<5 Minutes of Play Jam instantly got my attention. I was fascinated by the idea of creating a gaming experience in a concise and elegant way. I also liked the idea to have a very narrow scope and, hopefully, time to polish.

There wasn't a proper theme, so I used the limit imposed by the game jam as a theme. The limited time, a clock ticking, a protagonist struggling against time but ultimately failing: a small robot fixing a clock that is falling apart.

I was still undecided on which kind of technique to use for graphic and animations. The idea I had involved gears of different size and colors, perfectly fitting together. I discarded the idea of drawing them and I wrote a piece of code that generated gears, given size and color. Then I needed an image for the clock face... and again, it was easier for me to write code to generate it instead of drawing it.

All of a sudden I realized that this was the technique I was looking for. The thing I do best is telling computers how to work for me. I ended up generating procedurally all images and animations of the game.

I've also made quite an effort for sound and music. I've spent hours on freesound.org searching for samples to use for the sound effects and I've listened to lots of Creative Commons music, until I found this gem: "suddenly i feel alone". I could feel the clock ticking, mechanisms falling apart and the loneliness of the protagonist fighting for a lost cause. The crescendo was perfect for the gameplay I had in mind, I ended up adapting the game pace to match the pace of the music.

I felt deeply inspired and it paid off. "The Clock & The Chaos" is still the best game I've made so far.

From my perspective, it was very, successful. There was a clear measure for its success: it has been played for far more time than what I've spent developing it.