Taking on the Online Category

Hello, this is Yuu!

I finished my js13kgames entry last week, and while I personally think it turned out quite well, the number of entries in the general category has grown rapidly since then.

There are already 63 submitted entries, and if we include unfinished ones, there are well over 100 entries in total.

In contrast, there were only four entries in the online category last week, and there are still only five as of the time of writing this post.

That made me wonder if the online category might actually be a blue ocean, so I decided to make a game for it.

Coming up with an idea was honestly quite difficult.

I needed something that was online, different from my previous game, had a competitive multiplayer element, fit the theme, and was actually fun to play.

Last time, I had the freedom to make whatever I wanted, but this time I had to start with the theme in mind. And, of course, there was also a deadline.

The first idea I came up with was a puzzle game.

The idea was to use the three primary colors of light red, green, and blue to figure out where the gems were hidden.

There would be a shared 6×6 board, with each player placing one gem of each of seven colors. Players would then shoot light beams from outside the board and use the colors the beams passed through to deduce the colors of the gems.

I was thinking of an adaptation of Mastermind, or what is called “Hit & Blow” in 51 Worldwide Games.

However, once I started putting the idea together, it became less of a fun game and more of a game that was difficult to understand.

So I decided to take the idea of collecting gems first and make it a little easier to understand, and started working on a different game.

And I finished it.

I actually wanted today’s post to be the reveal of the new game, but I ran into a problem where the submission form returned an error and wouldn’t let me submit it.

Luckily, I’m not right up against the deadline, but the entries still need to go through judging after submission. So now I’m wondering whether I’ll actually be able to get it submitted in time for next week’s deadline.

I’ll come back next week with an update on how it turned out.