Inspiring Inscrutability: GAADFISK LRJ Postmortem and Future Updates

LOWREZJAM 2022 is complete, and I had a great time. I was able to turn this jam experience into a project I’ve been itching to make, and it’s one of my favorite projects so far. I see a lot of potential in GAADFISK, and I want to continue to update it and build it into something more. Here are a few of my takeaways from the jam:

LOWREZJAM’s scale restrictions paired with a slightly longer dev cycle make it great for rapid prototyping. Though I only spent about one week on my entry, it was plenty of time to get my concept for “a fishing game where you fight god at the end” finished. I suppose it isn’t a spoiler, as it is in the name. If you haven’t played it, there’s the pitch.

I’d never lie about it. Things are bashed together pretty hastily for this. Timings for animations and things were made to be snappy rather than responsive or juicy. The battle at the end is quite unpolished as it was finished up in the last push before submission. There may be some abominable bug(s) with the speed stats for both the player and boss that result in a 15 minute auto battle. Life did get in the way a bit for this jam, and it shows more than I’d like. A jam’s a jam, and there are many avenues for polish right there.

Since I finished work on GAADFISK, I’ve retroactively and very conveniently found the language to describe my design ideal for this game: Inspiring inscrutability. I think this concept might overlap a little bit with “shaggy” design as it’s described in the excellent In Praise of Messy Design (linked here: https://medium.com/kitfox-games/in-praise-of-messy-design-62722b88258e) written by Tanya X. Short. To elaborate on inspiring inscrutability: I love the feeling of simultaneously not knowing what to do, but feeling motivated and inspired to do whatever you can. We approach uncertainty and mystery in games in a way that is often the opposite of the immobilizing or dissonant effect we may feel in real world problem solving: Should we be motivated enough, we toy with the systems at hand no matter how complex or simple they may be. I’ve heard this described as “puzzle box” design, but I feel like “inspiring inscrutability” might encapsulate that feeling better without leading the witness to expect either puzzles, boxes, or a small, palm-fit scale.

I am learning to respect the player’s ability to figure out a system without instruction, and with that I am hoping that the surprising or interesting elements of this game will hit that much harder in play. This lens treats tutorialization and signposting as design that simply communicates itself, or communicates just enough to get to the next point. In GAADFISK, the premise is all for one cheap gag, but it’s a cheap gag paired with an aesthetic that works for me and a very basic system of actions and stats that A.) don’t explain themselves, and B.) is catching some players inspired in just this special way, I hope.

Admit it, you’re thinking about smashing the A button already.

To put some examples forth: Pressing A against every single surface in a JRPG to maybe show a new, important text box is a result of an inspiringly inscrutable environment or quest design. It’s not necessarily a fun or evocative response, but I often can’t help myself once I notice this type of trend in interactable objects.

It’s cooking and gambling and crafting, okay?

Eastward features a cooking minigame in which the player crafts new meals by frying up any three ingredients in the protagonist’s signature weaponized frying pan. The recipes follow some standards based on food groups and culinary tradition, but the ingredients are unusual and sometimes fantastical. This disconnect results in trial and error that inspires this feeling. The player is left to strategize around what these internal rules may be while taking into account the limited resources at hand. Based on simple input and output, you might make discoveries as you experiment, like “these purple things must be a fruit, not a vegetable.” Oh, and there’s a slot machine that plays every time you cook, and I still don’t know for what purpose.

You can ask questions later, just get this skull away from me

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor is chock full of systems that make little sense. First you have luck, which does something. Praying definitely does something as well. Throw in a perhaps more than healthy dose of randomness and you’ve got a game that is both delightfully inscrutable, and narratively poignant in its employ. “How many credits before the Redscarves try to eat my savings?” “Don’t incinerate the gems, they're easy money.” “I’m going to stand in the columns of light in the sewer, that will keep the horrifying ghost at bay.” I haven’t finished this game and I may never make it to the end, but the stories I continue to make around the oppressively obtuse systems each time I play keep me hooked day after day.

Catch and release (?)

I’ll ought to touch briefly on what mechanics I feel exhibit this most in GAADFISK. Once you’ve successfully landed any fish, the game forces you to either eat the fish or offer it at the shrine of the titular GAADFISK. Eating the fish results in an obvious stat boost that’s explicitly shown. Offering the fish at the shrine shows the fish vanish mysteriously in a lightning strike. My intent is that the player is left to wonder: “What does the offering actually do?” Under the hood, each offering lowers the color-corresponding stats of the boss by one point. There’s also an aura emanating from the shrine. What might that be about? If the player is wondering about, interfacing with, and strategizing around obfuscated or incomplete information, then this inspiring inscrutability must be at work.

This might be pointless rambling, or (worse) how to design a game for other game designers. Or how to design a game for the fastest time-to-guide internet search. Regardless, I’m enjoying plotting out the rest of the game with this approach and will live with the results.

Returning to the postmortem: The jam version of the game is only scratching the surface of what I wanted from the start. Initially I wanted a day/night system with a stamina meter for catching fish. I wanted many more stats than the three in the game. I wanted the finale to feel more hectic with other moving parts beyond the character and enemy attacks. Even without these extra touches, I think GAADFISK accomplishes some minute feeling of this inspiring inscrutability. I don’t want to snub elegance or breadth or depth in your mechanics, but with this approach I don’t think you need any or all of these prerequisites to perk up the ears of your players.

Finally, what’s next? Tuning and fleshing out the main “roguelike” loop of the game is a must. Beyond adding depth in the ways I initially wanted to, what else can add more to the loop? I think some of the systems above will help out with the pacing and challenge. Beyond that, I think it would be a lot of fun to play with subsystems like setting a fishing net or baiting the fish hook.

I also want to implement a relaxing mode where there’s no impending threat of landing the boss fish. I’ve already gotten a start on developing this insofar as spriting a couple new fish to catch. I love fishing so much in life sims, so I ought to make something of this fishing mechanic I’ve already got. Not sure how far I want to follow the life sim trail, but I am enamored with subsystems, and if I go ahead with them for the other mode I might as well roll it into the relaxing mode in a more relaxing manner.

That’s all for now, follow along on Twitter where I might tweet infrequently about this game. https://twitter.com/jonah_srg