Design Statement
When I heard the track, it immediately made me think of a music box. Its progression, moving from sad to emotional, made me think of repair, so I built both the mechanics and the narrative around that idea: the player restores a broken music box piece by piece, and the story unfolds through memories.

I then decided to make the game a tribute to my late sister. The cyclical nature of music boxes and the repeating patterns of mandalas, which she loved to draw, fit her perfectly. That led to the final mechanic, where the player draws a mandala whose symmetry becomes the box’s new melody.

My key design choices were: repair as the core metaphor for both gameplay and story; keeping the box silent until the end, so its first music is the emotional payoff; and telling the story through what the player’s hands do rather than through explicit words.

Game Instructions (launch steps, controls, and gameplay overview)
Game Instructions

Launch

Open the game page and press Run game. It plays in the browser; a desktop with Chrome or Firefox is recommended.
Click inside the game once so it gets focus, and use fullscreen if you can.
Play with headphones: sound is a big part of the experience.
From the main menu choose Story (the main experience), Free mode (unlocked once you finish the story), My mandalas or Credits. Language follows your browser and can be changed in the menu.

Controls (mouse or touch; no keyboard needed)

Click / tap: pick up a tool from the table; click near its spot to put it back.
Hold and drag: use the tool, move pieces, pull the key, draw on the lid.
Draw circles over a screw or the winding key: turn it. Counter-clockwise to unscrew or let the spring down, clockwise to tighten.
Right-click and drag: turn a floating piece to look at it from every side.
Rubbing tools (brush, sandpaper, spatula): hold and move over the highlighted spots.
P: Settings (subtitles, text size, high contrast, reduce motion, show the hints again). Esc: go back in menus.
Drawing a mandala: Undo (or Ctrl+Z) removes the last stroke, Clear removes everything, Done finishes.

White outlines and animated arrows show what to touch and how to move; they fade once you have learned them and come back if you stay idle.

Gameplay overview

Prologue: draw a mandala in white light. When you let go with enough drawing, it turns gold and plays as a melody while she speaks.
Story: you are a father repairing a broken music box in his workshop. Let the spring down, take the key out, then take the box apart and repair each piece: remove the rust from the comb, free the gear, sand and fill the cracked wood, and set the spring back. Each repair brings back a memory. The narration cannot be skipped, and the music gains a layer with some of the memories.
The ending: the box stays silent until the end. You draw a new mandala on its lid, its pattern becomes the pins of a new drum, you install it and wind the key to hear it.
Free mode: draw your own mandalas, choose their symmetry, hear them in the box and save them.
My mandalas: replay your saved mandalas and download them as an image to color, or as audio.

Gameplay walkthrough video
https://youtu.be/hfxL4EaU8Zo

Did your project use any AI tools or assets? If yes, please specify.
Illustrations and texture samples: generated with Gemini (the story illustrations and the texture samples used on materials).
Code, 3D models and translations: the game code, the 3D models and the English translations were made with the help of Claude (Anthropic).

All AI use was meant to help me create a very personal experience that I otherwise couldn’t have made. The game has no commercial purpose; it is an act of personal expression made for this Game Jam. If it ever wins a prize or is released commercially, every asset generated with AI will be replaced.

All other work is human-made: the music and sound effects, the game design and the story.