Kindness Coins
Mar. 2nd, 2016 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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playingstoryName:Kindness Coins
Status: Complete
Site: https://arden.itch.io/kindness-coins
Rating: Teen
Pairing: F/F
Description: A quick, linear game done for a weekend jam. If you're unfamiliar with the term "Kindness Coins" it describes a sort of gameplay mechanic in which all you need to do is gather up the appropriate points of approval for a NPC in order to get them to sleep with you. It's used in real life situations to describe situations where people, typically "Nice Guys" believe that a certain set of behavior entitles them to the reward of getting the girl.
This game examines that. A little.
Art: Very cute, with a great design and colorful palate. I'm a sucker for flat colors, too. There are two frames with placeholder text, but it's done in the tongue-in-cheek manner and is clearly the result of game jam blues. It's not a big deal at all.
Writing: Humorous but also almost completely linear. As far as I could tell my options converged back to the same point almost immediately. The whole message (if there was one) about not expecting to get the girl just cause you did the "right" things is kind of undercut by the fact that you turn around and get the girl in the end yourself. Since the game was so short, (5-10 minutes) you get the jist, a scene in which the creator's feelings about the matter are laid down, and then the ending. It was a bit too on the nose for me, but the lighthearted style of the writing made the message a lot easier to swallow than it could have been.
Status: Complete
Site: https://arden.itch.io/kindness-coins
Rating: Teen
Pairing: F/F
Description: A quick, linear game done for a weekend jam. If you're unfamiliar with the term "Kindness Coins" it describes a sort of gameplay mechanic in which all you need to do is gather up the appropriate points of approval for a NPC in order to get them to sleep with you. It's used in real life situations to describe situations where people, typically "Nice Guys" believe that a certain set of behavior entitles them to the reward of getting the girl.
This game examines that. A little.
Art: Very cute, with a great design and colorful palate. I'm a sucker for flat colors, too. There are two frames with placeholder text, but it's done in the tongue-in-cheek manner and is clearly the result of game jam blues. It's not a big deal at all.
Writing: Humorous but also almost completely linear. As far as I could tell my options converged back to the same point almost immediately. The whole message (if there was one) about not expecting to get the girl just cause you did the "right" things is kind of undercut by the fact that you turn around and get the girl in the end yourself. Since the game was so short, (5-10 minutes) you get the jist, a scene in which the creator's feelings about the matter are laid down, and then the ending. It was a bit too on the nose for me, but the lighthearted style of the writing made the message a lot easier to swallow than it could have been.
Choice: As stated above, there is pretty much none. Not in the sense that you have any power over the outcome. You make 7 choices, which in a 5 minute game isn't bad, but three of those choices at least result in the exact same dialogue as any of the others, and as I said before, the other 4 converge almost immediately. That pretty much makes this a kinetic novel.
Overall: As short as this game is there's really no loss in just running through it once, since a quick run through is all it calls for. As a short, single issue game, it's not too bad. And the art is great.
