For my tiny playable prototype, I landed on the theme of rediscovering a family member’s identity after their death through their personal artifacts. I wanted the player to feel a sense of regret for how the main character didn’t get to know the family member during the time they were alive and feel the push to talk to their loved ones more in real life. A separate theme in my mind was how digital artifacts construct people’s memory of us, and I wanted to explore that idea in a future setting where people’s entire lives would be documented digitally for their descendants to find. I wanted the player to feel enchanted by the amount of details they were learning from the digital artifacts, but guilty for how much they were peaking into the family member’s private life.
My first prototype is made up of a couple context cards, a task list, an inventory (the hard drive and notepad), and a series of UI within the family member’s phone for the player to explore. While the details of the UI are not fleshed out, the idea is that the player would go into the family member’s phone in search of logistical information and memory artifacts but come to learn much more about this family member than they ever did before.
The first prototype: a series of note cards with events and UI drawn on it
I ran my first playtest with Luna during class 4A and discussed my prototype with Butch after class. Observations and feedback are included in the following list:
- It feels like there are two themes going on and I should prioritize one over the other (or just choose!): the theme of losing a loved one and rediscovering who they are after their death, and the theme of privacy in digital artifacts past our death
- The inventory set up is confusing: there should just be one place where users can save items to, not two (hard drive + notepad right now)
- The endings right now are not very effective or relevant to the theme of the game. If I were to lean into the idea of rediscovering a loved one’s identity after their death, there could be conversations with family members in the middle of the game, perhaps between checkpoints of finding items that were listed on the task list. Conversations around death and grief could alter the protagonist’s relationship to their family and their understanding of the family dynamic, and that might be a better direction for brainstorming game endings.
- Luna liked the idea of confronting with the goods and bads of an individual after their death – it’s a theme that I could or could not relate to the theme I have now
- I should focus on the FEELINGS that I want my players to get out of the game more, not the ending.
In class playtest
