GreenSpace, LLC (All Rights Reserved)

Output: 7 songs = 2 minutes of music, 6 soundscapes, 12 sound effects, 6000 words

Timeframe: 72 hours

Team size: 5

The UGD 2025 Game Jam’s theme was “Anti-[your genre here]” , and for this my team was inspired to create an anti-cozy game. We focused on themes of disconnection from people and nature, a lack of control, progress feeling bad, arcane mechanics with a lack of cause-and-effect… by creating a game about working an 8-7 dead-end office job.

Music

Music brings comfort to many games, and many cozy games are home to iconic soundtracks. So for the most part, the game is without music. That being said, there are 2 places in the game featuring music.

Briefly, in the car sequence, the radio can play one of 5 highly-compressed, cut-off songs.

^ Technically this is the first officially-released song of mine to feature any vocals, and my own vocals at that. The second one? … yeah, it’s Generic Country 2.

In the water cooler sequence, this muzak-inspired bossa nova plays, smothered in ambience and constant erratic tempo changes.

The goal in all of these pieces was to blend the familiar with the bizarre to reach a liminal, uncomfortable space. The genres are passe, but their execution is… off.

Sound Effects

I recorded 100% of this game’s sound effects!

The main office sequence is a soundscape of office rustling that thins over the days as everyone you know gets laid off.

My favorite sound design for the game was the human sounds, for both the radio and the water cooler sequences.

These are inspired by the nonsense vocals you find in a lot of cozy games, like Animal Crossing or even the dialogue of Celeste. But they’re low, weird, and distorted.

I absolutely soaked my right leg and mousepad at 2 in the morning squeezing a drenched towel aggressively… all for this juicy stamp sound. Worth it.

Script

I wrote 6000 words in a day for this game, crafting a narrative across 3 primary forms (emails, radio blurbs and water cooler conversations). The script is maybe the most “me” thing I’ve ever written.

  • Despite economic reports, the CEO of GreenSpace recently said in an interview he is “unphased” by his company’s reactionary measures. “We have big plans, and even bigger ideas.” He says the only thing holding his company back is “slackers.” 


  • (TASK) Efficient Rationalization Required

    Dear valued employee,

    For every step forward we take as a company, we don’t like to take any steps back. Instead, we like to pivot our feet[, acknowledge that past, and then pivot again and continue to raise the bar while venturing deep into the possibilities of tomorrow. To this end, please prepare a quarterly report on the previous quarter. For guidance:

    • Four slides, a sixteenth per slide

    • No speculatives

    •  Ensure [b]resilient solutions to [b]innovative dimensions

    Thank you.

    Thank you,

    C

    At Green Space, we make the world a Better Place!