The Covid Birthday Game

Background

This game builds off of the Totalitarian Dictator Simulator that I made back in 2018. In that game, you help bring a city that was previously meandering in ignorance into the safety of The President's warm embrace. This game picks up in that same city but after it has properly embraced quarantine.

The household

You begin the game in what was my attempt at creating a virtual representation of our childhood home. It isn't perfect but it is close enough to definitely tell what it is if you have been there! This game also revolves around a bunch of (deliberately) awkward representations of everyone in my family and some cliche interactions with them.

Mom's quest

You begin the game being instructed to go downstairs to your room to receive a message. In my house it is customary to begin going downstairs (usually to play video games or watch a show) only to be caught halfway down and asked to come back and complete some sort of chore. In this case, you are asked to come load the dishwasher. Few would know this but the immediate members of my family, but our dishwasher is a master class in terrible UX design. To this day, I still need assistance with getting it to run.

Dad's quest

Upon completing the dishasher enigma, you unlock the door to enter the basement where you will note my dad is engaging in one of his favoritre pass times. It is not uncommon to hear him downstairs slapping out some sweet beats on his bass at any given time. Just before you make it to your room to receive the message, you are summoned back to the main area to satisfy a request to participate in band practice. Matt never actually sings for our band, but that doesn't stop my dad from asking! In this case, you humor him in order to unlock the door to your room.

Find Carter & Tanner

The message you receive informs you that the great city in which you reside has entered quarantine due to COVID. The message also reveals that there is some suspicious activity going on that you need to go investigate. You exit the house, which you soon realize is a bunker of sorts, and enter into the city. Carter is waiting for you with a car and instructs you to go find Tanner. In my family it has become a catch phrase of sorts to ask the question "Where's Tanner". Historically, there was one time when my family was trying to catch a plane at an airport and they were unable to find Tanner for a short bit only to discover him doing a handstand on his longboard a short distance away from them. Everyone made the flight and that went down as a cemented event in my family history. After searching for a short time, in game, you will find Tanner riding his longboard doing a handstand.

Bosho

You eventually complete your quest of locating the suspcious activity to discover a man clad in a flannel shirt, the trademark of Matt's arch-nemesis: Bosho. Most small people will have an imaginary friend or two as they go through the gauntlet that is childhood. Matt decided to up the difficulty setting of his experience and instead created an imaginary enemy. Bosho has been declared an enemy of The Great State of Matopilas and has been a recurring antagonist in its history. After a short chase, you get the satisfaction of using a CoD MW2 inspired Predator Missile Strike to disable the vehicle and ultimately blast it with a space laser (all good action sequences should include a space laser).

King Dodongo

Not much to describe here aside from I wanted to have a big boss at the end and try my hand at implementing a little FPS-style gameplay.