Yet another insane 96 hours of game development in a rush of madness. Having just come out from another relatively big game jam, Shovel Jam 2025, with my entry Dungeon Card Slinger, I had mixed feelings about joining GMTK pretty much immediately afterwards (I had used all my free time in between the 2 jams to play and rate other people's entries).

On the one hand I was ready to take a small break for a little bit, having pull out all the stops to finish Card Slinger. I also wanted to keep working on and updating it, since I have high hopes for the concept. On the other hand, GMTK is pretty much the biggest game jam annually, and I desperately wanted to join and work on a project. Partly fueled by the fact that I didn't deliver a complete game last year, I was hoping to take all the learning I have gained in the most recent jam to try and make something that was more than just a practice in making simulations and more resembled of an actual game.

...And I feel like I have not able to fully deliver yet again. Elevator Operator at the state of the jam "works", in a sense that the major systems I intended to include in the game is presented. But there are so much more designs that I had wanted to put into it that I wasn't able to, such as a queuing systems, UI displaying character detailed info when selected, keyboard controls etc. and overall polish. I also had wanted to make a full tutorial inside the game, since I feel like lack of proper onboarding is a major hurdle to any new player to a new game, but I also find myself leaving it for last (and not implemented).

That's not to say I didn't have fun. I had just been listening to the podcast Designer Notes, and one of the latest episode I listened to was episode 89 and 90 with Patrice Desilets, best known as creator and director of Assassin's Creed. Desilets mentioned that the best times of a project is the very beginning and the very end, and I felt it very clearly what he meant with this project. Near the very end, before I submitted the game to the jam, I had playtested the last level I had included in the game, and hearing the cacophony of money "ting-ting-ting" sounds that the game make, plus the music, had just made me feel incredible joy. I had remembered why, despite all the difficulties during development, I had stuck it out till the end.

As for this project, I hope to give it a small update when the jam ends, to put it in a more polished state that it deserved to be in. After that, I'm not quite sure. I wasn't as hyped about this idea than my previous one, but now I have made the skeleton of the game, with some additional features like upgrades, it could quite compelling as a game loop. Maybe it's worth more development, but who knows what the future holds.