Don't You Remember?

Designer-Choice Game

For my Designer-Choice game I picked my obsession with Halloween for my theme. I wanted to use this obsession because I have been very inspired by different Halloween themed games recently and I am looking forward to the holiday itself! I wanted to play with an eerie vibe for the game since it descends into darker themes, so I thought a Halloween carnival would be a fitting setting.

I intended to highlight the intricacies of memory and how it affects descisions / moral values. Through the game, the player character struggles to remember why they are making decisions, especially those that heavily impact their life and the people around them. I wanted to comment on if intentionality behind decision making can justify the decision itself. For example, if a mother steals medicine for her sick child, is it morally wrong? Do the characters in this story deserve to die based on what they have done to others?

There are three different endings to the story, each of which highlights a different consequence for what the player character chooses to do after they find out what they have done to their “friends” throughout the game. I also wanted to leave players with the question of is it better to forget doing terrible things or is taking responsibility more gratifying- a choice they get to make in the game if they go down one particular path.

The more prevalent craft elements I used to support this thematic argument are point of view, character and structure. I used the second person point of view through the game as well as having the player insert their own name to force them to connect to the character they play as. Since the character has the player’s name and the story is being told as if you are receiving consequences for your choices, the player can relate to the concepts and questions I raised in a deeper way than if they were simply reading it.

I used both character and structure to raise the stakes of the story. I wanted the final few choices in the game to be difficult. I wanted the player to question what they would truly do under the circumstances, and to make that choice difficult, I framed the other characters in the story as generally bad people. This use of characterization to force the player to decide if the characters deserved to die made the game more immersive, and in my opinion, more fun.

As I mentioned before, in terms of the working definition of a game that we have been discussing in class, I focused on the “requires players to struggle towards a goal” aspect of it. I don’t think I have ever played a game that doesn’t require some kind of action on the player’s end. Whether it be killing zombies in a high intensity game or organizing books on a shelf, there is always some kind of ‘struggle’, no matter how small it may seem. In my game, I make the struggle internal through the choices that needed to be made. Since I don’t have the coding skills to make a game where you physically see challenges happening, my game had to remain within the player’s imagination. This made the struggle less tangible, but I think still effective in relation to this definition.

For the structure of my game, I chose two different sources of inspiration. The beginning of my game is inspired by the key nodes structure from ‘Branching Infinity’. The player character makes small choices that overall have no true effect on the ending, but still give the player a sense of agency over the player character. After the choice to get on the Ferris wheel or not, I switched to a structure more similar to that of Bandersnatch. I allowed the player to go back to passages that they had already visited, but the passages change after the character learns new information, similar to Bandersnatch forcing you back in time if you make the “wrong” choice. The ending of my game was also similar to Bandersnatch because it has three different endings you can achieve. I liked the idea of players searching for endings (one of my friends needed to get every ending when they play tested my game), so I implemented the many endings to have some payoff for your choices.

Finally, I had a few friends playtest the game, some from class and some who had no idea what the project was. I received a lot of good feedback: I split some passages into two so they were more easily digestible, I added more choices to improve interactivity, I fixed a big plot error we found with one of the endings and I edited some word choices. Playtesting was really helpful for me because without it, my game would be tailored to just my preferences and it wouldn’t be as fun for other people. I think that a part of Nat’s lecture that really stuck with me was that you need to find a compromise between what you want your game to look like and the criticism you receive from people who play it. It is important to make the game playable for people if you plan to share it with others and make a game that you are proud which shows your creative style.

I hope you enjoy the game! I had a lot of fun making it :)