You can open this link to play game:

Overview:

Players will take on the role of a corporate slave, and in the midst of a thousand daily routines, players make the day a little bit more comfortable by taking off and putting on a mask.
Flip Mask is a humorous adventure game with a 2.5D perspective.
The world doesn’t really change when you put on the mask. Everything is reinterpreted by the protagonist as something easier to face.
By switching between the two states, the game explores how people cope with the same piece of reality in different ways under stress.

Group task allocation：

Yushan：Technical Designer

Zixuan：Environment artist

Jiayun：Mechanism design 2D artist

The initial concept for the game：

When we see the theme ‘Mask’, we are struck by a number of grand narratives, such as the idea that, as children grow up and are shaped by the trials of society, they end up wearing a mask by the time they become adults.

However, after discussing it as a group, we felt that such a grand narrative was a bit clichéd and likely to be used by many others. So we decided to go for a more light-hearted narrative.

In the end, we settled on the following game setting: a busy office worker whose days are consumed entirely by work, surrounded by colleagues just like him. Everyone looks as though they’ve been copied and pasted—utterly lifeless and devoid of any vitality. They waste a great deal of time in the meeting room listening to the boss talk about things completely unrelated to the project. However, there is a mask in the player’s environment; once the player puts it on, their consciousness enters a new space where everyone transforms into fluffy animals and everything becomes exceptionally cute and comforting. Yet this space is virtual, and ultimately, they must return to their mundane existence.

Game Design(Plan)：

We initially planned and designed five levels:

• Underground
• Staff office area
• Corridor
• Boss office
• Dining Hall

Level Design for each level (Plan)：

Players will take on the role of a worker and experience a typical working day.

• Underground：

This is an introductory level. Players simply need to locate the mask and interact with it using the left mouse button. Players will then enter an imaginary realm, where the environment transforms into a fairy-tale-style forest and they can interact with the animals. Upon reaching the end, the game will automatically proceed to the next level.

• Staff office area：

This is a maze-like scene consisting of identical desks and mountains of paperwork. However, this maze has no exit; players must find a mask to enter the fantasy realm, at which point the exit will appear. Upon leaving through the exit, players will be transported to the next scene.

• Corridor：

This is a corridor comprising five doors and rooms. Three of the rooms cannot be opened or entered; only two are accessible to the player. One of these rooms is a trick: once the player enters, they cannot leave. The other room is a maze made up of various obstacles; the mechanics are the same as in the previous scene, and once the player navigates their way out of the maze, they will be transported to the next scene.

• Boss office：

It is a typical meeting room scene, with the boss sitting behind the desk. Players can initiate a conversation with the boss, but the dialogue appears as gibberish, leaving the player puzzled. The player must locate a mask; upon interacting with it, they are transported back into the fantasy realm, where the boss has transformed into a cat. After interacting with the cat, the player can proceed to the next scene.

• Dining Hall：

This is an Easter egg level. The food in the company canteen is awful. As players have learnt from the earlier levels, the mask can alter reality, so they interact with it—but this time, nothing changes; the food remains just as awful. The message is that players must face up to reality and cannot rely on fantasy to get by.

Final level design (Final):

As we had been overly optimistic about the development pace during the planning phase, and the development schedule was too tight, we were ultimately unable to complete all the levels. We only managed to complete:

• Underground
• Staff office area
• Boss office

However, the mechanics of all three levels have been fully revealed.

Summary and Reflection:

Advantages：

All the members of our team were taking part in a Game Jam for the first time. Although we were all novices, we were able to adapt our approach quickly during the development process and successfully completed and uploaded the game within 48 hours.

Our team is able to address urgent issues as they arise and make the necessary adjustments at short notice. We maintain open communication throughout the production process and share updates promptly to ensure that everyone is kept fully informed at all times.

Disadvantages：

We were too idealistic and lacked experience when planning the game, so we designed a project that was simply too ambitious to complete within 48 hours. Furthermore, we had not fully taken technical issues into account, which meant we had to cut some content in order to meet the deadline.

Every member of our team provided timely updates and feedback; however, as everyone’s comprehension varies and most of our updates were verbal rather than documented, the same information was interpreted in different ways. This led to issues during production, resulting in the need for rework and revisions.