To be honest I had horrible writer/designer’s block this year, so I’m really glad you enjoyed the writing despite the lack of gameplay.
In hindsight you’re definitely right about the shooting minigame. My original concept was “what’s the most anti-Veterans Day thing you could do?” In the original he straight up steals all the Whos’ presents and stuff, so I felt like I had to match that somehow. But I think I went a bit overboard with not enough payoff. I also had no idea how to wrap up the story, so having the Grinch not learn a lesson maybe sent the wrong kind of message.
When it comes to the culture fest, I also think it should have been first but I ended up not having enough of it done by the original deadline. Then when there was an extension I thought I could finish it the next day, but I spent too much time trying to make the concert minigame, which was going to be a rhythm game involving shouting insults and throwing garbage. I had no idea how to make a rhythm game in Fusion and wasted most of my time failing at it, so I cut it in the original build and took the lazy way out in the final build, opting to recycle a screaming “feature” that I’d used in an intentionally bad Sonic parody game.
As an aside, my original plan was to do a third “book” that was How the Grinch Stole the 2018 Awful Jam” featuring cameos from previous jam games but that didn’t get past the design stage.
Thanks a bunch for the feedback!