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ScrollTok Creator: Interview Q&A
9/26/25
Q1: To start, could you give us the elevator pitch for ScrollTok?
A: ScrollTok is a life-simulation game where you step into the shoes of a modern-day social media user. The core experience is about managing your daily life, your finances, your mental health, and your time; while navigating the complex world of online content creators. You watch videos, trade cryptocurrency, and try to build relationships with digital personalities, all while just trying to make it to the next day.
Q2: The game's main interface is a video feed, similar to TikTok. What was the goal in replicating that experience?
A: The goal was to create an immediately familiar environment. The short-form video feed is the language of the modern internet. By using that format, I immerse the player in the game's world without a steep learning curve. The core loop of scrolling, liking, and interacting is intuitive, allowing us to layer more complex simulation mechanics on top of it.
Q3: The game features four distinct creators: Chloe, Luna, Rey, and Maya. What was the thinking behind creating these specific archetypes?
A: I wanted to explore the different types of parasocial relationships that form online. The code defines each creator with a unique personality - "sweet," "dominant," "playful," and "mysterious." This is reinforced by a massive, tailored pool of dialogue responses. This design allows players to see how their interaction style and financial support are received differently by various online personas, making the relationship-building aspect more dynamic.
Q4: A core mechanic is "Mental Health." Why did you decide to make that a primary stat for the player to manage?
A: It was crucial for us to reflect the real-world impact of being extremely online. The mentalHealth variable is a resource that depletes from financial stress, negative random events, and loneliness. It can also be boosted by positive interactions. If it hits zero, it's game over. This mechanic serves as a commentary on the need for balance and the potential downsides of the digital world I am simulating.
Q5: The game has a dual economy with Cash and BTC (Bitcoin). What does this add to the gameplay?
A: It adds a layer of financial strategy and risk. Cash, as seen in the cashBalance state, is for predictable daily expenses and direct interactions like tipping creators. BTC, with its fluctuating price tracked in btcPriceHistory, represents a more volatile investment. The in-game "BTC Exchange" allows players to engage with market dynamics, creating opportunities for significant gains or losses and adding another dimension to resource management.
Q6: Let's talk about the mini-games. Why did you add "Rocket Rush," a clear form of gambling?
A: I included the "Rocket Rush" crash game to provide a high-risk, high-reward path for earning money. It stands in stark contrast to the slow, predictable grind of the "Crypto Mining" work feature. It's a way for a player who is falling behind financially to potentially catch up in a single moment, but also a way for them to lose everything. It adds tension and reflects the get-rich-quick schemes often associated with online crypto culture.
Q7: And what about the "Crypto Mining" feature? What is its purpose?
A: The "Crypto Mining" view serves as the game's "work" system. It gives the player an active, albeit repetitive, way to generate resources by spending a daily replenishing "Energy" stat. The system is designed with an upgrade path, allowing players to invest their cash to improve their mining yield. It’s the slow-and-steady counterpart to the high-stakes trading and gambling.
Q8: The "Random Events" can be quite punishing. What role do they play in the game's design?
A: Life is unpredictable, and I wanted the game to reflect that. The large array of randomEvents - from finding a $20 bill to a sudden market crash or an unexpected bill introduces uncertainty. They prevent the gameplay from becoming a solved mathematical equation and force the player to maintain a financial buffer to handle emergencies, making each day feel less certain than the last.
Q9: The dialogue and messaging system seems incredibly detailed. How does it actually work?
A: It's one of the most complex systems in the game. Based on the dialoguePool and personalityMap objects in the code, every creator has a set of preferred interaction styles. When a player chooses a dialogue option, it's tagged with a type like "flirty" or "supportive" and has a point value. This choice directly impacts the numerical relationships score, and the creator's response is pulled from a list specifically written for their archetype, making conversations feel unique to them.
Q10: What is the ultimate "win" condition of ScrollTok?
A: There isn't a traditional "You Win!" screen. Success in ScrollTok is about survival and achieving personal goals. Can you maintain positive mental health? Can you achieve financial stability and grow your net worth? Can you build meaningful (within the game's context) relationships with creators? The game ends when you fail by running out of cash or mental health so the primary objective is simply to keep going, to thrive in the digital world I've built.
Q11: How do the difficulty settings: Normal, Hard, and Extreme change the experience?
A: The difficultySettings object in the code directly modifies the game's economic balance. Higher difficulties increase your dailyCosts, raise the unlockCost for special content, and reduce your starting cash. This forces the player to be far more strategic with their spending and earning from day one, making the simulation significantly more challenging.
Q12: Is the game intended as a commentary on the "creator economy" and platforms like OnlyFans or Patreon?
A: The game's mechanics are certainly designed to make the player think about those platforms. The core loop involves spending real-world currency (in-game cash) for attention and content from digital personalities. The responses from creators are often transactional, tying back to tips and financial support. I leave it to the players to draw their own conclusions, but the systems are in place to simulate and highlight the dynamics of those economies.
Q13: How does the video discovery system work? Can players scroll forever?
A: No, and that's a key design choice. The distributeVideosByDay function shows that new videos are unlocked in small batches each day. This prevents players from just mindlessly grinding through content. It makes each new day meaningful, as it brings a fresh set of videos to the feed, and it paces the player's introduction to new creators and content.
Q14: What was the most challenging feature to implement in the game?
A: Without a doubt, the creator interaction system. Writing hundreds of unique dialogue lines for four different personalities in the creatorResponses object and ensuring they were triggered correctly by the player's choices was a massive undertaking. Balancing the relationship point system to feel rewarding but not too easy was also a delicate process that required a lot of tuning.
Q15: What do you hope players take away from their time with ScrollTok?
A: I hope they have a compelling and thought-provoking experience. On one level, it's a challenging resource management game. On a deeper level, I hope it encourages players to think critically about their own relationship with social media, online personalities, and the attention economy that shapes so much of modern digital life.
Thank you for our discussion.
A new browser-based life-simulation game, "ScrollTok," offers a compelling and often stark look into the world of online content creators and the fans who support them. In an interview, the game's creator described the project as a simulation of modern digital life, where players must juggle their finances, mental health, and online relationships to survive.
The game places players in a familiar short-form video feed, where they can like, follow, and tip one of four distinct creator archetypes, each with a unique personality and an extensive, reactive dialogue system. The gameplay revolves around managing a tight budget against daily expenses while trying to build numerical "relationship" scores with these online figures. Key features include a volatile cryptocurrency market for players to trade in, a "crash"-style gambling mini-game for high-stakes cash infusions, and a constant barrage of unpredictable random life events. According to the creator, the inclusion of a "Mental Health" metric, which can lead to a game over if neglected, was a deliberate choice to comment on the real-world pressures of an always-online existence. "ScrollTok" stands as a fascinating, if cynical, simulation of the digital age's complex attention economy.
ScrollTok is available on F95Zone for free.