Closing Time DevLog #1 — Concept

I’ll be entering the GBAJam 2026 with a project currently titled Closing Time. The goal is to have this project run on real Game Boy Advance hardware. The Gameboy Advance was one of my favorite consoles growing up, and I’ve been itching for a new challenge, so it seems fitting to join this project.

The inspiration behind this is the old handheld game “Lights Out”. You have a 5x5 grid of buttons, and pressing any button toggles it on or off. When you toggle a button on or off, it also toggles any adjacent buttons. You were presented with different “puzzles” in which certain buttons were already lit. The goal was to turn all of these buttons off. I remember playing that handheld for hours and hours as a kid, trying to beat all the variations. They seemed endless!

In “Closing Time”, this takes the concept and adds a little spice. You’ll be playing as a tired night-shift janitor working at a high-security research facility. You’re ready to lock up and go home, there’s just one last thing to do: Turn off the lights in the lab. Since the lab has an incredibly convoluted, experimental wiring setup for “efficiency”, it’s not as easy as flipping a switch.

To kick things up into a more tense experience, I’m ditching standard move-counters and replacing them with:

1. The Fuse (Move Limit): Every single toggle puts an immense strain on the sector’s aging electrical box. Instead of counting your total moves up, you have a Fuse UI element that ticks down with every click. If the fuse burns out completely before the room goes dark, the grid resets.
2. Time Limit: Each puzzle will be timed to add an element of suspense. The time limit will be adjustable based on a difficulty modifier.

There will be progressive puzzles in a set level-type system, a time-trial mode where you can run through all available puzzles without the fuse and only have your time tracked, and, if time allows, a puzzle maker to make your own preset puzzles to try out. I remember old games used to give you a password to share your puzzles, so this is something I’m considering. It’s already a lot, and I’m starting late. Things may be cut for the sake of something complete over lovable for this jam.