Summary

Monster Sad! Is a short game where the player takes the role of a depressed troll who only finds happiness in destruction. Unfortunately, destruction takes its toll on the troll’s health and he will have to balance destruction with his need for rest if he wants to survive.

"You are the Monster"

The game was made for the 33rd Ludem Dare Global Game Jam which is a 4 day game jam that tasks participants with making a game from scratch based on its theme. The theme for this entry was “You Are The Monster”. All assets and code had to be made by me with no external help aside from game engines.

Initial Ideation & Scope

The first step was to quickly come up with a variety of concepts for the game. Initial concepts floated around the idea of deceiving the player into thinking they were the “good guy” in the story but these were scrapped due to not fitting within the tight scope of the project because of the extra assets needed to show that the player was being deceived.

The Sad Troll concept was decided on because of its easy ability to scale and it’s simple yet interesting interaction between its two primary resources: Health and Happiness.

Balancing the Bars

Balancing your health and happiness is the core mechanic within the game that creates the primary tension for the player. Happiness can only be gained through destruction of the local human village and wildlife; however, this causes damage to the player’s health which can only be restored in the troll’s cave. While resting the player’s happiness value decreases at a quicker rate which requires the player to move quickly in order to succeed.

Result

At the end of the Jam people are free to judge and vote on all games submitted based on a variety of categories. After the voting period had ended, Monster Sad! Finished in the top 15% of submissions in the Overall, Fun, and Humour categories.