Educators: Our Heroic Heritage

Development Log

Dec 7

*I love my bubble tea.*
*nyoom Art by An Awesome Teammate*

Since starting a full-time position at the end of October, I’ve decided to spend more attention to a proper work-life balance and setting aside time for myself.

Developing video games is a tough endeavor, and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt making games for the past few years — it’s that burnout can catch up to you pretty quickly if you don’t keep it at bay.

To this end, I’ve tried to abide by proper schedules throughout the day. At the start of each work day, I promptly log in to my work PC from my home desk, deliver to the best of my ability across the designated hours of work, and promptly log off when the work day ends.

Of course, this is not always possible in the field of game development — especially when projects come close to major deadlines — but wherever possible, I try to resist the temptation of grind culture and working over time.

Given the current COVID-19 restrictions in the country, there truthfully isn’t much to do outdoors - so my free time mostly consists of clearing Genshin dailies, playing a game or two of League with my friends, and adventuring to catch ‘em all — you know, the standard game stuff.

So when I came across the announcement for this year’s Heritage Game Jam, it was a complete no-brainer when I decided to join a couple of my ex-course mates from DigiPen to develop a simple game in the local style for fun.

To give some context, the game jam aims to use ‘the medium of Games to talk about Singapore culture and heritage: past, present and future’, with a theme that is announced at the start of the event.

*HGJ 2021 Poster by The Sagakaya Collective*

Traditionally, game jams were typically held over two or three days, where participants would gather in multitudes to slog it out and get their creative juices flowing. In recent days, however, most game jams are held online and over a longer period due to the extended impact of the pandemic.

This year’s theme revolved around the theme of Everyday Heroes, in view of the sacrifices made by the average populace whose efforts may have been overlooked.

Our team brainstormed various ideas over a Discord call, and it wasn’t until the third day when we decided that we wanted to use the opportunity to recognize the tireless efforts of educators in the country, given our recent experiences of online lessons.

And thus, **nyoom**, an arcade-style management survival game, was born.

As classes pivoted from traditional classrooms to virtual spaces, lecturers and students alike found it difficult to adapt. While the technology existed, the logistics weren’t simple. University faculty and professors spent a considerable amount of time to establish a viable system to continue teaching their classes, trying to keep disruptions to the learning experience to a minimum.

But of course, as much as the world tried to soldier on in spite of the pandemic, adjusting to a new normal came with its challenges. Students like us found it difficult to absorb information and work on collaborative projects without interacting with our peers in-person, and our lecturers found it increasingly challenging to gauge their students’ mastery of different topics.

Our cohort even missed a long-awaited exchange trip to the Redmond campus.

Still, we all tried our best and managed to pull through.

To reflect this experience, we wanted to create a game where students and educators could relate to - yet one with a simple scope that could be achieved during the game jam outside of normal working hours.

Drawing from our (somewhat shameful) experiences of falling asleep and snacking during our online classes, we decided to center the gameplay around a lecturer trying to conduct their classes amidst all of the chaos.

The concept was simple.

In preventing a slowly-decaying morale bar from reaching zero and failing the level, players have to deal with students’ enquiries and antics by selecting the respective screen and pressing a sequence of buttons. Respond quickly, and the students’ morale increases. Take too long, and their morale decreases.

Framing our game in a fun yet relatable manner, we especially focused on the art and player experience of the game; combo buttons would grow and shrink gradually and respond well to the players’ key presses. (…if only students could respond promptly in class too!)

After a week of a couple of hours of development each night, our humble little game was complete.

For what it’s worth, I personally found the survival game to be rather addictive and a fun experiences that all students and educators can identify with.

Though a deceptively simple game, it accurately represents the challenges of an educator in a pandemic world which we wanted to portray - an educator’s never-ending hard work and heroic dedication to care for all of their students every day of the semester, no matter how hard the circumstances may be.

Mechanically, the game only revolves around a single action, but the challenges it poses quickly spirals into chaos. Similarly, the job of teachers may seem simple, but the impact of COVID-19 has nonetheless pushed them to their very limits.

It is our earnest hope that, with this game, students in similar situations will come to appreciate the sacrifices that our educators make in order to provide the next generation with a brighter future in an uncertain world.

Hopefully, this pandemic will end soon enough, and we can meet with each other in greater numbers once again — but while we wait out the storm, let’s not forget the everyday heroes who work tirelessly to preserve that tiny glimmer of hope in our hearts.