Stitch Lasso
Stitch Lasso
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Aug 4 | Mon | 2025
We made a new game for GMTK Game Jam 2025! The theme was loop, and we made a not-so-relaxing sewing game aka endless bullet hell.
I'm usually in charge of the sprites and UI, but this time most of the assets + background were drawn by me, with the UI and a part of the background drawn by another artist.
I should've been mad with power, but I wasn't. Instead, I was riddled with indecision!
I've never been good at taking the initiative to do something, not because I can't do it, but because I don't want to make the wrong decision and do bad. Except, you don't have time in a game jam for self doubt, you just have to go and you can't wait for someone else's instructions. I was afraid I couldn't make our game look good, and I even had a small mental breakdown...
But I pushed through. And I'm really proud of the results!
I definitely feel like I improved, whether it's my art or speed, or ignoring my self-doubt. I still haven't learned pixel art 'properly', but if you compared my pixel work now compared to my very first sprite from a game we barely created, you'll see how much of an improvement I've made.
I didn't know if I would be good enough, but my friends trusted my vision so the only thing you can do is to keep going. What I'm saying is you should believe in yourself, even if it doesn't seem possible in the moment.
Initial ideas
Concept
We agreed on the concept of crochet loops pretty quickly, inspired by our previous game Close Knit (and as an aside, I was watching the Drawfee Vaprideity Hour livestream so 'loop' was extremely funny to me, iykyk)
Our other artist, Kei, made a moodboard of various colours that I took inspiration from. I did try to get some greens in there as a way to tie in to Close Knit, but I wasn't a fan of the results
The enemies stayed relatively the same from start to end, and the idea of the game taking place on a wooden table was conceived at the start
Background
The piece of fabric with a lace edge was the very first thing I properly drew. And boy was I cursing myself for deciding to draw lace. I looked at a lot of reference images and the specific concept I had, lace doilies, actually were entirely made of lace until the very centre. I was NOT doing that, even if I probably could if you gave me some time. And I think it would've made the background look confusing anyways. So this is the result I ended up with and I really like it! It's asymmetrical (sorry for cursing you with this knowledge, but it's pretty noticeable) but I think that's part of the charm.
There's actually a full drawing of the sewing kit. Drawn separately so it's easy to move around
Unused wooden table
My original wooden table was scrapped because I stared at my wooden floor for too long as reference and I received feedback it looked like bricks - and honestly it does look like you're crafting on the floor (which makes sense, considering I was using my floor as a reference). The final wooden table I pawned off to Kei, who did a great job and made the genius move to make it a light coloured wood which helped the enemies and our yarn friend stand out.
Enemies
It's me, so of course I designed some little guys.
Pin cushion (Tommy)
The first enemy you encounter, and the first enemy I designed!
The idea behind this one is pretty simple. I don't actually own a pin cushion, but it's something you think of anyways when you think crafts and sewing. (As an aside, I made a felt cube to act as a pin cushion, but it doesnt work because I stuffed it too much, oops)
We did consider it releasing a strawberry/chilli upon death as (idea credit to Vicky!) but for the sake of simplicity all bullets are circles
Its name is Tommy because tomato :]
Tommy death animation
WHAT THE HELL
Freddy animations
Thread (Freddy)
My favourite enemy concept!
Before I get into the idea, I just found out this kind of thread can be called a cone thread, which is crazy because the specific bullet shape we assigned it is a cone!! Anyways
I don't know if other crafters do this, but the thread I have at home always had a small notch cut into the top to hold the loose thread - I did this to some of my own threads I bought too. This enemy similarly has that notch cut into the top, and it's reflected in the scar in the eye too. Maybe it's angry at you for cutting it? I also had in mind that it was a samurai of some kind, know sure why, it might be the top looking like a samurai hair top
Its name is Freddy because thread... thread-y...
Cotton (Joey)
My favourite enemy in terms of movement! It's so wriggly and cute, almost like slime...?
Anyways, the concept of this enemy is cotton stuffing. I was also inspired by a few Pokemon, though I can't give you a specific name
I have a box of scrap yarn, thread and sometimes cotton stuffing that I cut up and mix together to stuff my felt creations. This inspired the lopsided eyes which are cut yarn pieces mixed in with the cotton. If there were variations on this enemy, it'd have a wide variety of felt eye shapes, like a triangles
Its name is Joey from Cotton-Eyed Joe
Joey design
Joey death animation
Chaser design & death animation
Button (Chaser)
The button was a later addition to the enemy family, and we love this guy. Our programmer Luxille had the idea include a button enemy that chases you. In an ideal world I would've love the button to be able to spin around but realistically I don't know how to do that in this top down perspective.
The idea is that the thread in-between its eyes were an allusion to glasses, I think this idea is more obvious with the lil mouth, but for consistency it doesn't have a mouth to match the others. I do love its little legs and arms still though!
Scrapped enemy
A yarn scrap enemy reminiscient of a soot from Spirited Away that I didn't include. Its silhouette was instead given to the 'take damage' state of the player character (though we didn't have time to implement this into the game). I also thought about adding a pin enemy.
Title
I was itching to make a resizeable logo with coloured/negative variations in Illustrator. But I don't really know how to do pixel art in there and something smooth, and the graphic look wouldn't suit the overall pixel aesthetic of the game, so I opted to handdraw it just like our titlescreens/itch.io covers usually are. It was important to me that it had the same vibes as our usual screens, because those are always what makes our games stand out the most
The final logo was inspired by pieces of fabric.
Logo ideas 1
Logo ideas 2 - another concept was threads
Workflow
It took me way too long to do this, but I made a palette of all the colours I was using so I didn't have colour pick previous artwork I did - I still did it, but I mostly just used this. It's honestly wild that I only realised I could do this now, because for Close Knit I had the foresight to create a collection of brushes I was using, but I didn't for colours? Whuh
Okay, I'm losing steam writing this blogpost so I'll end it here, if I think of something else to say I'll either update this or post on my projects blog on Tumblr! Overall I learned so much, I learned what I could do in a few hours, how to get over my fears if even just temporarily, and what my limitations were and what I needed to improve on.
Here's to more game jams :]
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