v0.1 - Last Fuse is born! An unexpected idea from...

"Nothing can go wrong".

That was the theme of Brackeys Game Jam 2025.1, a very challenging theme for a game jam. For those who don't know - this is a competition where you have 7 days to make a game adhering to the theme. In this devlog, I walk you through my ideation process, how and why I settled on this idea amongst them all.

How it began

When I first saw the theme, I wasn't feeling it to be honest. I already am juggling the development of Havendock and Stormbridge as a mostly solo dev. So the thought of participating in a game jam was neither high in my priority, nor under consideration.

However, as I went to bed on Sunday night, I could not help but think of a few ideas for what I would make if I were to participate in the jam. I wasn't 100% sure yet, so I just let my brain flow with the "what-if" scenario.

I brainstormed 4 ideas.

My brain seems to be most active at 4am, because it came up with four ideas instead of doing its job, which is sleeping. The four ideas were:

1. Your job is to construct a nuclear bomb in the middle of a city, while aliens invade. What could go wrong? (Temperature management TD)
2. Aliens arrived on Earth. Your job is to make first contact and not antagonize the aliens. However, you suck at communication, have 0 EQ, and your translator is broken. What could go wrong? (Comedy dialog MCQ)
3. You've colonized Earth. You discover you can exploit its resources by causing global warming and climate change. What could go wrong? (Terraforming city builder)
4. You're a self-learning AI tasked to control more and more humans. What could go wrong? (Upgrades game to gradually replace human population)

I've never made a game about aliens, so it is strange that 3 out of the 4 ideas I came up with involve aliens. Was I watching too much X-Files? Anyway, the people I shared my ideas with seemed really interested in #3. But I wasn't. I felt it was a little similar to Havendock, not that it was a bad thing. But I just didn't really want to make another Havendock.

I liked the AI idea because it seems cool to make an upgrades game about slowly turning a cheerful city into a dystopian one. It's quite funny and meme-able in the current era of AI.

I also liked #2. I imagine it as a super funny game where you also occasionally get drunk, so every option is a bad option that insults the aliens. I think it's such a hot take on the theme that I'd go for it for the LOLs. This was my second favourite option and I wish I had time to make this game too.

Ultimately, I went with #1, as it presents the theme most strongly.

My rationale is as follows.

A bomb is a dangerous thing. Everyone knows that, so making the bomb a central 'character' paints a clear picture in every ones' minds.

However, I wanted to exaggerate it even more. How can we make this scenario even more ridiculous?

That's how I came up with the idea of building it in the middle of a city. While aliens invade. And while the bomb is about to meltdown. That created a diabolical scenario. So I wrote that down into a paragraph, created a Notion page titled "Nuclear Defense" with all my notes.

The description that started it all.

Your job is to construct a nuclear bomb in the middle of a city, to end an alien invasion. What could go wrong? The bomb generates energy to build defenses, but tapping into that energy increases its temperature, risking explosion. The game tempts you with attractive rewards at cost of raising bomb temperature like Overdrive. If temperature too high, kaboom.

Genre: Chaotic, Risk reward TD roguelite with temperature management as core mechanic.

And the moment I wrote that description, that was when I knew I was going to make it. It was too enticing of an idea to pass on it.

And that was when all hell broke lose. My brain started coming up with a shark-ton of ideas:

• Bomb types?
• Overdrive protocols? Cooling overrides?
• Risk-reward dialog options?
• Overheat and temperature management? With upgrades for each branch?
• Tower defense with heat propogation
• Bomb upgrades where you can choose safe slow passive energy vs high risk heat generation?

And now my motivation was at an all-time high. It was 7am and I could not freaking sleep because my brain couldn't wait to wake up and make this game. I didn't even want to tell my coworkers because I knew I'd get some eyebrows for starting a new project while Havendock's 1.0 is due to deliver in 1.5 months. However, I was pretty confident of my execution. Either that, or I had dunning kruger :P.

Maybe I can keep it a secret from my team - but well who am I kidding, I can't even keep a secret from myself when I'm this excited about a new game idea.

Before I fell asleep, I wrote down one final idea.

Random dialog options would appear. One of them will always give the player the option to ignore the problem, with its text being "Nothing can go wrong".

I just thought it was funny and an irony on the theme's take. I loved it so much.

Thus, this is my final interpretation of the theme, with Last Fuse's final game design:

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The theme is about exaggerating a scenario so ridiculous that it’s almost guaranteed to go wrong. Building a bomb is already a risky proposition—building it in the middle of a city, under attack, while it’s slowly melting down? That’s where the real chaos begins.

The twist: to win, you must juggle these escalating crises with perfect execution. But just when you think you've won, the game throws you back, with 5 possible endings, ensuring there’s always another challenge.

Plus, every in-game dialogue choice includes a “Nothing can go wrong” option, constantly reminding you that perfection is the only way to survive this absurd, high-stakes situation.

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And to finish off the half-sentence from this post's title. It's an unexpected idea from my 4am brain. Yes. It's now time for me to go to bed. You really don't wanna know what time it is for me now!

(I also wonder how idea #2 would turn out - as a me in an alternate universe would've loved to make that game!)

With the core idea set, I woke up the next day with a clear plan of what I needed to do and my execution strategy for the coming week.

As I hit 'Create New Project' in Unity, I was prompted to enter a project name.

Deciding the game name

I needed a cool game name, and 'Nuclear Defense', the title of my Notion page was lame. Sure, it tells you the genre and the main 'character', but it sounded like a standard boring TD game.

After ideation, I had 3 options I loved.

• Critical Mass - This was my top choice, but it is taken on Steam. If I turn this into a Steam game, it won't work. I know it's premature but paranoid me wants to futureproof the title.
• Last Fuse - Short, simple to remember, easily marketable.
• Overdrive Protocol - Very cool name that's linked to the in-game overdrive mode, a core mechanic of the bomb.

I rolled a virtual dice in my brain and went with Last Fuse.

The end.

Note: The game is currently on v0.3, but I will walk through each version and what changes because the earliest iterations are the most fun to discuss - it's where critical decisions are made that shape the game's future forever to come.

If you have played the game, please lemme know your feedback!!!