“Relative Evil” was my submission to Shacknews Jam: Do it IV Shacknews. The theme of this jam was “Be Relatively Evil”, and my goal for the game was to base it all around judging the relative “evil” of other people. At the end of the game the player has their own relative “evil” judged based on their choices. The classic trolley problem serves as a perfect framing to explore these comparisons; even more so when you have to decide very quickly!

This game was made in Unity, unlike my previous projects you may find on this site. I’m aiming to become more proficient in both, so expect my next project (a 3d exploration platformer) to also be in Unity! My favorite part of developing Relative Evil was creating a framework to fade sprites, UI Text, and UI Images on a strictly scripted schedule. Here I used it to show messages between each new scenario, allowing some of the elements to linger slightly longer for dramatic effect. I’ll definitely be using the “fadeable” class I developed in other Unity games!

The art was also quite fun to create for this game. It was done entirely in Aseprite. I first created a perfect version of each sprite and then erased parts of the edges by hand different ways in different frames to give an illusion of lively movement. In combination with moving elements such as the eyes of victims and the wheel rod of the train cars this enhanced the game’s style quite a bit without becoming unmanageable for a solo dev.

The music and sound FX for Relative Evil were produced entirely by Chris “Groovetone” Habeeb-Louks. He recorded himself playing trumpet and a variety of percussion instruments to achieve the unique jazzy feel of the game. Chris also produced the music for my previous game relation❤ships.