David’s Tye Dyeria
David’s Tye Dyeria was created for a weekend game jam, in which players fulfill orders from Bradley faculty for tie-dye shirts under the direction of tie-dye enthusiast Professor David Abzug. The game is a spoof of the Papa’s Pizzeria series with a mixed media art style.
Gameplay Video
My Process
This game was a a fun romp full of unexpected challenges. The first step was getting the team all on the same page, so I had everyone contribute to laying out clear boards for each screen on the game and then simulated how the game would play using these diagrams. Each team member walked between the dry erase tables and talked about how the game would flow and pitched different items for each stage of the game to possibly have.
Then, I went about researching the different methods of tying and soaking die-dye shirts, talked to the team to narrow down which ideas we wanted to include, before we added them to our sketches.
Once programming began, I designed a system which kept track of which order a player is working on. I decided players could select and freely move between orders by clicking the thought bubbles correlating to each order, which would activate a set of connected objects associated with that order that kept track of what the player did to the shirt. At the end, the game added or deducted points based on whether the criteria being kept track of was the same as the randomly generated criteria asked for in the thought bubble.
I also created the mixed media elements for the game, using one of my own shirts. It was a struggle to get the lighting correct and consistent for each photo, but I learn a ton about tie-die patterns in the process. Each faculty member mentioned in the game was also someone I tracked down and asked for permission to include - especially David, who I asked to model for his in-game depiction.
This game was developed by Team SNARC for IndieCade’s 2023 Hidden Heroes Game Jam, and was dedicated to professor David Abzug of Bradley University as our hidden hero. The game is available on itch.io for both Mac and Windows here.