And the Moment Is Gone (post-mortem)

So, here’s a long-overdue post-mortem of my LD29 entry, And the Moment Is Gone. The idea behind the game was to combine themes from two separate jams that were held during the same time – Ludum Dare and Russian GamesJamGAMM – in one project. Given the themes (the second one was “Phobias”), the subject became apparent – I decided to make a game about social anxiety, evoking frustration and humiliation emotions from players.
It was an old idea of mine to make a game about a person who thinks over different scenarios of an important conversation in his head over and over, never actually starting that conversation; this was a good fit for the theme, so I’ve decided to make a game about a lonely boy on a subway (I like those very much), who desperately wants to meet a girl, but just haven’t got a clue how to talk to a stranger. Main inspirations for the mood became my all-time favourite Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and this comic. This is how it turned out:

Source: ludumdare.com archive