It takes a fair bit of work- with the demand I've seen here though I'll make it a priority:)

Oh really? I've never heard of that book- I'll have to check it out! Hopefully it's not too similar lol

Thank you so much!

Oh of course- speedrunners are just as capable as engaging artistically with a product as anyone else. A speedrun of the game would just be funny though as the most optimal way to play is definitely a comedically immoral one

Yes I did! It was a bit before my time so some of the design was a little too retro for my tastes, but it has exceptional writing. Probably the biggest innovator of narrative game design in the late 90s in my eyes, even if it wouldn't be my first recommendation in the genre of interactive stories.

The dragons are doing science in game actually

I answered this question somewhere else, but the very short answer is that it takes buying an actual Linux computer and a fair bit of troubleshooting but I'll try and get something together for the full game

Basically exporting to an OS requires you buy a laptop that runs that OS natively, if alot of people want the game natively on Linux I'll make the effort though!

Min-maxing is the blight of moral narrative game design, and it's something that you can never get rid of, but you can minimize. How Yuma Will Burn discourages this type of play is being slightly restrictive with its save system. The game automatically saves over your one save slot after a major descion so a player can't personally reload 57 times and find the mathematically perfect solution. There is where the dynamic narrative stuff helps me too, for a lot of interactions with 10+ outcomes it's hard for even me to keep a running understanding of what happens if you do X,Y, and Z. Now- will that stop players from just looking up a guide and ruining the mystery? Probably not, but that's their descion, and anyone who approaches the game in good faith, trying to engage with thematic experience, will have atleast 3 playthroughs worth of uncertainty before the clear mathematical systems behind yuma will burn will become TOO clear

Good bot

Nah, ate ice cream on the toilet once

I have the distribution license for Linux, but it might be a pain to distribute it on there. We'll see, hopefully

Not that anyone who would play this game would be the type who hates dialogue, but there's a skip text option in game to enable testing, and hopefully a few odd speedrunners! I'd love to see someone blaze through the game leaving babies to die as they waste 0.31 seconds to treat

Fuck. Already paid for the logo....

There's more info on the game at @tyeishing if the trailer and screenshots were lacking^

I think the earliest game I played which really sold me on the potential of video game storytelling was Undetale.

Video games have a strength in interactivity and immersion from traditional media, but have a weakness in thematic harmony and characterization because often gameplay conflicts or muddles that core experience.

My advice would be to start making games, and to be okay with the fact your first couple are going to suck. Have fun with it! I made a game a few years ago in 3 weeks as my second project ever called Attack of the Demon Hitlers and it was poorly drawn, poorly designed, and I love it as a time capsule of my progress.

I'll give it a look!

Tepid yes right now

The first season of the Walking Dead game is one of my favorite games of all time. A downright beautiful story about fatherhood and legacy. Definitely a big inspiration, but not my biggest. If you look up "medical moral interactive dramas" there's not many, but Pathologic 2 is one of them, and I love it. The only game I want people to play more than Pathologic 2 is my own, it's transcendent in my eyes.

Fantastic question- here's an in-depth explanation of how the core mechanics function. After the intro the player has 3 statistics to manage- Hope, Hunger, and Health. The game is broken up to semi linear exploratory sidescrolling environments with items to find, and then a story moment, and then a campfire to rest at. The exploratory areas have items like food and medicine to find to increase your hunger mostly, but also have dangers that can hurt Dante. The most common of which is falling of the map, which generates a random "story moment" where you're spawned at the start of the level and Dante is given a health or hope debuff. The story moments are either a medical or ethical emergency, which Dante can usually approach from a couple of different perspectives. There's sometimes a medical RPG style interaction to represent Dante's treatment. The core of the game is here- almost always the most moral option will notably leave Dante weaker in some way. For instance- if Dante tries to interfere with an execution, he can just get shot and take a major health debuff. If Dante tries to treat a man with a highly infectious repository illness then Dante might catch it and have a status debuff for the rest of the game he needs to manage. Dante can be genuinely crippled at points too which reduces his efficacy as a doctor. All of this creates a desperate, edge of your seat moral thriller which will leave you earnestly thinking about your choices. (Once Dante reaches a campfire his health is adjusted proportionally to his hunger, and his hunger increases, then this cycle starts again.)

Definitely.

Thank you so much! I always need playtesters, so send me a dm if you're interested. I'm thinking either 10 dollars or 11.99 for the final game? I think that fair for a relatively short but high quality product (undertale retails for 10 dollars)

There's probably people more qualified that me to ask that question then, my main advice? Learn how to code yourself if that's something you want to pursue-

https://medium.com/@blockchain_simplified/a-complete-beginners-guide-for-android-app-development-109bf0c8609f

Here's something I pulled off the internet that might help you- best of luck!

Is this a game you're talking about? If so, there's really no demand for an "ideas guy" in game development. Every game developer you talk to has a thousand ideas for a game they could pitch at a moment's notice. Now, if you're a game designer who can throw together coherent design documents, that's a little more reasonable. You'd probably have a hard time convincing a programmer to work for free for you though. My advice would be to get some rudimentary GML (game maker programming language) skills under your belt (its not as hard as you think), throw together a couple of prototypes yourself, get some experience, then find some discord communities and get an armature team together that complements eachothers strengths. An awesome setup for that can be programmer-designer-animator

No worries on the questions! Love talking about my work.

I do everything myself except for music, I can credit Freesound(dot)com for the music, alongside a few tracks done by Alex Karan. Also hired a VA for the intro on Fivver.

I was motivated to make my game because I think that video games are the last frontier of narrative innovation. Traditional media can craft insanely evocative stories, but I think that there's a chance that video games, and their immersive ability to take a player into the drama of a story, can push that emotional resonance even further beyond.

My greatest challenge is the scope of this project. I can earnestly say that it's the hardest thing I've ever done. The intro has been rewritten (no joke) 17 times, and working on Yuma Will Burn is often draining. That being said though- NOTHING has ever made me happier. The reasonably positive reception online and the interest expressed in the project keeps me going. I saw someone a few days ago on the Pathologic subreddit talking about the game's store page and comparing it to Pathologic and my heart melted. I want to make art for a living, to enrich people's lives, and that exigent motivation is stronger than I could describe.

Pathologic 2 for overall best experience, it's my favorite piece of media period. Frostpunk is a close contender too, and Breath of the Wild is also a major time sink for me. (Fallout New Vegas and Rimworld are in the top 10 too.)