Themes can be tricky. They might feel constricting, fitting an entire game within a certain parameter below 10 words. Often, it's what scares us game developers away. Themes may feel creativity-restricting, but when explored in the right way, they can actually be a way to unlock endless potential and pave paths for new ideas that you would never think of on your own.

I want to talk a bit about this specific theme - everything is a resource - and how my game ties into this concept. This theme, like the last, was quite challenging and forced me to stretch my thinking (as all good themes should). I contemplated a survival-type game in which everything mattered and had a monetary value: time, food, and even key presses. However, this was a large committment and I remembered one thing I've learned through participating in game jams - keep it reasonable. I really liked the idea of making something so normal to the player, like key presses, monetary, so I took this idea from my original game concept and appllied it to something new.

I also knew I wanted to make something funny and goofy. At the time, I remembered playing a Scratch game where you were a mayor and you had to balance a couple of attributes of your town, such as the wealth, beauty, health, etc. I really liked the concept of having to make decisions and how each decision affected every attribute, so I put my own spin on the idea.

My game plan was coming together. All I needed to do was figure out how to tie it to the theme. I realized I could combine the idea of playing the role as a mayor with my previous one of each keystroke costing money. I decided that every single letter the mayor spoke would cost a dollar. Now, everything really was truly a resource! I went beyond your traditional resources - money, health, hunger, and decided to turn a very unconvential feature into one.

This is the way I always like to approach themes - try to look at them in a way that'll allow you to experiment with something new and try something out that hasn't really been done before. As a philosophy, I believe themes have extraordinary potential to spark wild ideas and force developers into a new way of thinking, like I did with this game.

Thanks for reading! Read more of my devlogs here:

00 - Devlog Overview - Homepage

01 - What Makes A Game Feel Unique?

02 - The Magic Of Sound Effects

03 - Here's A List Of All The Goofy, Wacky Easter Eggs I Included.

04 -My Interpretation Of The Theme - & Themes In General

05 - The Most Important Part of Game Design - Community

06 - The Psychology of Loading Screens & Intros

07 - I Planned My Entire Game In Less Than A Minute - Here's How