Computer Crash

Read Me First

My submission for the UTS Playmakers March Game Jam (Note: Current Version has had a small update post-jam based on feedback from players).

Your PC has run into a problem, and needs to restart... Will the problem fix itself, or will you have to solve the problem by hand? Either way, it's the last thing you wanted before your weekend started.

Hints are at the bottom of this page, be warned if you want to solve the puzzle first. If you would like to know more, please message me on Discord (uselesswiz).

This game requires a copy of  .NET  installed in order to run. If you don't have this, an installer should appear when the game runs for the first time, download the dotnet installer and run it before trying again.

Credits

Programming/Art/Sounds: Me unless otherwise specified.
MS Word 95 Background: https://winworldpc.com/product/microsoft-word/95
Windows 95 Inspired Font: https://arnesava.github.io/w95font/

Made with Monogame (https://monogame.net)
Project Github: https://github.com/UselessWiz/Computer-Crash

About

This game is meant to emulate the feeling of an old, slow, unstable PC where you never know when it's going to crash on you and therefore when you're going to have to restart your work. I thought a lot of people would do something along the lines of restarting a level, and I wanted to do something very different. I also wanted to experiment with having minimal gameplay mechanics in the game; most of this game is played outside of the game itself, with a carefully created puzzle that was a lot of fun to put together (and hopefully to solve as well). This game served as a very first test for some 'engine code' I'm writing, although in reality it's more me building extensions to the framework that I can use to make games quicker and easier, rather than an engine from scratch.

HINTS BELOW

If you get stuck, digging through files is your friend. Most files can be opened as if they were text files (if in doubt, open them with notepad).
Also remember your different bases/forms of encoding computer data. Any online tools will decode hidden messages if the need arises.