Zach: Become Human
Zach: Become Human was a meme game I made for Global Game Jam 2024 with my best friends at CMU ETC. The designated theme for that year was 'make me laugh', and we interpreted the phrase very literally - in our game you are supposed to make a robot (disguised as a tech company CEO) imitate human emotional responses in order to not get recognized by reporters. In coming up with the theme I was inspired by a congressional hearing.
This game was made in 48 hours and we won the best theming award for GGJ Pittsburgh that year. You can view my smooth playthrough here, and I challenge you to download the game from itch to give it a shot.
My Role: Game Designer, Programmer, Producer, Writer, Sound Designer
In the intro I wrote, The big tech company Neta is under suspicion that the CEO Zach Borg has been replaced by a robot. During the product launch, you need to help the robot answer reporters' questions and disguise itself as Zach, OR Neta's stock price will plummet! Pass some Turing Tests and solve the PR crisis! I believe we have a strong foundation from here. It is funny and it makes people laugh because it's meta (get it?).
In coming up with the gameplay I wanted a real-time QTE game where you rearrange the robot's facial components to imitate human emotions as a response to reporter's questions. We did end up doing that. On top of that, we had another rhythm game going on at the same time - you need to hit space at the correct time for the robot to answer the question. The gameplay was chaotic and surprisingly fun, for the AI generated voice lines and, most likely, some dialogues I wrote.
