Pop Culture, Pride, and the Game Inspired by their Connection
This is a submission for the June Solstice Game Jam I've been in online queer communities for a long time, and one thing that's always stood out is the endearing obsession with pop culture. The artists, the music, the fashion, the references. Every form of art gets appreciated, deeply analyzed, and celebrated. Diva Academy is an attempt to reflect that energy and honor Pride month and the pop culture that comes with it. What I Built Diva Academy is a pop culture trivia adventure. You play as a fresh face entering a campus where the currency is knowledge. The questions cover everything from ballroom culture and drag history to Beyoncé's discography and the origins of the Pride flag. The game runs in sessions: NPCs challenge you to timed trivia battles. Reach your REP(utation) goal to win, or hit zero and you're out. Earned REP converts to permanent currency between sessions, making it a rogue-lite-lite-lite experience where you gradually get stronger even when you lose. The game is built with vanilla HTML5 Canvas, CSS, and JavaScript. It features: 6 explorable rooms 4 NPC tiers - Starlet , Diva , DJ , and Mother - each with distinct personalities and increasing difficulty A rival system where a recurring NPC named Vex Vivienne spawns across the map and hunts you down A permanent perk system where REP earned in each run converts to permanent currency for buying perks like Grace (forgive one wrong answer), Clutch (survive at 0 REP once), and Haste (extra time on the timer) A Spotlight mechanic - defeat a Diva-tier or higher NPC and you earn a one-time 1.5x REP buff for your next face-off Two minigames - Hangman (guess the pop star name) and Pop Connect (link two artists through a mathematically perfect, AI-grounded collaboration graph with look-ahead validation) The Turing Challenge - Archivist Alan tests your ability to distinguish real pop culture quotes from AI-generated fabrications A customization system that unlocks new dress and hair colors as you defeat NPCs An