The 7 Questions by AweSkyBear
In the end... what does the Tree think?
Thinking about life, the Universe and everything... join me in this calming experience where birds chirp and 7 questions are to be answered... for your story to be revealed
Play The 7 Questions
> here (original entry) https://the-7-questions-ld57-by-awesky.netlify.app/
> PostJam updates (small but nice) here https://postjam-the-7-questions-ld57.netlify.app/
Known issue - the game has an issue within Firefox browser (other browsers should work fine; please play in Chrome or Chrome-based and you should be fine : ))
How to play
- use the Cubes... they are your only way
- restart the game after the final story
- zoom the screen as of any other web page (if game is too small)
The tree is asking you questions
Or is it the tree? Tree in space? Maybe it's the Universe or your subcontious self?
You will get 7 questions. Instead of giving concrete answers you answer with a colored cube. :spy:
The story
Based on your answers.. the Tree will analyze you and will spit out what it thinks. ; )
Different questions
You will get a randomized set of questions with every run.
Different answers / different story
After you've gotten the story you will see an ~ Ask me again ~ button. Clicking this resets the game and you will get a set of new questions.
Maybe you could answer differently next time? :wink:
Out of scope
So many things left undone (begging for a post-compo): - effects, actually showing off more beautiful trees / see this post: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/the-7-questions/if-you-fail-dont-fail - more questions to come, greater variety of questions, hense more diverse end story - extended gameplay / additional mode with a twist and choices that affect the game and the outcome further
Disclaimer
:exclamation: No AI tools have been used or even tried during the development of this game.
Dev/programmer stuff
Total coding time is < 10 hours. Total ideation and drawing/trying stuff in Paint.NET was more than that.
- Framework: Phaser3 (Javascript), official Vue template with TypeScript, + obs-disp (my lib for state/object management and rapid clean coding)
- Graphics: Paint.NET
- Audio: own recording early morning
Dev Log
- 10/04/2025 - I have fixed the reported bugs and some more I had found; I've also added a link to the source code
- 15/04/2025 - published a small PostJam update on a separate URL
- more questions to choose from (bigger pool)
- tree lighting effects / shinier tree
| Link | https://github.com/AweSkyBear/ld57-The-7-Questions/tree/ld57 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/the-7-questions |
Ratings
| Overall | 806th | 2.857⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 842th | 2.446⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 600th | 3.018⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 617th | 3.357⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 722th | 2.857⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 501th | 2.907⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 567th | 3.357⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 39🗨️ |
@fupi Haha, those 2 are spot on bugs : )), thank you! Will fix ones I get a chance. Obviously in the whole haste of putting it together I swapped those 2 answers and for the very-long one.. well.. obviously not as fixed as I thiught! :laughing:
Thank you for evaluating the game so quickly.. I kind of hoped some of my favorite members to stall a bit so that I could make the experience cooler in a post compo ^^ THANKS!
Ping me if it gets fixed. I love philosophical games.
Without you I wouldn't know this is not a mobile-only issue (now it renders on mobile too - and hopefully on your Macs): the fix? I HAD to change the `zoom` of the game because on VERY high DPI devices this basically turned the game to a 0x0 canvas - thus black. That's bad on my part :D
People with more modest screens were running OK XD ... (this fixed mobile too, though the game is way too small there).
**BTW you can zoom in just as any web page :)) **
Fix: one liner magic as always ... https://github.com/AweSkyBear/ld57-The-7-Questions/commit/3af5b6a2cde1abd91f095124834a14547dc322b1#diff-4fab5baaca5c14d2de62d8d2fceef376ddddcc8e9509d86cfa5643f51b89ce3dR15-R27
Next week I am going to do more (meaningful updates) in a post-jam hopefully : )))
My only wish was that it went a little DEEPER, either in the types of things it asked... or in the depth of the prediction/fortune-telling it made about the player.
Was planning at least 2-3 times more questions (so that replayability brings more value). Initial ideas also included "branching", "personas", maybe even more game-like related choices but life happens. So yeah.. maybe for a post-jam (next week with me also playing your games, guys : ))) )
Glad you enjoyed the atmosphere. : )
It would be cool, if you could choose "branches", for example giving an answer to a question leads to a certain path of other questions. But I guess it would be too time consuming for a Game Jam. :D
I like that you added bird sound effects, that was fitting.
@lllarso Branches was my initial idea, yes. Thus.. the tree. However, only *natural intelligence* was used during the creation of this project ;) .. and that takes a bit more time to come up with, implement and test :D haha ^^
That said, the ending felt a little lacking to me. It kind of felt like the game just repeated what I’d already answered, when I was hoping for some kind of... consequence? Reflection? Impact?
Still, I think the concept has a lot of potential. Thank you very much!
I do take the feedback with a thoughtfull *hmmmm* really : ))
Sincerely thanks a lot! ^^
You gave me some good advice back in LD55, so I'll try to return the favor here. :)
I think there was a good opportunity to have more of the interface react to your answers. Perhaps having the tree blossom in complexity with each answer, or shifting layers of the audio to reflect the green/red/gray balance of the answers.
Having the colors of the tree in the background animate as you did is a nice start, but I think you could have made a more meditative experience with some sort of slow, gentle animation that fills more of the user's field of vision -- maybe even just a background gradient that very slowly cycles through soft, dark colors.
Your points with feedback, I fully agree! I was imagining many many things on the visual part, they are actually quite easy to achieve (with Phaser) and I have the base; so, very well transitions from question to question, maybe question scaling/fading effecta, "recoloring" of the tree, (nice!!) the gradient effect for the bg you mention is a very good idea - I was thinking of some shader too. All of that - is on the list! Shifting layers of audio?? Cool cool! That didn't cross my mind.
But this sweetest visual part takes time to experiment with - and currently I try to not miss others' games, so a bit later.
Thank you a lot once more! And hope you enjoy LD ^^ ! Your game very flowy!
@a-bond colors :heart:
@t-pirozzini Thank Paint.NET - I love [using] it (btw the artwork is freely available through the source).
@yanato Glad it's relatable :p
And *Happy Easter*! :sunny:
That's the jam version. Post-jam version crashed after answering 3 questions.
An interesting idea, never seen anything like that on LD before. Also nice to see people openly entertaining something other than strict physicalism, this is rare in the technical community. :P
I also couldn't shake off the feeling that the final screen was an identity function of my answers, it just expanded on them a bit.
It would be really interesting to have the game argue with the player, and dynamically ask them difficult questions about their answers.
NB: branching-off questions was an initial idea that I didn't have time to really implement and it stayed that way, but *confronting* actually might be better ; )
After checking, you could also check the PostJam too if you like - it has about 10 more questions added in + slight visual updates. Unfortunately never had the time to actually extend upon it the entire concept.
Thank you! : )