Hey, One Joyful Day! Thank you so much for such a kind review!
When I first started making games, I never even imagined that one day someone would say, “Ah, this is the developer behind The Choice.” That honestly feels really special and very nice to read.
That idea about a completely new approach to strategy games is really interesting. I’ll definitely think more about it. Maybe something like a strategy game where you only define the starting conditions and then watch how everything evolves from there. Or something along those lines. In any case, thanks, you gave me a really interesting idea to think about.
And yes, I think your observations are very accurate. I agree that The Choice turned out more engaging overall (and probably more fun to play too). The newer games I’ve been making are shorter and simpler. Right now, I’m experimenting with different formats to better understand how to keep the player engaged. But I definitely want to return to longer educational game formats too. They just take much more time and energy to create. For me, this is still mostly a hobby, but I genuinely enjoy making them.
And I also agree that this probably isn’t the best time to monetize educational games. There’s a small contradiction for me: I want educational games to stay free so more people can access the ideas and knowledge, but at the same time, I’d also like to eventually find some way to support the work financially. Maybe I’ll think about Patreon in the future.
But on the other hand, I simply enjoy creating these projects, so I’ll keep making them either way.