Game Jam Winner Spotlight: As I Lay Flying
It’s time for the third in our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best Adaptation and Best Deep Cut winners, and this week we’re looking at the winner of Best Visuals: As I Lay Flying by Geouug.
In a first for these game jams, Geouug is a double winner, having taken the prize in two different categories with two different games. As I Lay Flying is the more ambitious submission of the two: it’s a challenging physics-based game based on William Faulkner’s 1930 novel As I Lay Dying, which tells the story of the Bundren family’s effort to return their recently deceased aunt’s body to her hometown. In the book, it’s a journey of diverse trials and tribuilations; in the game, it’s a slapstick adventure about launching a wagon through the sky.
It’s a fun if slightly finnicky challenge that’s easy to understand but hard to master. There’s more than just the core physics gameplay too: progressing requires purchasing upgrades using the money you earn with each attempt, and the selection of these upgrades is crucial to finishing each stage.
The resource management layer turns As I Lay Flying into a complete game, and it was a strong competitor for Best Digital Game. But even more than that, the game stands out for its graphical ambition, completeness, and attention to detail. Everything is designed to fit into the style and setting, and no interface element is left plain and generic: they are rendered in wood and paint and cloth, with little touches like period-appropriate stamps to mark purchased upgrades. During the main gameplay there are parallax-scrolling backgrounds and physics-based animation of the wagon and its occupants, and the levels are bookended by dialogue and narration scenes illustrated with photos and original character portraits.
Though most of the graphics are composed of very simple pieces (stock grass textures and vector tree silhouettes abound), the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. No corners are cut and nothing feels overlooked. For achieving such a comprehensive graphical style that ties together every element of the game, and with some fun gameplay to boot, it’s this year’s winner for Best Visuals.
Congratulations to Geouug for the win! You can play As I Lay Flying in your browser on Itch. We’ll be back next week with another winner spotlight, and don’t forget to check out the many great entries that didn’t quite make the cut. And stay tuned for next year, when we’ll be back for Gaming Like It’s 1931!