Unpaid Serenade for Future Solution Group [2026 eCon Grief/Heartbreak Singalong] by Sand-Gardeners
Unpaid Serenade... is a short interactive tragicomedy about climate anxiety and performing for strangers.
How to play:
The game is played with the mouse and keyboard. Use your mouse to advance dialogue and click through branching choices. When it's your turn on stage, to make sure you impress the audience please use your keyboard to quickly type out the words on the teleprompter.
Sorry about the intensity of the visuals! Warning for people with photosensitive epilepsy!
Content warning:
Climate change and climate denial. Intense depictions of anxiety, stress and public embarrassment.
Credits:
The Sand Gardeners are Sam Machell and Colin le Duc
Brownie Cove Polymer Person model by Moth
What a Wonderful World (1967) written by George Douglas and George Weiss, performed by Louis Armstrong, split by Spleeter
Ratings
| Overall | 63th | 4.236⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 686th | 3.486⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 136th | 4.028⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1239th | 3.389⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 80th | 4.514⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 86th | 4.194⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 298th | 3.567⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 10th | 4.569⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 47🗳️ | 51🗨️ |
Tho it made me feel little dizzy with the blurs and bright lights at few moments.
Overall it feels really well crafted!
Thanks you for your work! The audio and the post processing with dialogues do the job well for the global atmosphere. I felt some emotion by moments, the immerssion is very good.
> And this time I laught a little with dialogues xp
Thanks for morphing anxiety into art in a simple week end, it's a curious hobby but amazingly done.
And as always, a unique & pervasive atmosphere <3
The feeling of social anxiety is real, the mood is incredible, the sound design is on point, the graphics too. Aaaaand I suck at karaoke apparently :)
Bravo !
I really like the camera work, trippy art style and all the sounds that tie it all together. If this doesn't score top marks in mood then something went wrong. It gives me black mirror vibes, not sure entirely why but its a compliment for sure. Also you captured the anxiety of public speaking very well, surprisingly well. I loved the experience of your game. Well done, One of my favourites of this jam!
It was awesome that I had the opportunity to try this. Very well done! :thumbsup:
Really not a lot I can say except that the typing minigame was really awkward. I'm not sure how much it mattered though since the game doesn't really give any feedback on it.
I guess another thing I should mention is that I don't actually know what you were aiming for with the "protester". The lack of visuals as to what actually going on during that scene makes it difficult to determine who's what's going on and the fact he only gets three words out before getting "touched" suggests that randoms are trying to throw him out rather then security. Plus His words go back and forth between civility and just causing problems.
But ya, the writing is really good otherwise.
I really dig the visuals, how it interacts with the audio and the feelings of the protagonist. I love how awkward it made me feel in such a short time. The song... it was fantastic. I got some lines right, but most wrong. And that felt exactly like it should be. The visuales for the typing was perhaps a little bit too unclear, especially over some backgrounds that it was near impossible to see the progression and the time-bar. But, I really felt like the true experience of the game involves failing and so it didn't matter much.