How does the game fit the theme?
COUNTED [TRUST NO ONE] explores the theme through an authoritarian narrative centered around quotas, tallies, and systemic deception:

The Narrative & Core Premise:
"Every citizen counts."

You play as Unit 9, a Directorate Enforcer deployed to Sector 9 to investigate and purge a ration ledger discrepancy.

The Conflict:
As you navigate the sector, you discover the physical tally was deliberately falsified to starve workers while the Directorate's official broadcast claims all quotas are met.

Branching Outcomes Based on What You Do With the Tally: The gameplay mechanics and moral choices revolve around evidence leverage and counting.

What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Engine & Framework:
Built on CyberVGA, our custom in-house software rasterizer and fixed-point engine (Win64 / DOS Mode X) developed by Burak Yazar (Novus Idea), including the SMIX Sound Blaster audio mixer, fixed-point math library, and physics collision routines.

Character Models & Rigs:
Base voxel character meshes were adapted from the Voxel Dystopian Pack by Max Parata, rigged via Mixamo, and rendered into 8-directional sprite sheets.

Tooling:
Map layout generation and CMS mesh exporting utilize custom Python scripts run within Blender.

Original Work Made for the Jam:
All game gameplay logic, level designs (Barracks Hub, Ration Block, Generator Core), UI/HUD, story writing, dialogue, and original title soundtrack (MAINOF.wav) were created during the jam.

Code examples used in jam:
https://medium.com/@nicholas.w.swift/easy-a-star-pathfinding-7e6689c7f7b2

Characters:
https://elbolilloduro.itch.io/characters-psx

Textures:
All textures except character meshes are handmade in GIMP.

Audio:
https://freesound.org/people/randbsoundbites/
https://freesound.org/people/Blankened/

How many people worked on the game?
2