Thanks for the great score! I'm still over the moon, and I still can't believe how I placed highest in Humor, a category that was challenging for me to get right in the past.

When the theme landed, I was absolutely stumped. I didn't want to retread some familiar and obvious ground, so I eventually landed on the trolley problem. Thought to myself that it's probably a unique enough idea - until I saw the numerous LD entries about the trolley problem that eventually spawned from the theme. Oh well. I still hate the theme!

At least there's a twist to the game that's not apparent: The game was inspired by the Good Place: Trolley Problem episode. Not spoiling too much of the episode, but I wanted to introduce a new wrinkle into the good old trolley problem.

By making death as graphical, juicy and visceral as possible. And making it actually possible to kill everyone.

Moral choice in most story based games are usually pretty cut and dried. Choose the good or evil route.

With the premise of the trolley problem, where the "evil option" isn't usually entertained, I wanted to entice players to consider alternatives though: do you do the usual expected utilitarian outcome, if the consequences are vague - or do you explore and play around in a game's space, and what happens when you somehow chance upon "evil"? If you do a max kill, all you get is a scolding from the game, which notices you doing something different. There's also a "hidden ending" if you get max kills for all levels.

The fixed camera was intentional as well, as in later levels you didn't have the luxury of seeing where you were headed and you'd have to make snap decisions which might cause regret later on. Sort of mirroring how moral decisions are made in real life where you don't have complete foresight of the situation. This made for some unintentionally hilarious moments - loved it when a twitch player accidentally steered the trolley into a maximum kill.

The chickens were kind of an afterthought. I've always had the idea that if you wanted to score easy points in a Ludum Dare entry, add a good dose of chickens. They're kooky, lightened the mood, yet introducing another conundrum: which would you place more weight on - a person or a chicken? And in the morally ambiguous space of the game, where there's a clear counter on the number of deaths that goes up regardless of pax or fowl, discovering whats really at stake is part of the "fun".

Putting aside the pretentious philosophical waxing, in terms of the jam, it didn't go as smooth as I hoped though. I spent the first day re-learning Blender, and playing around with the ragdoll physics. On the second day, I spent too much time implementing the rails and the movement of the trolley - not the most optimal solution, but I'm able to put together a level pretty easily.

Finally, the audio was put together in a mad rush at the end. Managed to squeeze in some bad voice acting for sound effects, which worked well and is encouraging for future LD entries. I'm particularly proud with how the BGM ended up fitting the tone that I desired, given the comedic yet sinister nature of the gameplay (was listening to Bonetrousle from Undertale for inspiration)

If there's one thing I didn't like about this - it was too short with just 3 levels, and I would have liked more time to fully develop the puzzles and explore more ethical conundrums. As it is though, I'm pretty satisfied, got to polish my pretty rusty 3D modelling skills and didn't lose much sleep over a entry that was scoped pretty tightly.

Onward to the next LD!

Check out the game if you like