Walkman is our submission to the Unlikely Collaborators Game Jam 2026. It’s a rhythm game themed where the character, Blue, an emo highschool kid, listens to a Walkman, and the music enhances his reality on his way home from school.
As the sole artist, I created the characters, background elements, and the title.
Play and Download it on Itch:
Gameplay
Blue Development
Blue is described as an “Emo alien boy,” in the original design taken quite literally, as a lanky little dude. The vision for the game was 2D, but not pixel, though we compromised for scope on pixel to work faster. Therefore, one of the designs had more detail in it, fitting a 64bit square instead of 32. In the end we wanted something cuter and more appealing, but simple to animate resulting in our squat version of the design.
Final Design
The inspiration for Blue’s experience while he’s listening to music is derived from colorful astro plane, dream-like environments. With these in mind, we envisioned incorporating lighting into the environment, which should affect his design, resulting in a deeper shadow, and hot rim light, in order to both see him clearly against a potentially colorful, complicated background, and to allow him to fit into the environment he creates from how he experiences music.
The conept of Walkman was also designed play on the words and be a chill, relaxing game, by only involving walking home. His run cycle is meant for cut scenes, where he misses his bus, so he must walk home instead. His idle, also inspired by the theme music, has him standing and bobbing his head, intently enjoying himself.
The battery represents is your life.
When you run out of battery on your Walkman, the grey reality closes in on you and you can no longer see the platforms that take you up into the level.
Environment
The environment is designed to feel like you, as the player, are escaping reality by using music as a portal to a dreamlike state.
In this sense, the buildings and surroundings become more colorful, the sky opens up into more clouds. With this, another interpretation for Blue’s experience can be made, where music allows you to slow down and appreciate where you are. Even in the dull, hustle and bustle of city life, there is beauty and wonder around you.
