I either need a real-life process that is worth showing in game form (like surviving grad school, waiting tables, dealing with customers in retail, cooking, etc)

or I need a story that I can work in a small game mechanic. I kinda really want to do something with knitting because 1 - I'm obsessed, 2 - it's got deep ties to programming (knit/purl, 1/0), and 3 - pixel art knit stitches would be really easy and cute to make

But I'm not sure what RPG/sim type story I could come up with that would either revolve around knitting (like the character having to make multiple projects? For some reason?) or like...knitting makes the path to other things or whatnot...more symbolic

Like....if anyone played Hue, I like that the color shifting is how you move through the worlds, and I could totally do something like that with having a button press match a knit-stitch (knit, purl, yarn over, color change), but I'd need a goal for what the player was trying to do with those

just a thought...!

and more on that same thought

i'm not saying necessarily do a SPIES AT WAR thing BUT!! just coded knitting in general for Reasons might be a good excude for someone to have to do multiple projects

(also i'm sorry your cowriters are still proving challenging.)

novelties: I was thinking about the idea of code! Trying to figure out if I want to do something historical or if I want to do a fictional scenario...maybe something dystopian

I don't want to go super heavy handed, but it'd be nice to find a way to translate some of the struggles and fears around things like abortion care or the underground railroad or hiding refugees or whatnot...but finding a way to do that respectfully in fiction is important

and the cowriting thing is....not serious? But disappointing

We finished the game jam and it was a lot of fun. That last week, Kit (our newest coauthor who is a bb grad student) wanted to play with the visuals and make it pretty. She'd been wanting to do it the whole time

She got the greenlight, and she came up with this:

i think there's a lot of space too for creating some kind of puzzle-y knitting situation and playing off the "old ladies sitting there knitting, absorbing gossip" stereotype — overhearing things that progress the story, or that share world plot, etc.

Could you do like fates knitting a tapestry instead of weaving? Repairing the pattern or some such.

definitely an option!

and the design Kit came up with was pretty. But it looks a bit like a hotel reservation site?

plus contrast issues and it really doesn't read "game", let alone game about grad life

oof. just a bit, yes.

i'm getting like.... wellness + coworking space

I said none of that. It was the last week of the project, she's new to CSS, and it was a great learning attempt

But while I was sick (COVID finally got me), I got bored of being stuck on bedrest and played

Now....it's clearly buggy and messy

and the color scheme was randomly pulled from the first image I played with as a title screen

oh boy...

but I was trying to go for the feel of a game so it would read more like that instead of interactive fiction

yes!

this was not meant as a final draft (or even a first draft). More like story-boarding. But I was really proud of playing with the pixel art and getting the positionality working and responsive and having the citations pop up as flavor text so it wouldn't break the immersion

not a single bit of positive feedback

HONESTLY, i would just avoid the Real Life Pictures as much as possible

Kit was the most understandable. She probably felt like I just tossed her work out. She was real quiet at the end when we were planning what to do this week. She said she could do coding or visuals, but "you're better at both of those," so I knew she was feeling down

I told her to take visuals and sketch things out if she didn't know how to make it work in code, because we could learn that together

but Wendi just ripped it apart with no positives and no personal investment.

and it made me sad.

oh man i'm so sorry.

So... reasons to send code. Serious political or silly fluff?

HONESTLY, i could see both as viable. it just depends on what you're prepared to invest in it given the stress elsewhere. silly fluff might feel easier? but the serious political possibilities ARE intriguing, if you're feeling it.

I don't want to do little old ladies because knitting gets so gendered anyway. But light and fluffy isnt' a bad idea. It'd have to be a kind of message that it would be okay if it took awhile. Knitting projects aren't fast.

I probably won't finish anything right now, but having a project to play with on the side will make focusing on my diss easier because I'll feel happier. lol

messages between longdistance friends...(even better than letters! You can wear it)... notes in class....

it'd be kind of cute to talk about adhd in students...someone who knits to keep their hands busy and changes the stitch based on how often the teacher/professor says certain things. lol

temperature blankets are an actual thing...where you knit in certain patterns or colors based on the weather conditions of the day

yes! a coworker of mine has been making one this year. it's very cool. temperature blankets, that is.

so it could be a really simple game where you have to pick the right combo based on the weather

Or maybe there isn't even a "right." It could give you a suggested, but show whatever key combo you hit, so you could see your mistakes but also maybe just choose to do something different if you wanted the end product to look a certain way

(i am disappearing now to go drive home but I LOVE THIS.)

I just made some pixel art. ^.^

Imgur

Imgur

okay...not so light and fluffy, but considering having just lost mom...I could have someone who is taking a year to live with their parent in hospice and making a square of the blanket each day while they live with them.

Or it could stay light and have it be making a blanket as a gift for a family member/mentor/long-distance friend who taught them to knit

color based on temperature...pattern based on weather or on mood or something else?