TBA Pt. 6: Story- Tales from the Bedeviled Atoll

Story has taken a backseat over the past few Harold Jams to gameplay and even music. This year’s story was no exception, but also a bit of an anomaly. It was somehow written as soon as the jam began and in a week to the deadline!

That’s My Story And I’m Sticking To It

I didn’t have a story coming into the jam, but I was quickly able to come up with the core of it in the hour between the jam objectives dropping and me going to bed. As mentioned in Overall, it immediately boiled down all three objectives into Harold and Marsha retiring to an island where Solid Snake is. I also really wanted Fred and Marsha in the game, so my idea was that they sail to the island to steal a treasure hoard from a cave or volcano and you have to stop then. Really I wasn’t going off more than that, as I wanted to do something simple and light-hearted.

And then it just kinda stayed that way for the rest of the jam.

There was so much game to make that once I had a plot, I just kinda stuck to it without changing anything. It was simple enough that I could improvise the all the dialogue as I went. Even then, story took a backseat as I shifted direction to a no-story MVP demo so I could get proper feedback on the gameplay mechanics. I ended up releasing this MVP demo three weeks in, giving me less than one week for story alongside like half the sprites and most of the soundtrack.

Finding Fred

Once I started to shift towards actually getting overworld eventing and dialogue in place, I reflected on the plot and characters I was implementing. I was worried I had lost Fred in the process, as he was turning into kind of a straightforward thief character and every bit as black-and-white as Harold was. Recall from The Before Ages that I loved Gensun’s take on Fred as not just a grumpy emo thief but a proper foil to Harold, the Shadow to his Sonic. While Harold has a heart of gold but is dumb and thinks in black and white, Fred would be far smarter, think in a gray area, and always be one step ahead.

What shifted the plot and made it make remote sense was Fred and Eliza not stealing a treasure hoard but rather an idol. Even then, there was still the question of why they would steal it which I just could not answer myself. Thankfully I spent a night with military-grade worldbuilder Myria, who has always been an important background player in my Harold Jam entries. Upon pitching both the game’s plot and characters, we realized that the idol could represent an evil cult and they would want to get rid of it for a greater good, even if Harold couldn’t see that. This ultimately led to Fred and Eliza wanting to rid the world of Teebeyae after his followers killed many people very close to them. A little cliché which sucks, but I was in a rush.

Teebeyae’s Big A-Ha

I also struggled to name the idol and wanted something that started with L to allude to the infamous TCoL acronym for what is now KCoL (I couldn’t come up with Kalyla’s name for years and the T stood for The). In that moment, I had a stroke of genius. What would any self-respecting Harold Jammer name a character whose name they can’t figure out? Why TBA, of course! The game was lighthearted enough that I could get away with it. I initially spelled it Tibea before quickly realizing it wouldn’t pronounce as TBA very easily, leading to the current spelling.

It ultimately clicked the next Monday, when I remembered Ronaldbabe and ManuGamingCreations’ Harold the Head: TBA. A bust resembling an idol literally named TBA? What if he were our Teebeyae? Now Harold has extra reason to defend Teebeyae because Fred and Eliza are trying to steal his head! On top of that, Fred and Eliza have extra reason to hate Harold because of his resemblance to Teebeyae! This one-two punch between Fred and Eliza's motives and Teebeyae’s appearance locked every detail of the plot… a week to the end of the jam.

Dialogue was fast and easy to add in, and all of the overworld dialogue fit neatly into a single morning. There was one particularly long word Eliza says near the end which I yoinked from a random DM because I had no idea what it meant and thought it would fit Eliza’s wordiness. I originally had David know more about Teebeyae than anyone else on the island, but I changed it so Fred and Eliza would be the ones in the know and David would only be loosely aware. The story was also supposed to have a proper conclusion, but due to time constraints I cut it off at the moment that I did. With how many assets were left, it just wasn’t possible. It’s not even past a first draft honestly, and I should consider myself lucky this Harold Jam ended up being so casual and light on story that I could even get away with that.

Reflections

The story isn’t terrible, and I did want it to have a more light-hearted tone from the get-go. However, something that’s been pointed out which I regret is the story feels a little disjointed. I can attribute this to both finalizing the plot with a week to the deadline and barely being able to test the game in full due to how many assets I had to make. I don’t think there was a moment where I got to play the game from front to back in one sitting, and as a result I was never able to digest the story as a whole. Considering that this Harold Jam felt a little light on story, I’m kicking myself for not shifting more of my focus to that and making a standout entry in that regard. Again, not having time to pre-plan kicked my ass, but I think the fact that I had a lot of fun writing it in the moment is extremely important and something I've been overlooking.

There’s two ways to look at it. On one hand, I kinda beefed my big Fred debut after planning it for a solid year. On the other hand, who’s to say I can’t just put Fred in my next Harold Jam game? Or even another game in between? I think there’s room for redemption here. I want to really focus on story and either prototype the gameplay in advance or keep it simple. I don’t think I’ve ever brought a truly great story to Harold Jam, and even if I’m trying to take it less seriously I think a memorable tale revolving around Harold and Fred is still possible for me.

And speaking of fleshed-out characters, tomorrow we’ll get to meet the residents of Teebeyae’s cursed island in Comedy: Travelers, Bandits, and Adepts!