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TV Game Jam

Hosted by Xavier Ekkel · #TVGameJam

1,417

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A jam submission

The Trolley ProblemView game page

A TV Game Jam entry inspired by The Good Place

Submitted by Joe Lafiosca (@joelafiosca)

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The Trolley Problem's itch.io page

Results

Criteria	Rank	Score*	Raw Score
Interpretation	#16	4.063	4.063
Audio	#24	3.250	3.250
Visuals	#25	3.875	3.875
Gameplay Innovation	#49	2.688	2.688
Overall	#49	3.063	3.063
Fun	#58	2.625	2.625

Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Spoiler Level

Major Spoilers

TV Show Name/Season/Episode
The Good Place, Season 2, Episode 5

IMDb link to episode
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6951978/?ref_=ttep_ep5

Episode description
Michael (Maxwell in game) creates a realistic simulation of the Trolley Problem thought experiment to run Chidi (Chibi) through multiple scenarios and test the ethical considerations, with Eleanor (Melanie) along for the ride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWb_svTrcOg

Please list any pre-made art/music/other assets that you used.
None

How many members in your team?

Team of 1

List your team's social media / website links!
https://twitter.com/joelafiosca
https://twitch.tv/lafiosca
https://lafiosca.itch.io

Anything you want to say to players before they play?
A full, single playthrough of the game, without skipping any of the dialogue, takes a little under 10 minutes. Some elements of the game are randomized, and you may want to play it more than once to see different outcomes.

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Comments

securasSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

This was good fun! Great art and music and... I love the pico 8!

Submitted

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago

Thank you!

kaeverisSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

Very cute artwork and animations! I like the music and the dialogue. I love the series and it's so nice to see something based on it :)

Submitted

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago(+1)

Thank you for the compliments! I love the series as well, and I hope that comes across :D

atolVerderbenSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

Really loved the artwork! The dialogue was funny too. As others have said I wish I could skip through the text faster, but you already know that :) Great job!

Submitted

Catch The Birdies

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago

Thank you!

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago

Just replying to everyone's comments to let you know that I've added a dialogue fast-forward button. :)

Wei JiunSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

Loved the Good Place TV show, so loved this set up, it's very faithful to the show :) Lovely pixel art, and sounds. When the random things turned up, it made me go what?! hahah! funny! good job!

Submitted

Unbreakable Dinny Schmeze

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago(+1)

Thank you!

che6yp5 years ago(+1)

This one i've been waiting for! But man, the speech bubles are too slow, you should have let the player press a button to go to the next line of dialoge. Also, some sort of sound when characters were speaking (forgive me for bringing up Undertale, but, like in Undertale) would have also been great.

But that's all nitpicking! I do love the overall style of the game, and the episode choice is interesting.

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago (1 edit)

I totally agree about the button to skip bubbles and the chat sound, and they would have made it in if I'd had more time. As for them being too slow... All I can say is that one person's too slow is another person's too fast. :) The button to skip would be the ultimate solution for that.

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago(+1)

Just replying to everyone's comments to let you know that I've added a dialogue fast-forward button. :)

kypelloSubmitted5 years ago(+1)

This is really cool! I love the dialogue between the characters. The visuals and animation is very well done, especially for PICO-8.

I also made a game inspired by The Good Place.

Submitted

Seven Days in Purgatory

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago(+1)

I was literally just playing through your game while you wrote that comment! Great work! :) I'm a big fan of both Papers, Please and The Good Place, so it was a good matchup for me.

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago(+1)

And thank you for the kind words!

randomphantomSubmitted5 years ago(+2)

Very faithful recreation of the episode! Nicely done faux 3D effect in pico8 and the humor was spot on. Tried replaying for another scenario but it was a little tedious to go through the starting dialogue again. It doesn't feel that there's much gameplay to it, although it was fun seeing the other random scenarios pop up.

Submitted

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago

Thank you, totally agree on the dialogue. There are some places you can skip it, but there could definitely be more. And the fact that the first 2 scenarios are always the same (for the setup) before you reach the randomized ones also makes that more sluggish.

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago

Just replying to everyone's comments to let you know that I've added a dialogue fast-forward button. :)

MiniBobboSubmitted5 years ago(+2)

I was excited to play this when I saw the previews on Discord! I'm glad that the final product was as fun as I was hoping. I enjoyed the humor (was a lot of it lifted directly from The Good Place?) and the dialog seemed to be right at home with the source material.

This was a nice experience. I really enjoyed the presentation and the visuals.

As far as feedback goes, it would have been nice to have a dialog skip button. I read much faster than the text displayed so it felt like things moved more slowly than they should. I think PICO-8 gives you two buttons, so maybe one could skip the dialog and the other change the track?

It would have been nice for a little more variation in the music and some repeating noises for the different characters would have been nice also.

Overall a great job! I loved this episode and seeing it recreated in game form was a treat!

Submitted

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago

Thank you! Yes, some of the dialogue (and most of the joke concepts) were lifted from the episode. Much of the dialogue was rephrased, but some direct quotes were included. I absolutely agree about the feedback and would have included everything you suggested if I had more time for the jam. There were other improvements I wanted to make as well, but a lot of the scope had to be trimmed, and I still ended up submitting a little bit after the deadline. The last day of dev was essentially a major crunch to ensure all of the main functionality and content for the game loop was in place.

Joe LafioscaDeveloper5 years ago

Just replying to everyone's comments to let you know that I've added a dialogue fast-forward button. :)