Post by Fredspipa in Upstream jam comments

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Love the visuals and restrained celshading, it ran really well in the browser for me. It has an addictive loop of dying/upgrading7dying that keeps the player going.

I gotta say, the philosophy of this game bothers me a bit. This is a Koi that tries to avoid ridicule, by trying to perform better than everyone else, and in order to pull that off it needs to keep up its motivation. And what is their main purpose of facing those challenges? To get money. To grind enough money to enable you to grind even more money. They say they want to avoid the "shame demon", so they go out every day to get money so they can buy an advantage over everyone else and get a little further the next time, but to no real end. Grinding wealth in order to reach your goal becomes your goal, you work to earn money so you can keep working to earn even more money so you can work even more.

It's kind of fucked up.

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Banana Person1 year ago(+1)

Oh you're right I didn't think of it that way. The thought process was that since the legend its based on is about not giving up, the health bar should be motivation. I was gonna make the currency for upgrades something abstract like believing in yourself or something but my partner said "Koins" and I couldn't resist the pun lol.

I don't think its about trying to avoid ridicule though. The fish wants to get to the top of the river despite the ridicule. It's never implied that they're trying to prove themselves to anyone. The demons are literal demons from Japanese/Chinese myth. I think they're meant to represent people mocking you when you try to achieve the "impossible". And the grind isn't endless, the game does have an end and you can win. Still, I get how your interpretation makes sense, and yeah it is kinda fucked up :/

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Fredspipa1 year ago(+1)

You're right, I think it was the death/fail screen that confused me a bit on the story; "succumbed to the demon's mockery".

Using "motivation" as health is a good choice, it makes total sense, and that was the only reason I reacted to the "koin" part as that works as the players motivation and in dissonance with the rest of the game. Not so much criticism as an observation.

I like the idea of like Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill, maintaining your motivation despite constant pushbacks and regressions, and doing so by improving your perception of yourself (adjectives or properties like "self-worth", "pride", "humility", "introspection", "empathy" etc.)

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