When making your first game, it's really hard to choose your first project. You’re going to have a lot of ideas and deciding which idea to commit to for a year is going to be tough. One way you can decide what to work on is to think about your own core values.

First I’ll define core values. Core values are the characteristics that you use to make hard decisions. For example, if someone’s core value was Family and they were deciding on where to attend college, they might be more inclined to choose a local college so they can visit home more. If your core value was “Improve your community” or “Improving yourself” you might choose to work at a non-profit or a high stress high pay job respectively.

So what do core values have to do with games? Well, just like people games will also have a theme or value that they will need to stick to. And if your values align with your game’s values, it’ll be that much easier to adhere to. 

For me, my core values are:

1. Efficiency - I want to maximize what I get vs the resources I spend (I spent a lot of time as a teen min maxing in Maple Story)
2. Community - I believe in creating and supporting communities. People are stronger when they work together so forming communities around certain goals is very important.
3. Self Improvement - I believe it’s very important to always try and better yourself. The more skills and power you amass, the more able you are to achieve your goals and help those you care about achieve theirs.

So given these core values, what kind of game did I want to make? Well I wanted a game that felt like it was efficient to play (you feel like you got a lot of value out of a small amount of investment), helped form communities and also made you a better person. Meexarps accomplishes all of those goals.

1. Efficiency - The gameplay loop is short, it takes very little investment to understand how to play and you get big laughs/lots of learning when you play it. Also on my side it is a simple game to build so I can actually get something published.
2. Community - Jackbox and jackbox like games are a great way to build community. Even if you don’t totally like the game it’s easy to participate just by watching or playing as the audience.
3. Self Improvement - This one is a stretch but hey, it’s my third most important value. By investing in other people learning more about you, you improve other people’s ability to help you and understand you!

Because Meexarps aligns well with my personal values, it’s really easy to keep the theme and values of the game in line during development. While you make a game, think about your personal core values and how your game aligns with them.

Don't forget to checkout our website https://betakyros.github.io/Meexarps/