Coming up with Ideas

The theme for the jam is "Forgotten Knowledge". You can find out more on the itch.io page for Godot Wild Jam #57. One of the wildcards suggests including a map in the game. From the beginning on I wanted to combine these two. And I'll not only include a map, instead I'll actually make the map the forgotten knowledge. The player is tasked to restore it.

So how will this work? The player will get an incomplete map with only one or two landmarks in the beginning. They have to explore the landscape and orient themselves using the already known landmarks. Once they are sure where they are, they can place a new marker on the blank map to say where they think they are. The placement mechanic works similar to games like GeoGuessr, only that you don't get immediate feedback. Instead, the player has to complete the full map, and in the end there will be an accuracy score. With each marker placed, more and more of the map becomes visible.

If I have enough time, I will add rainy weather. The rain will destroy your maps, which adds a sense of pressure once you see dark clouds approaching. To save your maps, you need to shelter somewhere.

If I have even more time, I will add library buildings. You can enter them and replicate your map there. They basically act as checkpoints to not loose all progress when it rains.

Ok, so that are the basic ideas for the gameplay. I'm still not entirely sure about the setting from a story perspective though. It would need some past event that destroyed all (or the only existing) maps. What kind of event would do this? Maybe the local library burnt down? Since I don't actually need to name the event in-game, I will not think about it too much for now. Instead I will start actually implementing the gameplay.