Totem
Game designer | tinybot
Project Information
Team Size | 5
Engine | Godot
Duration (Jam) | 3 Days
Duration (Full) | Ongoing
Game Jam | GMTK 2025
Jam Theme | Loop
Summary
Totem is a first person puzzle-horror game where you play as a carousel operator trapped in a foggy dream-state, where you must progress by spotting and reporting anomalies that alter the environment in strange and unsuspecting ways.
This is our high concept for our submission to the 2025 GMTK game jam. We had four days to create a game that fit the theme Loop, so our team chose a game that centered around an old, creepy carousel, as well as leaning into the looping dream-state for our narrative.
Post jam, the team has decided to continue development as we believe we can turn this jam game into a publishable indie title!
Experience
As a game designer on this project, I was responsible first and foremost for working on creating an engaging experience. Alongside Matt, the other designer on Totem, we created our design document, which outlined our game’s core pillars, loop, and the intended experience. I worked heavily on the documentation post-jam, on high level design as well as lower level system and gameplay design.
Come production I worked on various gameplay features and system behavior, including on the various anomalies and our anomaly system. Many anomalies we wanted in the final product were going to be unique, and required specific implementation, which I was largely responsible for.
I was responsible for the level design, which included creating and iterating on the carousel layout from the original game jam, as well as any other spaces the player was going to have access to during the game. I did create a 2D layout for the layout in Figma as well, which was a great use for the tool and will likely be one that I use for layouts again in the future.
Impact
Will elaborate when game is shipped :)