Outside of class, I’ve been working on a game in the framework Love2D, which is a bit lower level than Unity or Godot. Thus, I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to practice Love2D.
I’ve also never really written a work of fiction since middle school, much less a game, so this was a new experience for me.
One thing I didn’t realize about making an IF game is that when writing a story, the artist naturally puts a lot of themselves into the project. I mean, I had a latent awareness that this was true, but now I fully understand what it means to put it out into the world to play.
For one, it can be really embarrassing! A lot of the elements of my story regarding reminiscence and gratitude are really personal to me, so I’m not sure what people will think about it – that makes feel a bit vulnerable and even a little scared that it won’t resonate.
Another thing I understand now is that a game often takes on a life of its own after making it. When I was younger, I used to love stories that I thought were “true to life” and “felt realistic”. This is still true, but I realize now that we don’t really love art just because it’s true to life. Paraphrasing the words of Oscar Wilde: “It is the spectator, and not life, that art truly mirrors.” We love art because it means something to us personally, and we can use art to give us new perspective or spur us to certain actions. In other words, once it’s out in the world, the game doesn’t really belong to me, but to the hearts of the people that played it, and what their interpretations of the game are.
But I think maybe the most important thing that I learned was that it’s okay for your first fiction game to not be as good as you want it to be. It is a two/three week project after all. In my case, I can only view my game as a series of regrets, all the things I didn’t get to implement in time, or all the text and story bits that I didn’t want to let go but was forced to discard to make the narrative a little more cohesive and to submit on time (and even then it was probably still too long).
I don’t know if I’ll work on another fiction game. All of my narrative and aesthetic inspirations are quite niche, so I’m not sure if the fiction I’d be interested in making would have much broad appeal. Still, the fact that I feel strongly that there’s so much narrative design space to be explored within my game, and so many ways I think I can make it better, is definitely a good thing. I’m glad there’s a lot of opportunity to grow – it gives me something to work towards.
