Sisyphus’s Hierarchy of Needs

A fairly simple but extremely meta game exploring my own failure to make games as often as I’d like.

Players click to fill segments of a Maslow-inspired hierarchy of needs in an effort to gather the resources needed to make a game, but activities come with costs, and the passage of time is yor enemy. 

Playable for Mac and Windows via
https://irny.itch.io/sisyphus-hierarchy-of-needs


Sisyphus’s Hierarchy of Needs was created in Unity utilising a visual scripting plugin. I initially drafted the segment interactions in a spreadsheet but rapidly iterated the convoluted mathematics of the game through testing.

The game was largely designed and put together over a weekend when I had a bad migraine, sat in the dark with the screen brightness turned down and sunglasses on. I think some of my irritation about this may be reflected in the design which is, according to one player, quite anxiety-inducing.