This idea was part of the 2025 game jam ideas project.

Necessary

I thought of this version first.

Top down vertical scroller.

You control a blocky cell-shaded hand (Think the hands from the old man hand from the "Up" movie) with the fingers down and the back of the hand towards the screen. The hand is old and rough, looks tired but very strong, watered and cracked with dark shadows. It should convey feelings of power, dread, stress with a bit of anger mixed in.

The hand takes up 25% of the bottom half of the screen. You can see a little bit of the wrists as you move it up the screen.

In the top of the screen there is a inky black blob that looks similar to e-coli or blown ink artwork with its main mass and tendrils reaching out in all directions. It's inky black covered with shadows (like blown ink). It should have the feelings of being terrified of the hand, desperate, scared for its life.

The game starts as the hand reaches up to grab the inky mass, its squishes in the fingers and the tendrils squirm out in all directions off the screen. Your hand still holds most of the mass. The view port zooms out and there are obstacles on the screen. The tendrils reach out and attach to these obstacles. Your hand automatically pulls towards the bottom of the screen.

The small tendrils snap violently as the hand moves towards the bottom half of the screen, the screen starts to scroll up vertically. The larger tendrils hold steady and prevent the screen from scrolling.

Rhythmic heavy metal music fades in (Think Tool - Sober, or Forty Six & 2), heavy drums and base.

It's a rhythmic game.

You need to pull on the beats (press space bar) to rip the inky mass's tendrils from the obstacles that it's attached to. The closer you are to the beats the more power your pull has. The background vertically scrolls showing that you are dragging the mass though the environment.

Your hand can slowly maneuver around the bottom of the screen, allowing you to bypass some of the larger obstacles. The thinner the tendrils that have to reach out to the obstacles the easier they are to snap. The faster you can scroll down the screen.

The game lasts a song.

If you pull the mass to the end of the map before the end of the song you win. If not your strength gives out and the mass pulls itself off the top of the screen.

Design note

My first thought was the black inky blob was an abstract version of a child, grabbing onto anything to prevent going to the doctors. Then have the same scene at the end... Exhausted parent and happy child with a lollypop. But I thought that this abstract version went too far. I didn't want to associate with abducting children and dragging them away. Even if its for a "good" reason.