itch.io

I’m happy to see that you enjoyed participating in the Committy!

Honestly, when this year’s modifier was first announced, my brain kinda immediately jumped to the idea of ‘designed by committee’ (the logo was intended to convey that very vibe) - combined with a sprinkle of inspiration from Valefisk’s video about a board game designed by ChatGPT - which is what lead to this monstrosity getting concocted. I initially was considering making this game a tabletop game, but then realized that making this an Always Online Live Service™️ would be a better choice, seeing as it would allow everyone everywhere to experience the end result of everyone else’s suggestions getting combined (and Always Online Live Services™️ are appropriately inherently terrible for games).

I did bear in mind the whole ‘trusting people to not be stupid’ thing into this service though. There’s a decently zealous serverside profanity filter, the SQL uses prepared statements, and there’s a way to report inappropriate cards via the card viewer page (although I didn’t get around to implementing an interface for me to easily view the contents of the reports table. I can still delete problematic cards though).

(and sure, whilst it may be a completely different type of ‘Every Suggestion Combined’ than the majority interpretation of it, I have referenced each of them within the URLs generated for hands dealt out)

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While I may be slightly confused as to how certain cards beat each other out

That’s the beauty of it all!

Every such existing interaction between cards was dictated by other players.

When creating a card, the user is presented with two other cards, and has to pick which one of those two cards their new one beats (and that new card shall get beaten by the other card) - that suggestion is permanently enshrined as Precedent and applied for all further interactions between those cards.

Likewise, when an unprecedented interaction between two cards happens - the outcome (ideally as decided by a third party after hearing arguments from both players arguing why their card is objectively superior) - the suggestion about what card is objectively superior - is also permanently enshrined as Precedent and referred to for all time whenever those two cards interact.

So, if you’re wondering why, say, the interaction between A Duck and Lake Superior ends the way it does - you can blame whoever made that suggestion/decision at the time and date mentioned at the end of the announcement proclaiming the existence of the Precedent applied to this current situation.

This minefield of seemingly incomprehensible precedents that make very little sense (outside of the context in which they were agreed upon), my right honourable friend, this is the true, magnificent, horrifyingly glorious beauty of the Committy!

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The announcement was a bit of a latter-stage inclusion (after I nixed the originally planned online multiplayer gameplay). I wanted the announcement to convey the sort of authoritative rituals of pomp and circumstance and generally silliness mired in tradition and legalese surrounding the ways in which legislation and common law/precedent enter into the laws of the land.

Y’know, real ‘going through the motions of getting it signed by the powers that be and then getting the designated Shouty Person to proclaim it and publishing it in the London Gazette to make sure’ sorts of vibes.

Yes, it isn’t very conducive to multiple rounds, but I am working on the theory that most people wouldn’t bother sticking around for multiple rounds anyway.

Does this combined with the precedent system make Committy some sort of absurdist parody of the legislative and judicial systems which produce the legislation and common law by which Rule of Law is achieved in contemporary political systems and societies? My right honourable friend, I have no idea either, so it falls upon the membership of the Committy to decide amongst themselves whether or not this suggestion bears any weight and whether or not it actually sounds coherent in the first place.

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The landing page was heavily inspired by XCVG’s marvellous landing page for Safety and Security at the Liberty Macvonden Building (ITC-1141-A) back in SBIG 2021. Like that page, I wanted to ensure that people could be directed to where the game actually is, but set their expectations appropriately for the sort of experience to expect (and add to the whole experience).

For the main Committy website, I opted to be tasteful with the music (saving it as toggleable dramatic music for the debating phase of The Ritual, and as the piece de resistance for the Punchline, whilst ensuring that the website itself would at least be a bearable experience) and likewise with the overall page layout (again, for functionality’s sake (or as close as is possible with my godawful CSS)), so I opted to treat the itch.io landing page as the ‘title screen’, with a short kazoo afterthought as some sort of title theme for the game.

And finally, I had very nearly managed to create a SBIG game without any trace of Percival (everyone’s least favourite ex-employee from the former Button Factory’s Making Sense Department), and I thought I had finally managed to properly get rid of him (after I tried to kill him off in Inconvenient Space Rocks 2 back in 2021, but ofc he somehow survived and appeared at Kevin’s in 2022). But, it appears that someone (probably Votebot) tipped off Percival to the fact that I was participating in SBIG again this year (without telling him), leading to him sneaking in and throwing that complaint into the landing page. Which was a bit rude of him. Alas.

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Anywho, still pleased to see that you found Committy to have been a worthwhile entry to this year’s SBIG jam.