A Boootiful Outcome--Zwillinge

Editor’s note: Contains multiple videos. Watch at the website for best experience.

Monkey spent over one hundred hours creating a game in October for the RPG Maker “Spooktober Spooktacular Game Jam Submission”

RPG Maker is the coding/game creation/creativity tool she uses to create games.

Zwillinge means “twins” in German, and Monkey used that as an inspiration for her creation of a game that used the newest RPG Maker engine (This contest was a promotional event for this new engine.) She had only 12 days to create the game, and it had to be a game that had a horror or spooky theme, but it did not have to be a horror game.

This was not the first game she’d created, but it was the first one she’d submitted for a contest.

The winners would be announced via livestream on Nov. 25.

Mom was here visiting, so we were all staying busy, and Monkey was continuing to improve the game, even though it had already been submitted.

The day of the announcement, Monkey hid away in her room. She didn’t want to know how things were going with the announcement until they announced her as a finalist or not.

Buster, on the other hand, was absolutely convinced she would be a winner, and simultaneously filled with anxiety and excitement for her.

As the announcement time drew near, Buds and I settled in Buster’s room with him to eagerly await the outcome of the livestream.

The youtubers were going to play each of the 3 winning games live, beginning with #3, then #2, then #1.

We watched with baited breath as they announced winner #3. Buster had played Monkey’s game many times to offer feedback and support, and as soon as the music began for #3, he knew it wasn’t her game.

We kept watching. At around minute 27:00 in the video above is when they announce winner #2.

And here’s the video of our reaction:

We were shrieking and cheering and Buster ran down to Monkey’s room to get her.

As a non-game creation person, it was so fascinating to me to watch Monkey’s reaction to the comments from the youtubers playing the game.

They were playing an older version of the game, so often she had already fixed the item or error they pointed out.

She and Buster would often agree with a critique the gamers had.

And I LOVED it when they commented on something she had spent hours figuring out and perfecting. That was such a validation of her effort.

It was a joy to get to be with her for this celebration of her labor and talent.

Congratulations, Dear Monkey!