- What did you learn about financial literacy?
The importance of understanding why we dont use a barter system as well as why we use a fiat system that was originally set up to be backed by gold! And the importance of intrest rates, as well as properly balancing home economics with necessity. And the importance of Investments and Compound Interest (both compound working for you and against you)!
- How did you apply what you learned to your game?
I tried to express the barter system being the downgrade to a Gold backed Currency system with Mr. Mint and his Double Coincidence of wants quest! I also went ahead and added a pretty insane no regulation variable intrest rate on the piggys loan since thats just how Mr. Snaps rolls(at least until the Central Bank announces rate cuts), as well as minimum weekly payments to encourage players to invest their money as they can, and know when they have to miss a payment to compound their own wealth via the Stocks Investments offered in the Mines by Felix Ergo. I also included the value, importance, and necessity of balance for Home Economics by including Miss Mara Bell Bunny and her Peculiar Records 'N Such shop that sells cool Posters, Records, and Couches that can be used to customize the home and the players experience! And Lastly the importance of work but that eventually once youve got all your finances under control you can sleep all day and play when you want to! But first lots of hard work(even if its fun)! And a Bit of luck! Oh and Currency Swaps as exchange rate markets are generally under taught from my experience so I added that in.
- What challenges did you face in making it work?
I really wanted to add a true inflation rate to modify the value of purchasable items but since the only things you can technically sell are stocks it felt more like a net negative on the game experience so it was left out. I was also having trouble with in air angle to change velocity but went with Airball mechanic instead since it felt better to have more shop items and is generally a more enjoyable experience with the ball bouncing off the ground which is probably a safer way for pigs to fly anywyas. I also wanted to add more animations however i ran out of time since i hand drew nearly everything aside from a few buttons(that i still stylized but still), and my sound guy went awol on me mid development so i had to do all the sound design as well as the code so i just didnt have time to do more than engine facilitated animations but if i make a second edition of this game I would def increase that as well as more shadders which I see alot of other people using and they look fantastic but so far ive just been trying to nail the fundamentals of game design. But hey its all a learning process! Hope you all enjoy if you give it a go and ill be playing every single game and try to point out 1 positive and 1 improvement for all of them! <3