OVERVIEW

Inside an old computer terminal there is an unfinished program containing a barebones menu and a few old data entries from its developers. What happened to the team working on this project? Why are you being assessed by the program, and what happens when you reach Ascension? Answer these questions and ask more in this short puzzle game about a long-forgotten program.

Menu Mania is a short puzzle game about exploring the menu in unexpected ways. From finding secret passwords with old data logs to being judged by a “wizard” for your lack of curiosity, this game breaks down the most basic interfaces of video games for an outside-the-box perspective. This game was built to illicit the feelings of wonder, exploration, and amusement for the player. Menu Mania was inspired by games like Pony Island and Inscryption by Daniel Mullins.

May Build - Playthrough

Project Goals

Build a game completely solo
Create interesting puzzles focused on UI Components like Buttons, Sliders, and Text Entries.
Write a setting based around old technology and digital consciousness
Compose original music tracks

BLOG

Menu Mania as an idea began in May 2023. I was halfway into the development of Cross the Sea, and I was bothered that I was only learning UI programming instead of skills across the board. So, I challenged myself to make a short solo game using what I already knew: UI components. I took inspiration from the game Pony Island by Daniel Mullins for its unique deconstruction of game menus.

In Menu Mania, the player navigates the menu of computer terminal in some kind of facility. After beginning the session, and poking around for five seconds, the player finds something named “Wizard” that judges them for how curious they are. If you just clicked the main buttons, the Wizard doesn’t like you very much. However, if you pulled this game apart and found everything the Wizard hid for you, it allows you to reach Ascension, where the game ends on a mysterious final data entry.

After I finished my first build in two days, I had a couple friends playtest it. They liked the ideas and I was satisfied with my challenge, even if it was rough in places. Cut to 9 months later, and I am in a new community called ATX Gamemakers. They’re hosting an event during SXSW (but not at SXSW) for any who want to showcase their games to an estimated 150 people. I snatched at the chance to show anyone what I was made of and for the next two weeks, I rewrote and redesigned a lot of the issues I had with Menu Mania. I added original music, a way to track progress, a way to reset progress, I developed an entire world (that does NOT appear in the game) and made a new character that is definitely a trapped consciousness of one of the developers commenting on the sorry state of this program. And then the time came on March 10th, 2024, to show off my game to as many people as I could.

Original Music

ATX Gamemakers Showcase

DISASTER

A TALE AS OLD AS TIME

As I was wrapping up the two weeks I had to develop Menu Mania, I thought I was done learning new things from my time working on it. But it seems the game had one challenge left for me, I had to export my game onto my 2012 Macbook to be able to transport it to the event. This means I had to change my export settings to Mac build, where I experienced a fatal blow to my project. As I was exporting build 1.3.2, which was to be my showcase build, Unity crashed! It crashed so bad, in fact, that it fully corrupted my project files!

Now I’m sure reading this you’re thinking, well, that’s no trouble, Nick’s a smart guy who backs up his projects, right?

…I did not.

Unless I fully remade the project, Menu Mania is as good as complete, although not in a way I would wish it. On the bright side, I will never forget source control for a project ever again, or write the project off as “not important enough” for it.

Rest in Peace, Menu Mania, I hope to revisit the world in the future, but for now the story is closed.