Cutout
A Game Jam puzzle game
Game Overview
Cutout is a 3D puzzle game made for the GMTK Game Jam 2024. Play as a small cardboard character trying to exit their owner's bedroom to find them. Find cardboard shards scattered all around the map to grow taller and taller and access the door.
- Explore a gigantic room full of puzzles and traps
- Find a way to get all the shards to become tall enough to leave the room
- Uncover the presence that bends the rules of the room - a being hidden in plain sight, holding a piece you might need
Size System
The Size System uses a predetermined scale for each level and applies it to the player, preventing or allowing them to access certain areas due to physical (literal size) or code-defined (manual check of the variable) constraints.
This allows for a more granular system that both feels very natural and serves the gameplay by locking certain areas.
Zone only accessible with Size 1
My role and reflection
What I did
I developed many of the puzzle mechanics, the shard progression system, and modeled most of the assets of the game.
- I developed mechanics for the movement-related puzzles (cat, mouse, roomba), designed to put more pressure on the player then traditional puzzle mechanics
- I implemented the shard progression system, making it modify the size of the player while allowing them to change it freely to go back to puzzles they had missed
- I created most of the 3D assets of the game using Blender, trying to keep up with the (sometimes extravagant) ideas of the team with the little knowledge I had
Challenges and lessons
The central challenge was making height feel meaningful to both the puzzles and the story, which was done by making the majority of the puzzles only accessible at certain sizes, forcing the player to pause and reflect on how to solve it.
During this Game Jam, I learned to link progression directly to the environment so each new shard changes how the player reads the room.
The game is available for free on Itch.io
Download on Itch.io