LUG
Summary
Lug is a game about empty homes, cumbersome belongings, and frustration between partners as you take part in one of the most disheartening human traditions: The Move. From two people who moved three times in 2018, were briefly (voluntarily) homeless and have another move on the horizon in the next two months, home no longer seems to mean the same things it meant to us this time last year.
Gameplay
LUG is essentially an under cooked Overcooked homage (pre-Moving Out!) where two players attempt to move the contents of one domicile to another. The whole time you're dodging annoying bushes, rampaging cars and making sure to call the pizza place to stay fed (as its delivered to the post-box).
I really liked the idea of minimizing UI text/keeping information contained within the world. Things like the menu's Start button being the floor-mat, as if you're stepping onto your floor mat to kick off the start of the end of this phase of your life:
To using the Sun as the marker for how much time you have left, were neat little additions that felt natural and cozy.
The game features some physics handling for the movable objects, ensuring that players would have to move around in a "realistic" way to get the couch out the door and around obstacles. Co-operating not only on the individual items but also on the bulk stuff.
Takeaways
This one worked much better, I was more comfortable in Unity and I had just been playing a ton of Overcooked/had moved several times in a short period of time and the GGJ was supposed to be our time to relax again finally. In the end, we delivered a playable game that I'm proud of and that marks a significant period of my life. I think my partner and I worked well together, sectioning off the work so that both parties were busy the entirety of the jam.
I think I struggled most with visualizing different effects though, like the car appearing over the horizon, which wasted some time. Most importantly, I learned a lot about joints and the Unity physics tools that maybe I should've understood more going into the jam.