Game Jam Release

Hello there!!

It is with great pleasure that I have - just 2.5 hours before the deadline - completed the official Game Jam release!

I'm sure it's probably got a bug or two here and there, and almost certainly a fair few typos, but as I've just finished and want to relax, this is a post will be an overview of the game, what it is now, and what I plan to do with it post-jam, before I mark it as a finished project!

HOW THE GAME WORKS:

The game uses a branching tree format, with the 'nodes' loaded from a bunch of text files (the game dumps these to your AppData folder, so you can have a mess with them at %AppData%/Simmo/IgnoranceIsBliss/ to make your own changes. The reason I've gone with this engine system, is that it allows me to make changes to the story without rebuilding the game, cutting dev time, and making it easier to make changes. It also opens the doors to the possibility of making your own custom stories (I made a tool for this that I'll release shortly, post-jam). It's main weakness is that a typo in the database can cause issues, but I suppose that would've largely been the cases hard-coded anyway.

The game tracks six stats: Popularity, (Crew) Fondness, Finances, Reliability, Controversy and Legacy, and these are used to make 20 unique ending 'paragraphs'. The first five stats choose the ending category (popularity, fondness, finances, reliability, controversy), with the one furthest from zero being selected. The next step is whether it is positive or negative (making 5x2 = 10 endings) and lastly there is a variation of each of these endings for if your legacy is above or below zero. I've not had time to play the game *loads*, so it might not be possible to get all 20, but it should be doable. To make player's time a little easier doing this, the game gives you two endings every run, but it should be remembered that these endings are - in reality - entirely independent, so will contradict each other.

The ending part of the game also comprises a "biography", with a list of all the key things you did- this is also where a lot of the twists are found.

The minigames do also have an effect on your stats and your biography, and there's 35 unique prompts between them so, when combined with the 63 of the main game, this makes 98 total unique entires (I know, I know I shoulda added two more lol).

WHAT I'M PLANNING ON ADDING POST-JAM:

1. Any bug fixes as they arise

2. More story... Ideally I'd increase the main story to 100 prompts, and focus on adding some more varied and unique ones, because I became a little uninspired towards the end

3. More minigames... I had plans for a 3rd and 4th minigame, but I didn't have the time to make them unique or implement them

4. More prompts in the existing minigames (preferably at least 25 in each)

5. More accessories for the Interview minigames

6. An explanation of what's going on in the minigames! LOL

CONCLUSION:

I've still got some bits to sort before I mark this game as done, and I'll definitely be doing a full post-mortem of the jam (and post-jam) development of the game, but for now, I'm off to McDonalds lmao