Postmortem

My game is inspired by a sad period in my life that was only alleviated by the time I spent with my close friends and the intimate moments I shared with them whenever we simply played a game. My design process for this project focused on putting the player in the headspace that really made these kind, tender moments really stick out to me when they happened. By showing the player the avatar's low sense of self worth, the contrast of realizing that his friends are consistent in their affection, even through small things like a stream of messages, sticks out even further by contrast. I also wanted to make it shown that the avatar is, in a sense, out of touch with reality, with them drawing random conclusions out of completely unrelated interactions while in reality none of what they say is true as evident through the interaction with their friends. These unrelated interactions took the shape of the avatar’s house items and the self slights they made almost immediately after. 

Properties of Bitsy I really utilized were its sprite editor, the dialog feature, and inventory system. With the sprite editor I was able to make a nice decorative environment for my game with furniture sprites like tables, chairs, rugs, etc. and clearly distinguished interactable items as well. The dialog feature was used for things like item descriptions/interactions along with actual dialogue with the friend characters, all of which are meant to show the meaningfulness an intimate relationship with friends can have when put against a backdrop of self-loathing. It may not seem like much but just having people who are actively excited to have you around and who will do things to simply make sure you’re present is very, very, redeeming. The inventory system was used to keep track of “self-loathing” which the player needed in order to become low enough to want to distract themselves with video games. They had to “be at their lowest” to really show how much an intimate relationship was needed.This was also a way of making the player interact with their environment and in turn understand the avatar’s state of mind.

In this game I am most proud of the source. I'm happy that I got to make a game that resembles a part of my life even if it was small and simple. Whether it be satisfactory or not I love every memory I share with my friends and at the thought of intimacy I think of those late night talks with them. I’m proud that I showed everyone that and that, in a way, I’ve put their kindness in my work. 

The only thing that didn’t turn out as expected was that originally my game wasn’t supposed to have a constant stream of messages. Instead, my game was only meant to have the friend interaction at the end. It was recommended to me that I should make the intimacy more consistent throughout the game rather than all grouped up at the end. I still wanted to put emphasis on the negative mindset so then I decided to make it that your friends have actually been trying to initiate interactions with you the entire time. 

In my next project I’d definitely focus on adding more visuals. I didn’t use them this time because I thought the game was better without them but my previous game utilized Bitsy’s 2 frame animations and text effects. My game just seems a bit lacking in character without them. I also chose not to add music this time to add to the emphasis of the text message dings you hear throughout the game.