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z. 20kdc's Entry Into January 2019 Mapjam

-- 2024 retrospective notes --

TLDR: I'm inclined to basically disown this work owing to some issues I take with the narrative. Details in the story section. Given what historically happens when I delete my stuff (people get mad at me) I'm leaving this up for now unless I'm explicitly recommended to delete this, but keep this warning in mind.

Figured I'd look back at this, and, I think I took the challenge a bit too "straight-line".

I recall that the other entry based on up_high (Edo's) took it in a really nice direction (something about 2.5d?) and the other entries generally took a more imaginative take. My view on the project was to simply take the map and polish it up... I prefer the other entries.

Story-wise... I had two points I wanted to make, but I made them so poorly that people are going to think I'm pointing at people I never intended to.
I feel like I unintentionally 'cleverly' didn't really explain what this mod's version of Turner's got going on. But, had I done this, it would have looked cheap.
Frankly: In this mod, I intended that Turner's thing with talking to the Sea was caused by a religious upbringing (how I handled this aged so poorly it was moldy upon release; the danger of being vague), and the mod's basically stating Turner has a stressful life driving him to a destruction that is now certain. Something's gonna get him eventually; he will not die an old rabbit; and he can't just stop, either.
What actually made it to the screen was basically Turner seeming 'mad' and then dying from that madness in a way which I'm not okay with. And I wrote this thing.
I think, if I had just left out the ending change, it would have been okay.

Music-wise, I think the dynamic music helped, but the action tracks are... very short, bad loops. Combat (not the Winning variant) sounds like a bee is in my ear. If I recall, I played out the part of the OST with the action tracks in one session and tried to make them decent (and failed). I think having the various death/win stings helped to clean things up. Loading and Main seem to... work well enough. Supercalm (secret plot theme) is the one I actually like.

Internals-wise, I still like what I did with the hotspots/valvelogic. I tried to write the hotspots/valvelogic to be generic; I recall I didn't like the way the existing hotspots kind of have trouble with custom music, and the checkpoint system is too linear. But, hey, Overgrowth gives the means to fix that. I don't understand the obsession with a specific song (if you know you know).

-- Original description --

My entry into the January 2019 mapjam.
The theme is to use an existing 'greybox' map, and I chose up_high.
Contains all your favorite components, like:
+ Harebrained writing, much of which you can only access via obscure unmarked places (because why not?)
+ Pointless overscripting (because when you can program everything looks like an excuse to program)
+ Awful scenery (because I'm bad at modelling)
+ Grating music (because I'm also bad at music)
Credits:
Music was made in LMMS using some of the 'factory presets'. I just hope the licensing's okay on that.
I made some of the landscaping in Blender, but said landscaping's textures are just taken from the main game
Original Greybox Map, majority of assets used: Wolfire Games (of course)
Graphics Advice (That I Mostly Ignored): Buster Charlie