Cozy First Person Narrative Experience created for the 2026 GMTK Game Jam
Preparing is a short narrative experience that takes place over the course of several weeks as players clean and paint a spare room, eventually learning why – they are preparing for a new baby. The game was solo developed in Unreal over the course of 96 hours as part of the 2026 GMTK jam, theme Countdown.
Design
- Designed a wordless narrative experience that tells a meaningful story through player actions.
- Designed interactions to be understandable without prompts. Playtested interactions and refined experience.
- Contributed sound design, balancing music, diegetic sound and “memory sounds” to contribute to the narrative.
Development (Unreal Blueprints)
- Game jam was used to learn Unreal.
- Developed interface based object interaction system, supporting
- Created a painting system via Render Texture modification, including an optimized system for detecting percentage of painting complete.
- Implemented Unreal’s Meta Sound system for supporting sound design