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A jam submission

PowerWriterView game page

Based on xkcd What-If article "Keyboard Power"
Submitted by Spennie777 — 16 hours, 49 minutes before the deadline
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PowerWriter's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
xkcd-ness (how well it matches/interprets the comic)#702.5634.250
Innovation#781.5082.500
Audio#800.9051.500
Overall#861.3572.250
Visuals#881.0551.750
Fun#911.0551.750

Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Link to xkcd comic / 'what if' article the game is based on
xkcd What-If: "Keyboard Power"

Please list any pre-made art/music/other assets that you used.
Engine used: Unreal

Team size

1

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Comments

The "what if?" this is based on is pretty terrifying. O_o Let's see how you gameify it.  (Also, putting the link to the "what if" article on the game page or something would be helpful.)

I think this is the 1st game I've played in this jam that was made in the Unreal Engine, so that's pretty neat. :)

So . . . this is ok.  It's a playable version of the "what if?" article that shows how "Yeah . . . NO," the idea of generating power with typing is.  Not that too it.  The game clearly demonstrates how little power would be generated, and I like how you show stats at the end (my score was -11).

But the "How to Play" actually presents an interesting scenario, with people typing on social media and powering things with that--it's a different take than the "what if?" article and the playable game itself, the idea that with every "normal" social media activity, we could store up power for . . . something.  Was a bit disappointed the game didn't do anything with what the "How to Play" screen said.

Also, it would have been nice if we saw that the millijoules actually meant--I'm no scientist or electrician, so I have no idea how much "0.78 millijoules" is.  Maybe if there was a bar on the bottom of the screen with milestones ("heated a drop of water by a 1% of a degree!"), or some kind of real-world interpretation of what the millijoules add up to, emphasizing the futility of the player's actions.

Overall, a decent game.  Nice work.

Neat concept on testing an XKCD comics logic and seeing the small effort you could make but let me say though  if everyone generates about 1 joule a day on just there smart phones if we add it all up its about 2.5 BILLION Joules! Still neat to see an exact representation of energy made! Anyway one thing I do want to mention is I'm doing a review of design on the games in this jam so here's a shameless plug to my channel if you want to be notified of the vid when released: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7Vj46GGL9VMUvd4YTMtjXg

My XKCD game jam analysis is out!