link : https://orphicorayo.itch.io/omahakomada
Omaha Komada: Amphibian Edition
By: Ore Popoola
Artist Statement:
In this Interactive Fiction, you play as an investigative reporter in the ruins of DeathCorp. The first 5-trillion dollar company has been created in DeathCorp, which claims to have the ability to cure death. Your job is to investigate this. The goal of the game is to explore the ideas of non-humanness, what makes people feel not-human and how they cope with it. It also explores some themes of transcending the self from different philosophical perspectives, and hopes to question the idea of choice in a fun and interesting way.
Playtest 0: Grader Feedback for
Feedback:
- Story needed refining. Too much choice affected the submission of the narrative
- Social Media narrative seemed to fit less with the game
Changes Made:
Revamped directional change section. Changed dialogue from social media to manufactured self-image with the speech of Lucy Fur. Removed fluff and focused some of the plot as well as fixed some glitches in the way the story was told.
Playtest 1: 12/5/23
Feedback:
- Extremely anxiety inducing
- Emotionally attached to the frog
- Couldn’t finish narrative in time
- Loved atmosphere, anxiety, tension
- No major notes, extremely enjoyable
Changes:
A common theme I saw among all players was a love for the frog. As a result, I decided to expand the game with a comeback arc for the frog. I added a couple passages allowing the player the ability to demonstrate their humanity against the force of discrimination embodied in the frog. I also wanted to make sure that the learning goals were better assessed, so I decided to get some quantitative feedback by asking numerical questions during the playtest.
Playtest 2: 12/7/23
Feedback( 1 Woman 377G Student):
- Very rereadable, like prose poetry
- Different types of font could add a lot to the artistry
- Worldbuilding is wonderful
- Readers were confused, but in a good way
- Loved the
On a scale of 1-5, how well do you feel you understood the themes of racism:
4.5/5
On a scale of 1-5, how well do you feel you understood the themes of non-humanness:
5/5
Changes:
Assisted the storytelling by adding new fonts to the game. The note that the game was very replayable helped me better understand what drew players to the game. This helped me in editing the section with the frog.
Playtest 3: 12/7/23
Feedback:
- Beginning somewhat confusing
- Walls of text slowed down the pace of the game
- This game made me experience the Sublime
- Loved message about college and found it enlightening
- Was this inspired by Bioshock?
- Glitch at Grates:
- Take and Leave Glitch
- Wanted font change when reading notes versus having people speaking vs player thought
- Could add changing background colors
On a scale of 1-5, how well do you feel you understood the themes of racism:
4.5/5
On a scale of 1-5, how well do you feel you understood the themes of non-humanness:
5/5
Changes:
Added colors to some scenes to heighten the impact of the sections with Justice, the Frog, the Romeo Door, and the consumption of hearts. While both players enjoyed the sections with racial tension with Justice, the fan favorite was the Romeo and Juliet passages. Watching the player play, lead me to shorten some sections and lengthen others.
Reflection:
It was very fun to have the chance to go back to this game and add to it. It was initially very daunting, because I thought I had a complete plot when I finished the prior iteration. In this case, feedback from playtesters was key, and more important than what they said, was watching them from behind as they actually played the game and seeing what was unsaid. Through watching playthroughs, I could see how players got stuck around large sections of text, and yet how they got invested in the world around them. I could see the almost musical tempo of interaction created by the length of the text and the seriousness of a particular panel. I also used their feedback to know where to add a new section that would add to the narrative the most( the frog rematch).
Bonus! ( Omaha explanation)
Game Explanation:
Omaha is a story about being not-human. You come into deathCorp, and are killed immediately. This brings up the theme of life and death. Death is an intrinsic part of being human, and so the only way to achieve immortality is to be non-human. Death also plays on the theme of suicide, in that there are ways we sacrifice our humanity, committing a kind of suicide.
Why does Omaha Die?: Omaha dies as his old self is shed.
DeathCorp:
DeathCorp represents the self, and immortality by becoming God represents enlightenment.
The Frog:
The frog represents discrimination. You are not human enough to enter heaven, which is acceptance.
Whether that be because of the color of your skin, or the way you adhere to culture, or not enough a woman or a man, we fundamentally discriminate when we make others less than human. Omaha tries to get to heaven via the stairs in order to initially investigate DeathCorp, but is prevented by his sin of killing the frog. His killing ultimately allows him to become human enough to enter heaven.
Justice:
Justice presents an very easy philosophical dilemma: Save the child or don’t. This is a play on trolley problems which present tough decisions. This is ultimately a false choice: the child dies regardless. The decision not to spare the child represents the idea of rejecting the ability to play god over another’s life.
Romeo:
Romeo represents how body dysphoria can affect men, as well as depicts a fear of abandonment. It also goes into how we often have little choice in how our relationships play out.
Juliet:
The Juliet passage is a feminist take on how people mask aspects of themselves in order to fit in, as well as this same theme of lack of control.
Why the Immortality Machine? The Immortality machine is the means by which writing allows us to live forever.
Lucifer:
Dr. Lucy Fur represents the ideal of destroying god. Lucy Fur seeks enlightenment by destroying falseness( social media/self-image), and seeks various means of enlightenment, and finally realizes that the only way to change things is to kill god. As the God is the reader, this means that he is alluding to the fact that we need to spiritually destroy ourselves in order to transcend who we are.
God
The idea that God is everywhere and everything ties to the idea that man/woman, white/Asian, ideal body/other, are relative concepts that vary from person to person, but ultimately only exist in your head. The only thing that is real is your experience, and the reader is encouraged to “kill God” by letting go of their false sense of identity, and realize that all the characters in the game are different aspects of themselves.
Why do you kill Omaha at the beginning of the Game?
Partially to show that this is a game that you cannot fail. (Spiritual) Death is only the beginning of another adventure.
Why suicide?
This game is meant to show the various ways people kill parts of themselves and other themselves in order to fit in, with the literal analogy of suicide. Lucy Fur is the hero of the game who wants to destroy the false self(God) in order to for the spiritual death to change things.
Why so many different topics?
The goal of the game was to address the same topic of being othered(as in being made non-human) approached from several different perspectives.
