Overall, I really enjoyed making my IF game.
First, it was a creative writing exercise that was long overdue. I feel like so much of my writing in college is technical or to serve a specific purpose(e.g. PWR papers), but this assignment really let me be creative in a way that I usually don’t get to be.
Before this assignment, I’d never heard of IF before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect or what kind of game to make. After seeing a bunch of examples in class and playing a few games for the Read and Play (shoutout Papers, Please , I realized that there are so many directions I could go in. One thing I noticed is that a lot of IF games are very serious – so I wanted to take it in a lighter and more wholesome direction with stuffed animals. I wanted to create more positive empathy – encouraging people to improve.
One aspect I really enjoyed seeing was people’s reaction to my story. Many of them were delighted and found the characters cute, especially stuffed animal lovers. Adding Bowser’s sass and arrogant attitude at the beginning was fun, as well as adding specific character traits/tones to the other stuffed animals (such as Cork being silly and DJUNGELSKOG)..
In the future, I would like to add more visual design to my game. If I had more time, I think a cartoon-like or Animal Crossing-style visual would’ve served it super well (Bowser as an Animal Crossing character – I think he’d be super popular)!
I think I’m definitely inspired to keep the lessons I’ve learned through this assignment in mind as I develop future games, especially the parts about narrative and characterization. Even in a non-IF setting, those two aspects make games especially personal and compelling to me.
