A downloadable game for Windows

A project that I made for my english class in around 6 days.  Please leave a comment if you enjoyed, what you liked, what you didn't like, and any suggestions!


Written Explantion of my game

               My game, “The Balance Sheet” is a game that focuses on the theme of moral decline. My goal with this project was to demonstrate how humans make immoral decisions and step on others in attempts to succeed. My intention was to make a comment on how people are apt to hurt others if it will help someone reach their own selfish goals. While not wanting to suffer is just human instinct, people are selfish in the way that they will value their own suffering higher than the suffering of multiple other people. In addition to this, I also wanted to touch upon how a capitalistic society rewards people for being selfish and using others. It causes people to be blinded by money and forget that their actions can have tremendous, lasting impacts on other humans just like you and the environment.

               The two main message that I want the player to be left with is, “Your problems aren’t bigger than everyone else’s” and “Capitalism encourages moral decline”. For the first message, the player can weigh if their own problems outweigh the problems of others. The player can decide to make other people addicted and reliant to your drug, which is something that ruins lives, the lives around those affected, and an overall worse society just because you want to make money to pay off your own debt. For the second message, I convey how the system that the player is rewards immoral behavior. For example, the player can decide to hire illegal immigrants who are willing to be overworked and underpaid which allows you to pay them less, lower the manufacture cost, then make bigger profit margins. The system helps those that take advantage of others.

               A choice that I made to convey the theme of moral decline is making it incredibly difficult to succeed with some morality left. I did this to show that being unethical is easy and takes much less effort than if you tried to do good for society. Another artistic choice I made was to make the game feel more unsettling as you went on depending on your morality. If your morale is low, the music slows down and the background darkens. The darkness of the city represents how immorality usually results in environmental and societal pollution. The colors and life of the city also fade away and symbolize the player’s morality also fading and corrupting. Once you reach 0 morality, I intentionally made that the point of no return. I believe that once a person has fully reached absolute immorality, it is impossible to come back. At absolute immorality, a grainy shader filters your vision and the music stops, just leaving you with radio static, silence, and your own thoughts. At this point, the player should feel somewhat guilty or regretful for their immoral decisions, but I don’t believe that it can affect your morality. Actions will always be louder than words, and especially your own thoughts:

“The dog that weeps after it kills is no better than the dog that doesn’t. My guilt will not purify me.”

               Another artistic choice I made was to name my game, “The Balance Sheet”. This can have two meanings. A balance sheet is an actual sheet that businesses create to balance their assets and liabilities, just as the player does within the game. Secondly, the balance part is what the player does in the game. They must balance their morality with their finances. You can never have both and they will push back against one another. It isn’t possible to legitimately get out of your debt with maximum morality. The most moral decision you could make is to allow yourself to die, and the best financial decision you can make is to forgo all your morality for profit. This is just like how a scale cannot have both sides down at once, and you can either choose just one to be down or leave then both up at equilibrium.

               A bigger issue that this game relates to is how America’s system of capitalism encourages immorality. Taking advantage of others will hold more profit than doing acts of kindness. Another issue that this game relates to is how western society is becoming more selfish. The focus on individualism is very emphasized and has become the norm. Also, social media has a big focus on promotion, not just advertisement promotions, but also the promotion of an individual’s self-image.

If nothing else, be empathetic.

Thank You!


Credits to assets used:

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The Balance Sheet.exe 313 MB

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