Project Overview

Project Span: July 11th 2025 to July 20th 2025

Objective Optional was created for the 2025 Shovel Jam and marks the first published game by Fuzzy Stego Studio.

The theme for the jam was “Just Get Started.” My wife and I spent the first three of the ten days brainstorming what we wanted to make. We landed on the idea of a little astronaut who keeps getting distracted by odd jobs on his way to finally begin his mission.

Initial Design

We decided that our astronaut would be woken up by the ship’s AI with a message like:

“Good morning. Please proceed to the console to begin our mission. Oh, and Captain… don’t dawdle.”

Naturally, this meant we’d need a dialogue system—so it immediately went onto the to-do list.

From there, we brainstormed small tasks that could delay the player. Our initial list included:

• Getting a cup of coffee
• Repairing something on the ship

At this point, we were already four days in—and the itch to actually start building got too strong. I jumped in and began setting up a standard character scene in the Godot Game Engine.

The Long, Winding Road

I spent a chunk of time experimenting with mechanics until I landed on a fun little “weighted object” system and a slippery surface mechanic. I used a collection of TileMapLayer nodes to toggle surfaces between normal and slippery, allowing for dynamic movement challenges as well as visual effects.

Additionally, I set up:

• Door connection points for navigation
• Trigger zones and toggles for interactable elements
• A lightweight object-pushing mechanic that tied into certain puzzles

It took more iteration than I expected to make something feel polished and playable.

The Mad Dash

As the deadline loomed, things got hectic.

While my wife handled some UI assets and design, I dove into level design—which, in hindsight, I really should’ve started with. It’s one thing to make cool mechanics in a test room, but integrating them into a cohesive game space? That’s a whole different beast.

Deciding how to teach the player what to do was especially tough. We didn’t have time to implement the fully-featured dialogue system we had envisioned. So, we hacked together a crude but functional task list, then I quickly set up:

• Trigger zones for tasks
• A basic task manager system to track progression
• A start-to-finish gameplay loop that (mostly) worked

It wasn’t elegant, but it got the job done.

Conclusion

We ended up placing 183rd overall out of 1100+ entries, which I think is pretty great for our first finished game project.

Here’s what I learned:

• Everything takes more time than you think—even if you already know what you’re doing
• Working on a team is both rewarding and stressful. It was a great chance to teach my wife some of the basics of Godot, programming, and game design
• I struggle with accepting “good enough,” which might be why I’ve abandoned other projects in the past. Shipping something—even if it’s not perfect—feels incredible
• Fun is subjective, but designing the space where fun can happen is a tangible and achievable goal

Want to try the game?
Play Objective Optional on Itch.io