A Consumer's Guide to Insanity

[adval25]

A CONSUMER'S GUIDE TO INSANITY
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Inspiration
​

We live in a society where most of the stuff we buy has the potential to help shape our individual identities. We wear and own the things we do as a way of giving people a glimpse of who we really are inside (or think we are anyway ).

Most obviously however, is how certain products can make our lives easier. We can cook food faster. We can wash our clothes while we play some video games on the couch. The amount of time we have left for leisure is incredible thanks to technology. But in the broader context of our lives, buying things is often a double edged sword. We buy stuff and feel temporarily happy because it solves some immediate problem, but in the end it can create a host a new ones (debt, technological dependency, etc...). The question then becomes, how to find a balance between how much time we spend in the pursuit of material wealth and being able to be satisfied with what we have.

I don't think there are any easy answers but it's definitely a subject worth exploring.

So... What is this Game?
​

Inspired by the mundane beauty of games such as Papers, Please and Cart Life, and tv shows like The Simpsons, this game attempts to depict a charming microcosm of our daily lives.

Simply put, it's a life simulator that revolves around work, relationships, and most importantly (in this case) the rampant purchasing of online products.

There's something incredibly alluring to me about games that revolve around doing really basic things (otherwise mundane tasks that we would totally avoid doing in ordinary life) that try to say something deeper about society or the subject they tackle. But I'm not trying to be political or necessarily make some form of commentary, I just want to express something personal to me. Something that I find interesting.

Gameplay/Mission​

At the heart of the game lies a heartwarmingly poignant, yet funny, human comically dark story about an individual trying to get by in this fast-paced, advertising-driven world. Most of the actions you do in the game are ultimately in service of moving forward the game's plot.

However, the crux of this game lies in the ability to buy commercial products and interact with many of them in unique and compelling ways. Although the specifics are still being experimented upon/developed, there will be enough richness and variety in the stuff you can buy to keep you looking forward to purchasing the next sweet item you find online!

Not to mention, purchasing products and utilizing them, will help unfold the story of the game in interesting ways!

....
So the gameplay is quite simple. In order to buy things, you have to have money. In order to get money, you have to work. The quicker you can get done with your house chores, the more energy and less stress you'll have the following day. The less stress and higher energy you have before going to in to work, the better you'll perform. The better you perform in your work, the more money you make. And so on...

Buying items helps you finish your to-do list quicker but make sure you don't overspend and find yourself in a heap of debt or else Mr. Hank, the Repo Man, will by come by a knockin'.

Note: The game is still early in development and many of the ideas are subject to change.



Thanks for clicking by!

To stay updated on development, you can visit my site:
http://advalles.com

or

You can check out my twitter:
https://twitter.com/advalles1

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Now on TigSource Forums!
https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=57885.0

 

[adval25]

UPDATE: 9/16/2016

Layout & Mechanics Update:

As you can probably tell from the above picture, the main rooms will be divided into 3 main partitions:

- The Main Screen
- The Work Block (Bottom Right)
- The Finished Block (Top Right)

All of the action pretty much happens in the main screen (player actions, dialogue, etc..). You select and drag things there onto your work block. The work block is your personal space where you put the things you are still working on/haven't finished doing (ingredients, laundry, etc...). Once you finish what's on your work block, you take it up to the finished block.

As long as the chores are finished in time and in the finished block, your stress will go down and you'll be able to continue doing other things on your to-do list.

Art Style Update:

The game was previously going to feature a range of colors as backgrounds, but I decided that it didn't suit the desired mood of the game. Instead I decided to use variations of a single color for the backgrounds to establish a particular kind of feel. I haven't decided on what color just yet, but red makes everything stand out nicely.

However the main inspiration to keep the game to very limited palette was the works of a brilliant artist/animator named Michal Socha.

Watch this clip and judge for yourselves:

Thanks for following. More updates are on the way!

 

[BeerDrinkingBurke]

Really like your art style. Nice and crisp.

 

[adval25]

Really like your art style. Nice and crisp.

Thanks man. I'm happy you like the art style.