Retrospective

I've mentioned this previously, but I had first imagined a Scribblenauts-style game with scenarios like putting a wasp nest on the energy gauges to prevent energy from being shut off. This was a scenario that I first saw on Reddit (perhaps as a joke?), but it's stuck with me for a while. Early on, I was having trouble coming up with additional scenarios, and the difficulty of adding a long list of summonable items made me pivot to more of a WarioWare-style game. It felt like I could still use the energy gauge scenario and things like punching war criminals would fit in as well. These ideas also seemed perfect for a game jam because the basic framework for minigames could be created quickly and I could expand the scope naturally by adding more minigames; whether I ended up creating 5 or 100, I could still call it a completed game jam.

I imagined it as kind of a how-to guide for anarchist, socialists, etc. I really liked the idea of calling it _____'s Guide to Civil Disobedience. The trouble was figuring out who the blank would be. Naming it after myself seemed inappropriate, especially if I wanted it to be the antithesis of capitalist society which usually glorifies the successes of the individual over communities. Another option was to name it after Marx or another famous historic figure, but that seemed a little too on the nose. Eventually the idea of Mickey Mouse came to me because it had just entered the public domain. It seemed perfect to use because of its existing relationship to the capitalist empire. It also had the benefit of giving the game a more concrete art-style.

I'm generally happy with how this game turned out. As with many game jams, I accomplished far less than I imagined. I think the areas where this fell short are mostly with the art, the variability of the minigames, and the education. I consider myself a programmer foremost, so I knew the art would be one of the low-points. I feel like the faux-mickey aesthetic worked, but it took more time than I really had. Unless I'm working with a close friend, I prefer to work alone on these sorts of projects, but working with a dedicated artist would probably be a boon for us both.

Time was eventually the limiting factor for the number and variability of minigames. The duration of the game jam felt reasonable. I don't think I would want to partake in a jam that was any longer. What was in the final game was enough to demonstrate the idea, but fell short of being fun to me.

I really wanted the minigames to act as a educational source for leftists. How one should dress for a protest, speak to the police, which war-crimes presidents had committed. The limited minigame variability also affected how much education could really be provided. That being said, I felt like I could have done more research and put that into the game. In the end, I really liked that the minigames could vary between seriously educational and irreverently pointless.

The music was also a low-point for me. Using the soviet national anthem feels like an easy choice that could have been more interesting.

It was important for me that the game is open source. I generally like to keep my projects very close to my chest, but ultimately, I didn't want this to be a me-only project. Nothing would make me happier than for a community to pick this up and add to it over time into something beautiful, educational, and fun.

What I learned:

I think this the first time I've completed a solo project in Godot, and definitely the first time I had really used shaders. One of my favorite minigames ended up being the one where you have to find the abusive police in the city, which wouldn't have been possible without the use of shaders. I think this is also the first time that I've exported a web-playable game in Godot which is a process that I shouldn't have started 40 minutes before the deadline. I had to upload several versions before everything worked, and even in the end I think there was still an issue with the shaders and icons.