Play card game
At Least I'm Rich's itch.io pageGame Title
At Least I'm Rich
Developer Name
Curious Goat
Short Promo Blurb
The game where only one thing matters
Full Description
Welcome to At Least I’m Rich, the game where only one thing matters, and it's not the environment! In this game, you will take on the role of one of the most important and beloved people on the planet, a multi-millionaire adventure capitalist!
Your goal is simple: Make as much money as possible by the end of the game, but be mindful of the devastating impact on the planet.
Promo Image(s)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mO6jOjkYqfndUIO1nDVlTzO6P4gX-7vs?usp=sharing
Promo Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBvKdklnV0Q&ab_channel=Tuckcedo
Artistic Statement / Use of Theme(s)
At Least I'm Rich engages in the themes of climate change both narratively and mechanically by placing players in the shoes of massive corporate entities and asking them "How much money can you make?" The catch is that every time a factory or supermarket returns a reward to the player, it also dishes out damage to the climate, creating a "shoot the moon” mechanic that unfortunately mirrors the system design of real-world capitalism.
If the environment dies, money doesn’t matter anymore, and the player who dealt the Least amount of damage wins instead. Players can attempt to avoid this by playing action cards instead of structures on their turn. Actions can heal the environment but don’t provide the income that structures do. As it turns out, due to the volatility of the environment, “taking action” is a much more effective strategy for winning, even if choosing not to expand your corporate empire seems counterproductive. This system is what embeds the theme of “changing the story” into the core of our game.
Our use of Soviet propaganda posters as a source of aesthetic inspiration was intended to highlight the way in which the subjects and roles within our game are oftentimes misread and manipulative in real life. We incorporated that theme into the illustrations for the cards, background art, and UI design. The character roles are inspired by real individuals and businesses that profit from practices that harm our planet, yet through marketing and secrecy can do so with little consequence. By taking inspiration from propaganda artwork, these themes can be quickly recognized by the player while operating within a playful atmosphere that is more joking than negative.
Development Summary
The game was initially conceived as a multiplayer experience, but due to time constraints, we shifted to a single-player format where players compete against AI. During development, we discovered some unforeseen strategies, such as combining the Scorched Earth role with two Private Jet cards, which allows for infinite environmental damage and an instant win. Despite the powerful nature of this synergy, we decided to keep it in the game because of the rarity of the Private Jet cards and the countermeasures available to other players.
We faced challenges with the program architecture, which required special workarounds for certain cards. In hindsight, we would rewrite the foundational code based on what we learned. Additionally, using Git as our version control software was not ideal for Unreal Engine's binary files; Perforce would have been a better choice, especially with only one C++ programmer on the team. The hardest decision was pivoting from multiplayer to single-player due to our inexperience and the additional development time needed. Our team of seven worked through these challenges to bring the game to life.
Release Plan
We would like to explore a physical card game as a potential future addition. Developing a physical card game presents an exciting opportunity to incorporate new elements and strategies and provide players with a versatile gameplay experience.
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Comments
The UI, sprite art, and background art are incredibly strong and cohesive, particularly in terms of colors. It felt like a complete game that can be released as is. The use of a limited color palette helps make the game feel very unique and memorable. The satirical flavor text is also very memorable and entertaining. The gameplay is very strong, and very entertaining. On the downside, it was slightly slow paced, and I found that it was difficult to understand the tutorial. A more interactive tutorial, or diagrams, may serve to help acclimate players.
The game however seems to have a rather complicated interpretation of the Theme “Change the Story”. On one hand, there is a degree of nuance to the topic of climate change, about how there needs to be a balance between both your personal needs and the environmental concerns. On the other you are incentivised to follow a certain playstyle, a narrative, with each role in order to win.
I really like how there are two different win conditions and how the game's mechanics make the player take a different perspective than one they would normally take with a topic like this. The win condition also goes well with this perspective and makes for a really interesting game! I also like the art style and how polished it feels!
This game offers a highly distinctive perspective and a unique concept. It showcases the battle of capital, highlighting capital gains and environmental impacts. This approach goes beyond the typical view on environmental protection that most people hold. According to many environmental data reports, the contribution of ordinary citizens to environmental protection is minimal. In contrast, a single yacht outing by the wealthy or a business project by an entrepreneur can lead to significant changes.
From a game development standpoint, the game is very complete and smooth. I am amazed at the intelligence of the card AI! Like many existing games on the market, these AIs can be further optimized, but they still manage to provide reasonably intelligent choices among many card options. This truly surprises me.
In my opinion, this game is almost ready to be released on any gaming platform.
This game is super polished! Everything looks smooth and flawless. I am not a huge fan of card games, but this game attracted me at the first pace!
Overall, this is an amazing game! The art, sound, and game mechanics all flow together. Love it!
This game gives me Monopoly vibes, and I mean that in a way that I think may get the gameplay across, yet I fear that the message and vision of the game may get misconstrued in the future due to success. It's a weird anxiety I have, yes, yet only due to the polish and function of the game and gameplay vibes. The player icon is a little difficult to figure out at first glance. I thought I was the CPU 3 for the longest time until I saw it in the upright corner. Furthermore, I like the tutorial, yet also I didn't have the patience to fully read it through; I was able to figure out some of the gameplay as I played, though, yet I was a tad bit confused at the start. Overall, this game is pretty solid, yet I feel that the theme could be easily misconstrued, so do keep an eye out for that and keep up the good work.
Nice card game is there way to check out the impact of the cards that you have played. Does that Impact affect the game play/scoring in any way.
The choice to not show players how much impact they have done throughout the game intentional! “Impact” is damage to the environment, and if the environment runs out of health, the game ends early, and the player who did the least amount of damage wins instead. The environment has a hidden amount of health, and it is randomized each round.
At the end of the game, you can view how much damage each player did by pressing the arrow on the right side of the game over screen :)
I missed that on the tutorial anyways would you like to try out our game and leave some feedback that would be much appreciated .
This game is stunning, crazy amount of polish. I can totally see a commercial release if you guys want to commit to it. I really like the visuals, they are stylish and very effective in conveying information. The music is very good, it's catchy while not being distracting. The only critism I can give is over game play, having the player only play 1 card a round makes the game feel slightly dragging, there's not much you can do for a round, really wish there's more mechanics to compensate for it. Good job!
This game is so fun! I can say it's a polished great card game for release and I am willing to buy it. The art style is incredible! Can't wait to play the multiplayer version.
Incredibly well polished and well executed game, reminds me of Cultist Simulator in a way, a very bold and direct critique of the overall capitalist view of environmentalism. would very much like to see the multiplayer aspect of the game greatly expanded upon. and there are certainly some synergies that could also be expanded upon/balanced.