sprites, and wrote a story with limited branching points which became Stroke. The game's story is roughly based on real events from my life.

For the music, I felt the tone of the game would be well suited to a particular track composed by Brother Android. I was able to reach out on the day the Jam started and he gave me permission to use the track.

Being a Game Jam, there were a few things I had to cut in order to hit the deadline; including an entire conversation written along with the sprites for the characters involved. In order to finish everything on time, I prioritized the interactions which were the most core to the narrative and left everything I could spare out. That's why the hospital is so sparsely decorated. In the very last hour, I added support for Arrow Keys in addition to WASD, thankfully this is very easy to do in GameMaker: Studio. For what it's worth, I still use v1.4 since it can export to HMTL5.

Given the subject matter of Stroke, it's hard for me to say "Hope you have fun playing it" but I hope that parts of the story can bring players catharsis for those who have had to deal with similar circumstances.