About
Nation Shapes is a puzzle game made in 1 week for the Cross-Cultural Impact Jam by a team of 4.
I owned our game concept, gameplay design, puzzle design, visual direction, and 2D art.
The software I used included Unity, Photoshop, Illustrator, Google Docs, Trello, and GitHub Desktop.
Media
Find a way to connect-the-dots for each puzzle.
Dioramas start out empty—
—but every completed shape fills in a piece.
Solve 15 puzzles across 3 unique dioramas.
Process
Despite the final game featuring 2D art, my original concept was entirely 3D.
My original concept for Nation Shapes. Not much changed in the transition to 2D.
We even prototyped it! Unfortunately, the dev process proved to be too time-consuming to create and implement every 3D asset we would need to make it work.
RIP 3D Nation Shapes, you were too cool to be true.
The theme for the Cross-Cultural Impact Jam was "amplifying voices." This was especially poignant since each team in the jam was composed of teammates from 4 different countries: France, Canada, and the United States.
Because of this setup, my team thought the best voices to amplify were our own. Each of us have lived entirely different experiences, something our team hoped to reflect with our dioramas.
Moodboard my French teammate made!
Early prototype of the diorama in-game.
Every diorama includes a variety of different images, like my French teammate's love of baraque à frites trucks juxtaposed with his experience as a protester during the yellow vests protests.
The France diorama in the final build.
This is all pretty hard to decipher in-game, but that's okay. While our dioramas are very personal, their abstract nature also makes them open to interpretation.
Our team's flags on the diorama select screen.
You can play Nation Shapes on itch.io.
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