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SYNOPSIS

After his mentor’s departure to the Outside, Darwin the duck and his friends found themselves at a crossroads: cages or wings? 

Long ago, the giant Wall was constructed around the Farm to prevent any animals from escaping; they’re trapped inside...forever…? Not so fast, it turns out that Darwin found a secret manual book that could guide them to blow up the Walls and break free.

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Main Mechanics

Like any other JRPGs, RPGs (undertale-earthbound-inspired), the main mechanics revolve around you walking around and talking to different NPCs to progress the story, laced with two other mini-games.

• Dialogue System
  • For the dialogue system, we're using a graph-like structure where different vertices represent each dialogue line, and each has an edge (pointer) to the next dialogue (based on the options).
• Object Collecting System (Bomb Collecting Minigame)
  • Here, we have a modular actor component called AC_ObjectCollecting that helps us with initializing the timer, counting objects and determining the win condition.
• Instruction Volume (Maze Minigame)
  • To achieve a Stanley-Parable-like instruction system, we have a base class called BP_InstructionVolume that takes in E_InstructionID as input, then automatically fades in and out the sound.
• Swimmable Object Component
  • This is for fun lmao. The component can be attached to most static meshes and will toggle BP_Darwin animation state into Swim State, and it does some more overlapping bound checking to ensure consistent behaviour.

For more details on technical implementation, check out the design document here: Game Design Document

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Credits

• Written, programmed and directed by: The Apricot Cocktail
• 2D illustration by: Opan Piamthip
• ‘The Narrator’ voiced by: Nat Cat

For a list of all assets used, visit here

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Controls

• Movement:  WASD, Arrow Keys 
• Interact:   E
• Progress Dialogue:   E, Enter, Spacebar, Left Click 
• Map:   ESC or M 
• Quack:   Q 
• Restart Level:  (go to map ‘M’ → bottom right button)

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Further Readings

If any of the content in the game makes you curious, here is an assorted selection of material I’d recommend:

• Big Think. (2015). Slavoj Žižek: Democracy and Capitalism Are Destined to Split Up. YouTube. https://youtu.be/AXVEnxtZe_w?si=64ij7I_w4DqgklyJ
• Fisher, M. (2022). Capitalist realism: Is there no alternative? Zer0 Books.
• Nicholas, T. (2019). Jordan Peterson doesn’t understand George Orwell. YouTube. https://youtu.be/BQWjyo1m0Yg?si=7ptjKW9yhsbNjAr4
• Nicholas, T. (2021). Neoliberalism: From Ronald Reagan to the Gig Economy | Tom Nicholas. YouTube. https://youtu.be/rG3bNSyhlSU?si=4Bk5ArNdkb9fi2FW
• Orwell, G. (1977). Animal Farm by George Orwell. Perfection Learning Corp.