Part one- the easiest genre!

As most jam games, this one starts with a theme. This time, it's "BREAKING THE LOOP".

We figured, that we are gonna make one of those anomaly search games.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the gist- you are in a seemingly mundane location, think a train, corridor, metro station. Let's do a train. As of now, there is nothing out of ordinary here. A guy checking his phone, a couple of advertisements, emergency brake sign. You know- stuff you see in that place. You decide to move to another train car, but... it's the same car again. Same posters, same guy, same everything. Or maybe not. Did the hand cream advert have the eyes crossed out last time? Well, to BREAK THE LOOP, you'll have to correctly identify if this iteration has a anomaly present!

As usual, we started with basic character controller and a level mockup. And we were done pretty much in a couple of hours.

Let me elaborate. Normally, in our case, the first days are spent on creating  basic mechanics, that gonna create a "game feel". For example- I created a couple of shooters so far, but in each, the game feel is a bit different. One has slow moving character, with powerful weapon, with low rate of fire (makes you consider each shot). The last one has just the opposite- very fast character, with a gun that has high rate of fire, that allows you to fight multiple enemies at once. Other one has double jump, and wallrun, and enemies that won't hit you as long, as you keep moving. Basically- the first hours of a gamejam make you answer the question "what is my game supposed to feel, and how do I present it through game mechanics?".

The anomaly search games have none of that. I have basic FPS character controls. No jumps, no sprinting, not even shooting. 

As for other mechanics- you need to have a space that loops over itself. Some games do it easy- you have yours basic "game space" (for example a train car), and sort of "staging area". When you are in the "staging area", the game moves the "game space" to correct position, and allows player to move there. Some games drop the "staging area" and have two instances of "game space" at all times.

I had to complicate things for myself. All of the anomaly games I played so far have spaces that are set in one line. I have two doors, that you can move through, and one of those are turned 90 degrees from the entry doors. That's no problem though- you can easily turn your 3d objects, right?

Sure, but I complicated things for myself even further.

Most of those games don't have anything visible outside of the windows. My game has a whole street, with other buildings. 

So in my  game, when player presses "e" near the door, several things happen.

1. Second instance of the "play space" in placed just outside the door (and maybe turned 90 degrees)

2. The "outside" of the new playspace is hidden now.

3. Player is moved through the doors (via animation)

4. Doors get closed behind the player

5. "Outside" is unhidden

6. Previous "playspace" is hidden

Compared to "new playspace is moved, so it's ahead of the player" like in most of those games? Wait, did I just make the most technically advanced anomaly search game? I have no way of checking this, so I'll just say "probably"!