I did it!  I just submitted 'picnic' for the week long ZenoJam 6.

It's been a while since I have participated in a jam, in fact it's been since LD48 (about a year and a half ago).  Since then I have been really struggling to find the motivation to work on personal projects while dealing with life drama.  That said, I have been doing a lot of learning in Unreal Engine, and more importantly, doing a lot of concept work.  

In picnic, you play as Keko, a sort of part animal, part plant, forest creature who is going on a picnic with Mr. Raccoon.  Both characters come from a large set which I have thought about creating into an episodic game.  There is a lumberjack, a pilot, a pirate, and a ton of others I have been writing stories for.  picnic has been a big motivator for getting my momentum back up.

I also really enjoyed playing with the mechanic of burrowing, and taking away the player's ability to jump immediately.  In picnic Keko 1) had to be burrowing in order to jump and 2) has to also gain some speed before jumping.  I think there is a lot more to explore with the idea, one being the mechanic of also slipping under small areas, such as fences (hence why there are fences in the game).  Being a 1-week project though, I just ran out of time to explore more here. 

I also ran out of time to add sound effects and additional level design ideas.  I hope to get some good feedback and then move forward with updates, or just a whole new project that I can scale from this prototype.