Lilly Hatcher and the Spring Fever
The story of a precious golden egg and its warm-hearted keeper. (Great Spring Jam 2021).
Jam Notes:
The story follows Lilly Hatcher as she climbs a mountain to care for a damaged golden egg. To fit the Jam's theme of "constant growth" I decided that I'd have Lilly's evolution of coming to terms with the egg's damage as a metaphorical form of growth. To further drive this home, as the player progresses through the game, the music literally grows with the player, becoming more complex the farther along you go. You'll find constant growth in the story and the music!
The story is connected with my own experiences as a father. My daughter has Spina Bifida and will have more difficulty walking than the average human (look up myelomeningocele if you're curious to learn more). A lot of the phrases the birds say in this story represent things my wife and I have either heard from others, or thought to ourselves as we came to terms with our daughter's condition. We've been through a lot, but are extremely happy with where we're at. We are genuinely so blessed to have her in our lives.
Anyway, sappy stuff aside, I set the game in the spring time with birds chirping and the suggested color scheme in the game jam.
I had a lot of fun making this game. I hope you enjoy playing it!
- Jordan
Credits
- Jordan Ottesen: Music, artwork, level design, story, development
- Cymatics (cymatics.fm): Drum Samples and Ambient audio
- Refuzzle(opengameart.org): Bird Sprites
- Securas(https://securas.itch.io): (They didn't work on this, but their retro jam fan game “A Super Short Hike” truly inspired me).
Development log
- Great Spring Jam - Days 3-5Mar 20, 2021
- Great Spring Jam - Day 2Mar 18, 2021
- Great Spring Jam - Day 1Mar 17, 2021
Comments
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I was enthralled the moment I started the game! I had a lot of fun.
Just two observations: playing it for the first time, it wasn't always very obvious where I needed to go (maybe it is intentional, but it was just a little bit disorienting); and I often habitually assumed that the "dirt walls" are solid, while they weren't, often leading me off a platform unintentionally (yet I learned to get used to it; I understand this may be hard to change, as it involves changing the colliders in different parts for the same tile and whatnot).
*spoilers*
Other than that, I really enjoyed playing it. It's very polished and engaging :)The story is very interesting and deep (symbolic of parenthood and disability, in my opinion), I get to speak to pretty birds (??!?), the music and sound effects were very nice to listen to, and the jumping and bouncing mechanics are fun to use. Amazing game jam game!
Thank you for playing and for the thoughtful feedback! In all honesty, I did intentionally make it less linear, hopefully it wasn't too confusing.. and the tilesheet was initially intended to be completely solid like you expected. With more time, I'd have made a tilesheet that more clearly communicated the semi-solid instead of recycling a tilesheet from one of my previous games. As I'm sure you're aware, certain things just lose priority in Game Jams...
The story is definitely about parenthood and disability (not sure if your read the game description but that's legit in there!). Thanks again for the playthrough and kind words!
Thank you for the kind reply! I feel kinda bad now for not having paid more attention to the description, and now the game hits even more deep. I can't even put into words how touched I am by your story. :') Thank you for blessing us with this game and message, and I wish you and your family all the best! ❤️
lol gosh don't feel bad for not reading the description! It's kind of long, so I figured most folks wouldn't read it. I'm really happy you picked up on the story's parallels despite not reading the description! Pretty cool actually. I'm excited to check out your game!