- notes from article:
2. reflections on playing 1) talking to my dad; 2) emily is away
- talking to my dad: https://hatimb00.itch.io/talking-to-my-dad
target audience: anyone who hasn’t been talking to their dads much
creator: hatimb00
platform: HTML5, GameMaker
short summary: I played talking to my dad for two times just to explore the different storylines. It was a short game – took me probably only under 10 minutes to complete one full storyline. It is about a college student’s conversation with his dad while they are on the road driving.
I think the only narrative strategy this game employs is the evocative spaces. Because it is based on a very relatable and personal concept that a lot of people have experiences about – which is also stated plainly in the title of the game – talking to dad. The visuals and possible actions of the game are very minimalistic – the environment doesn’t change at all throughout the game, it is a view from the backseat of a car where you can only the back of the head of two characters – supposedly ‘you’ and dad. This also helps the players to project themselves and their parents into the seat. The actions a player can do are also only through clicking the mouse to choose from choices of answers and pressing the spacebar. This minimalistic aesthetic and game mechanism really direct the player’s attention to the actual content of the conversation and leave room for the player to feel the emotional weight behind it.
Talking with my dad is a choice-based interaction fiction with only light visuals. This design decision aligns with the minimalist principle the game establishes, as players can only choose from several possible branches of conversation topics based on their choice in the game. They also cannot leave the car or the conversation, even though they have slight control over the pace of the conversation through pressing the spacebar. The radio is an interesting setup in the game as well because just as in real life, when you are in car with someone and don’t know what to talk about, the radio could be a good way to help you escape the conversation. By allowing the player to adjust the volume and the stations, the game allows the player to immersively tune out of the conversation that they cannot escape from.
This decision makes the narrative light but tense. A short list of options is intentionally designed for the player to feel constraint in their choices – having to fit what they want to say into what they can say.
I was captured by the title and setting initially because it feels personally resonating. The game draws attention to a young adult coming home who is struggling with mental health, feels alienated from his family, and is carrying an identity he hasn’t shared. I appreciate the detail that this person might also be an international student in the game setting (because in the game dad was asking about whether his therapist is American and said local therapists may understand him better than westerners). But I can also empathize towards the dad who’s been trying hard to make conversation happen. So I think the game actually draws empathy towards the intergenerational gap between the two characters, not only one side of it.
Feelings it evoked – complicated mix of nostalgia, anxiety and sadness, and some dark humor at how abrupt the ending is.
- States the game’s target audience, name, creator, platform, short summary overview of the game played (mention how much was played). Also, provide a link to the game’s webpage.
- Addresses the narrative strategies the game used (4 E’s) and how this contributed towards the game’s aesthetics.
- Discusses the game’s subgenre (Parser Fiction, Visual Novel, Choose Your Own Adventure, Kinetic Novel, etc.) and what affordances this decision had for its narrative. If it’s multiple, or more difficult to describe the subgenre due to a unique mechanic, make sure to mention that as well!
- Mentions facets of the game that act as inspiration/criticism you hope to take into consideration while writing your own narratives. This includes any notable “gimmicks” or unique factors.
- Includes visual evidence (screenshots from game, images from game website, etc.) to supplement thoughts and statements.
- Answers the following questions: What did the game attempt to draw empathy towards? How did it do so, and did you think it was successful (through your perspective)? Overall, what feelings did this game evoke, and how?
- Emily is Away: on steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/417860/Emily_is_Away/
target audience: anyone who has navigated a long-term complicated relationship/friendship
creator: Kyle Seeley
platform: Steam
short summary: this is a narrative game exploring your relationship with Emily over the course of five years. A lot has happened in life and your relationship with her has also been shifting a lot depending on your choices. I played through the whole game twice, with the second time intentionally choosing some radically different options in actions. It took me around 1 hour to play in total.
The narrative strategies involved include: evocative spaces, enacted narrative and embedded narrative.
Evocative – The game’s windows XP desktop and system interface and buddy icons from 2000s pop culture all evoked the nostalgia from that era. The players therefore can supply all the emotional context needed for the game.
Enacted – The player has to experience through the game by picking the responses and actually typing them out. The story moves through a journey in time over 5 years. There is a gap in between this year’s conversation and next which gives the player a feeling of time slipping away and responsibility that their choices mattered to how the journey will move forward.
Embedded – I noticed the buddy profiles of other people provide context information that is not directly involved in the main narrative. For example, Brad’s profile mentioned how he messed up and ended up hurting people. The time skips from year to year / chapter to chapter forces you to reconstruct what happened from the current conversation. I also think the typing-and-deleting mechanic is a delicate design because it subtly showed the inner monologue of the protagonist and what they almost said but ended up deleting – also a way to understand more of / reconstruct the whole narrative. This adds some ambiguity and FOMO feeling to the aesthetic of the game.
Genre: I think this game is a choice-based Choose Your Own Adventure type of IF. Because the game gives you the illusion of free action by allowing you to type but what you end up typing out is pre-written messages. Because this game sort of combined multiple different genres, the affordances vary a bit too. The deleting mechanism really makes some emotional chaos when the protagonist repeatedly erases questions about the relationship against the player’s will. This makes the player feel a sense of helplessness while experiencing the protagonist’s cowardice first hand.
The typing status indicator, sign-offs, and away messages create suspense and silence using the real rhythms of online messaging. The chapter gaps design really create some suspense and mystery around Emily and the player’s relationship with her.
Some gimmicks I had include the constant typing fatigue, I wish I could jump ahead sometimes without having to type so much. Some of the information/choices in the game didn’t have a closure point or get used later in the game – sometimes the choice is flagged as being remembered as Emily but none of the later incidents reflect how that choice impacted what happened.
Empathy: I think the game designs for people to empathize with this experience of friends grow apart because of life. But also invites empathy towards what the protagonist never said – fear of saying what they feel, and the regret of not doing so. I also felt for Emily, who even though in the game appeared to not have enough emotional agency, because some of her experiences and though processes felt relatable and familiar too.
