Artistic Statement / Use of Theme
We explore how volunteers can "give back" to Indigenous Hawaiian lands through restorative tourism. This game specifically focuses on fishpond restoration, although we hope that the takeaways will extend further!

We are hoping to "plant a seed" and encourage players to explore how they can help maintain their local communities! And, of course, there are actual literal plants/algae in our game as well. One of them even talks to you!

Development Summary
We are Studio Blue Jay, an indie game studio based in Boston that makes cozy games! As an established studio, we are used to working together for both long-term projects and shorter game jams. Going into the jam, we were aware that many of our artists and sound designers had limited availability, which is why we chose a writing-heavy genre (visual novel). We didn’t have the capacity to create backgrounds for this jam, which is why we chose to use real photographs for the backgrounds. I think it worked out, since players can see what these things in a fishpond actually look like! Luckily, we had the capacity to create assets for all of the things that the player interacts with, and I really like the resulting contrast between the real photos and the assets we drew that were inspired by Hawaiian wood engravings. The programming was designed to be as light as possible as well. Dialogic 2 for Godot did most of the heavy lifting for the visual novel aspects of the game, and the mini-games were designed to be quick to program by reusing the most amount of code possible (which is why they all pretty much just have one mechanic).

We were really lucky to be able to work with a Hawaiian mentor who has lots of experience with educational game design relating to Hawaiian culture. We had calls at various stages of the project to ensure that the game was accurate, educational, and respectful. None of our studio members are Hawaiian, so it was really important to work alongside the mentor to achieve our vision. We learned a lot from chatting with our mentor, and he really helped speed up our research for this game.

We actually didn’t make many major changes between sprints, but that was because the majority of things really started coming together during the last two weeks. We got the dialogue system up and running quite quickly alongside some really great writing, but the minigames took a bit longer to fully conceptualize. Once each minigame was planned enough to implement, writers and artists were notified of what assets were needed and we were able to get our minimum viable product implemented by the deadline.

We did “cut” a few minigame ideas that weren’t fully-fleshed out, which I outlined in the further development plan. The final product was what we were hoping to put out for this game jam, so we’re happy that we didn’t overscope!

(optional) Further Development Plan
We would love to add more narrative content to the game alongside the two minigames that were brainstormed but not included due to time. The first minigame would be the removal of ʻōpala (debris/litter), which would include things such as fallen leaves rather than man-made debris. This would fit in right after the invasive species removal minigame. The second minigame would be a restoration and explanation of a fishpond mākāhā, the sluice gates that allow for nutrient-rich water and small fish to enter, but trap larger fish inside. This would happen after the fishpond wall restoration minigame.

Topic Tags
Restorative Tourism, Fishpond Restoration, Mālama Hawaiʻi

Sprint Participation
Yes

Game Engine, Platform, Format
Godot 4.6 using Dialogic 2. Built for web with a Windows executable.

Generative AI Disclosure
No.