UNBALANCED KARMA is a Interactive Storytelling Game which has as a main character a Young Gipsy Woman that was born and raised in Brazil, under the Colonial ruling of Portugal, in the 19th century, a little bit before the country becomes independent. She is strong, independent, a fortune teller and part of the romani traditions and culture. Many historical arquetypes are present in the game (the tax collector, the merchant, the wealthy noble man, the black man and woman) and it has a deep relation to the African-american religions, specially the Candomble, which is a brazilian interpretation of the Yoruba beliefs in the Orishas.
The game relates to the theme of Growing - as the character takes actions and uses her skills to foretell the future, so she makes choices that make her Karma grow, and has to deal with the consequences of it.
It has a profund meaning related to inner growing and self-awareness. Also, it presents many aspects and assets of the brazilian culture, history, society and manners. This is due the fact that the team intended to put elements of edutainment in its conception and development.
Along with the Game, we have produced also a Transmedia Project, called UnBalanced Project - which also has (and shall be developed soon) a Board Game, a Card Game, an Infographic and an E-Book with the continuation of the Game's Narrative.
An special thanks, FROM ALL OUR TEAM, to our Professor, Antonio Francisco "Dino" Magnoni, PhD at UNESP Bauru, who helped us, let us use the PET-RTV lab for the development and has given us an incredible support. THANK YOU!!!
For others playing, it seems like when you hit Esc it will reset the game. One letter each will appear on the left and right thrusters of your ship. Hold down BOTH letters on your keyboard to go straight up off the top of the screen, then the actual game will begin. The letters on your thrusters will randomly change periodically. Hold down the left letter to fire the left thruster, the right letter to fire the right thruster, and both letters to fire both thrusters. As you go up, dodge asteroids (I found it fairly easy to stick on them) and try to run through presents to increase your score. It seems eventually you run out of fuel and fall back down. And if you don't keep going up eventually a giant sheep on a red square overtakes you. Not sure what that's about. Anyway, switching controls randomly is an interesting bit of game play challenge. Liked the look of the ship although the other elements seemed a bit incongruous due to the style differences.
Oh, whoops. Had two game pages open and my previous comment was for the other one. Don't know if doing a new comment will get rid of the old one. Sorry about the confusion. For this, I also didn't have the data folder so couldn't play.
folder next to the executable"