Overview

It’s the summer of ‘85, and Heather’s just made a decision that may upend her whole life: submitting an application for a job in New York City, all the way across the country, and away from, for the first time in 13 years, her best friend Nicole. With the application submitted, there’s nothing left to do but wait… and choose how to spend her last weekend with Nicole.

You can play the game online here: https://syenko.itch.io/the-words-we-dont-say. Trigger warnings: negative self-talk. 

I recommend playing it before continuing reading as spoilers are imminent.

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Inspired by two of my favorite movies, La La Land and Past Lives, I initially wanted to make a game about the futility of life and how some scenarios or relationships, although they may be perfect, are simply not meant to be by the test of time or beyond. On the surface, The Words We Don’t Say is a game about loss and how to cope with losing your best friend. However, I also wanted to capture the feeling of how, sometimes, although things may feel hopeless, they’re really not as bad as they seem. Sometimes, even if you can’t change the outcomes, at least you can change the way you view it. The Words We Don’t Say is ultimately a game about the impacts of self-doubt and the importance of being honest with both yourself and the people around you. It’s a game about friendship and trust and the importance of having a little bit of hope.

With The Words We Don’t Say, I aimed to create empathy for people with self-doubt about their friendships. Players play as Heather, whose struggles with self-doubt cause her to question and potentially harm her relationship with her best friend Nicole. Over the course of the three days, Heather struggles to reconcile her own self-doubts with Nicole’s actions, using the journal and the ability to cross out words to express what she does or doesn’t want to say or even admit to herself. While players deliberately do not have much choice in changing the outcomes of the story (no matter what happens, Nicole always leaves), they can significantly change the way Heather thinks about scenarios, building up her confidence to admit her own fears to herself. 

In the end, if players have had Heather be honest, it’s revealed that the whole conflict—the job application that causes them to be split apart—comes from Heather’s self-doubt. By being honest with herself, Heather can then garner the confidence to apply on her own behalf this time. However, no matter how Heather chooses to think about the scenario, Nicole stays by her side and affirms their friendship. With this consistency of Nicole staying her friend, I wanted to emphasize how self-doubt can make events feel catastrophic. However, trusting and communicating with the people you love can help you tackle your fears and even strengthen your friendships. 

Branching Choice Map

Iteration History

My idea started with the concept of losing a friend, where in the end, it’s all your own doing. From this, I came up with the main plot of the game: you spend your last three days with your friend before the response to a job application that sends you across the country arrives, only to learn at the end, you submitted the job application for your friend, instead of yourself. The idea was to capture both how players deal with loss, such as choosing what activities you do when you have a limited amount of time left, and how self-doubt can be damaging. Your own self-doubt holds you back from sharing information that your friend would be more than happy to help you with.

While I initially considered creating a visual novel in second person, where the player played through the thoughts and interactions of Heather with Nicole in real time, I ultimately settled on the medium of a journal. In a journal, Heather can write her thoughts, then cross them out to show herhe m own uncertainty. Additionally, the story is only told from a single perspective, allowing Heather to exert greater control over the narrative and allowing me to demonstrate how self-doubt can make you see the world in a way that’s simply incorrect.

Playtest 1: 10/25 Jeffery

For my first playtest, I wanted to test the core components of my story: the initial setup, the medium, and the initial decisions. I wrote the first two scenes (the job application and planning her first day) and set up the game in Twine.

Jeffery, a fellow CS377G student, doesn’t particularly enjoy visual novels and interactive fiction as games but he has played them before. Additionally, he mentioned he resonated with the idea of drifting away from people you are close to. Jeffery would likely be in my target audience.

Key Takeaways:

• The voice feels realistic and tends to garner sympathy (in a good way).  
• The medium works well. In particular, the affordances of a journal are interesting, such as a strikethrough.
• However, because it is a journal, there’s some tension in narrating current events. The current version had a “mailbox scene” which occurred live: it’s funny, but forces the reader to suspend their disbelief.
• Having the player infer what happened between the journal entries is interesting and doesn’t negatively impact gameplay. 
• There are a couple mechanical points that could be improved by greater affordances (eg: choosing which photo option is a little confusing, difficult to click through all options).

After this playtest, I continued to write the rest of my story. 

I chose to lean into the absurdity of narrating current events: Heather actively acknowledges how her writing in her journal during events is a little strange to the people around her. This allowed me to keep the pacing of the player making choices as they happen in key moments. However, the story largely revolved around the cycle of making plans and then reflecting on them. 

I also heavily relied on the mechanic of crossing out and rewriting lines to symbolize Heather’s uncertainty. 

Playtest 2: 10/26 Emma (in class)

By this playtest, I had completed the majority of my story, aside from the inclusion of Nicole’s final letter. 

Emma, a fellow CS377G student, has played and enjoyed narrative games before and would likely be in my target audience.

Key Takeaways: 

• She enjoyed how the player was catching up to the character. The player is thrust into this character’s journal, where they must figure out what the character already knows and that tension is fun.
• When choices revolved around something that was crossed out, it was very powerful. 
  • However, it was confusing to understand which choice was “correct.” Oftentimes, choosing the choice that covered up her feelings felt better because it initially seems like a positive interaction. 
• The initial emotional takeaway was around the player struggling with telling their friend a pivotal decision. When asked about additional takeaways, she mentioned how the character was very anxious and struggled with the uncertainty of “where they would go from here.” 
• Emma was not sure how Nicole felt about Heather, since the journal was only told from Heather’s perspective.
• The twist (Heather applying on behalf of Nicole) felt unclear. Because the story ended so abruptly after, the player was left unsure why Heather had applied on Nicole’s behalf.
• Exploring the use of the medium more (such as through flashbacks or photos) could be interesting.

I used this feedback to guide how I wrote the final letter. I explicitly described how Nicole felt about Heather (and how she has always felt about Heather) to provide more context on their friendship. I had Nicole explicitly mention how Heather had self-doubt, but affirm their friendship nonetheless.

However, I was still left with uncertainty about the effectiveness of communicating my message. While writing the rest of the story, I realized that the medium of a journal lent itself well to tell the story of how self-doubt can damage one’s lives and friendships. Thus, I chose to focus on the message of how self-doubt can cause you to miss the truth in front of you, rather than the message of what it is like to lose a friend. However, that was not the first emotional takeaway Emma had. I hoped the letter, affirming Nicole’s friendship with Heather, and being the final thing players read, would help clarify that message.

Playtest 3: 10/28 Noé (in class)

Noé, a fellow CS377G student, has played many games, including narrative games and would likely be in my target audience.

Key Takeaways:

• The general premise and medium continued to be enjoyable.
• Noé particularly enjoyed the letter, especially how Nicole both gently pointed out Heather’s self-doubt (being outside the frame) and reaffirmed their friendship through taking a photo. 
• However, it was difficult to understand that the narrator is unreliable and that her self-doubt causes her to misunderstand her and Nicole’s relationship.
• The final letter, where Nicole reaffirmed her friendship with Heather, came as a surprise to Noé. While the surprise was welcomed, he mentioned he genuinely believed that the relationship was doomed and was left with a feeling of regret for choosing to “throw it away.”
• While there were subtle mentions of Heather incorrectly interpreting Nicole’s kind gestures that showed Nicole really did care for Heather as a friend, they were buried in paragraphs of text. Noé mentioned that he skimmed these and did not pick up on the subtlety.

To address Noé’s confusion and make it more clear how self-doubt was damaging throughout the story, I chose to add a new choice structure to the story. 

While previously, players would simply plan which event they wanted to do, then broadly reflect on the entire event, I changed it so that players would specifically plan what they thought would go wrong and could choose whether to acknowledge their fear or cover it up. Then, in each event, Nicole would do something that affirms their friendship, contrary to their fears. The player then had a choice to accept that Nicole was affirming their friendship or explain it away (such as saying “Nicole was just being polite”). 

Thus, the player actively had to make choices exposing how their self-doubt was at odds with reality and could choose how far to take it. 

Playtest 4: 10/29 Henri

 

Henri is a big enthusiast of video games and really enjoys narrative games. He would definitely be in my target audience. 

Key Takeaways:

• In terms of the emotional impact and takeaways, he first mentioned how he strongly related to the loss of a close friend via moving away. 
• However, he also mentioned how the medium and overall story really emphasizes the character’s self-doubt, both from the constant choices they ask themselves and crossing out their own writing.
  • Specifically, he got the sense that Heather was consistently worried about how much Nicole cared about her, while in reality they both cared for each other.
  • More communication was necessary to mend their relationship.
  • Henri mentioned it would feel realistic to have a “crashout,” resulting from Heather’s insecurities.
• Although he had unlocked the option, he chose not to tell Nicole why Heather never applied herself because he didn’t want to take Nicole’s moment.
• Because the letter was always the same, there were some parts (such as mentioning that Nicole knew Heather sent the application) that were unclear. 
• He mentioned it would be nice to see the scribbles and imagine that it was actually handwritten. He also mentioned that it would be powerful to see the photos.

Henri’s playtest affirmed that the new choices explicitly forcing the player to interact with Heather’s self-doubt effectively contributed to communicating the message. 

However, what I had initially considered to be the “best ending,” telling Nicole the whole truth, Henri explicitly chose not to take because he didn’t want to take Nicole’s moment. To make this more impactful, I chose to split this choice of telling her and then telling her the reason why into two choices, so the focus was more on honesty rather than “is this the right time.” 

I also added a rambling “confession/crashout” of sorts before this honesty option that explained Heather’s deepest fears. This both served to emphasize her self-doubt, but also helped clarify the message. I realized it was more powerful for Heather to have sent the application on behalf of Nicole because she was doubtful of their friendship, not (only) because she was doubtful of her own skills.

I also made some minor wording changes to make sure the letter was consistent and relatively not repetitive in various playthroughs. 

Finally, I added graphical polish, changing the background to make it look like a journal, using a handwritten font, having the text and scribbles animate in, and having the player physically turn the page.

Playtest 5: 10/30 Preston

Preston does not usually play video games and has not played narrative games. He also mentioned he prefers reading informational text where the causal relationships are very clear and each word is meaningful. He would not be in my target audience; nonetheless, the playtest was very informative.

Key Takeaways: 

• Preston stated that his choices felt meaningless.
  • During the playthrough, two of his choices were scribbled out and replaced with a “worse choice” and it wasn’t clear that the previous choices caused it. This caused him to feel the game was forcing him down one specific path.
  • It wasn’t clear why “positive choices” (like saying “this is fine”) had negative effects.
  • The initial choice of choosing the photos felt meaningless. 
• On the affordances:
  • Preston preferred to read whole sentences / paragraphs at a time so he would frequently press the spacebar to skip the animation. However, this resulted in the scribbles animation (first showing the written text, then crossing it out) to be bypassed, minimizing its impact.
  • The turn page indicator was unclear. At the end of the first page, I had to tell him to click the corner to turn the page.
• This was the first playtest where the player selected “No” to whether Heather sent the application.
  • The player resultantly learned less about both Heather and Nicole, but the letter carried more weight because they missed out on their opportunity to open up.

This was the first playtest where the player chose the non-honest option, causing two of their choices to be scribbled out. While this was intended to show the impact of not being honest and the difficulties of overcoming self-doubt, the message was lost and Preston interpreted it to be as though the game was trying to force them through a single path. Additionally, the first choice the player makes (the photographs) was made with almost no context and didn’t seem to have an impact on either the story or the game. 

I changed the photographs so they were impactful to the story as more than a nice reference. The player was now given context for each photo that expanded once they selected it and each photo related to one of Heather’s fears explored in each of the four activites. The player learns a little about the photos Heather didn’t pick in the form of Heather minimizing her emotions towards them, which is consistent with my theme.

I also implemented changes related to making it clear why the choices were what they were, but this wasn’t implemented until Playtest 7 (read more there). 

For the affordances, I added a settings panel allowing players to adjust the reading speed and also choose an option which fades in entire sentences at a time. Additionally, if the player pressed spacebar to skip the animation, it now stops at each scribble and they would need to click again to trigger it, to keep the emotional impact. I also added explicit labeling and a bouncing arrow to make the turn page indicator clear. 

I chose to leave the ending path where the player chose to say “No” unchanged. I think the final letter still reveals Heather’s insecurities and their friendship so that the player has a sense of clarity. However, it’s consistent with my messaging that choosing to be dishonest to your friend at a pivotal moment blocks you from opening up and reflecting on your own issues. 

Additionally, because Preston chose not to tell Nicole that Heather had sent the application, I did not test the new way I had split the ending. 

Playtest 6: 10/30 Snoopy

I conducted this playtest shortly after Preston’s and had only implemented the new settings panel and revised the initial choice with photos. I had not yet implemented the changes to how choices got scribbled out.

Snoopy, a fellow CS377G student, has played a variety of games, including narrative games and would be in my target audience.

Key Takeaways:

• At my new decision, choosing to tell Nicole her fear or not, he chose to have Heather keep it to herself, as something Heather had to work on. He chose not to tell Nicole, not because he didn’t believe it, but because he felt like it wasn’t the right moment.
• Despite this, Snoopy still had a strong emotional reaction to the story. He stated he was “happy with the way it ended up as it did” and he “couldn’t see it turning out any other way.”
• He also expressed how he empathized with the feeling of “not wanting to be clingy, but wanting support, and wanting to set someone up for success, and not wanting to be that chain around their ankle,” which was the exact emotional response I was hoping for. 

Snoopy’s reaction to my ending was eye-opening. I realized that the current choice structure emphasized the wrong message. I wanted to emphasize the importance of being honest to yourself. However, instead of having players choose whether or not to be honest, I made them choose whether or not to tell their friend their emotional turmoil, which is a different question.  

I rewrote the final decision so the key decision was whether or not to be honest to themselves. This became the key choice that was gated by the choices in the rest of the game: they had to be honest at least one other time in order to be honest then. Then, the player had the choice to tell them the full truth or just share they didn’t think they would get it and either choice would lead to them choosing to apply as well. 

This also gated Heather’s confession about her doubts behind this choice, which emphasizes my messaging: if the player had continually chosen to suppress their thoughts, it would be inconsistent for Heather to change that at the final moment. 

Playtest 7: 10/30 Ria and Malti

Based on the feedback from Playtest 5 (Preston), I wanted to make it more clear why the choices were what they were to increase the sense of player agency. To do so, I adjusted the mechanic of when a player’s choice would get scribbled out and how that was handled. Previously, a single choice could cause two to be scribbled out, with little to no explanation. I changed it so now the choice right before a gated moment can always unlock it: a player who tries to change their ways now has the agency to do so. 

I also changed it so instead of replacing a choice with a worse choice, Heather still scribbles out the choice, but rewrites it, acknowledging that at the time she couldn’t accept it, but now, she is able to. I also explicitly describe what the player had chosen that caused her to not accept Nicole’s gesture to demonstrate the causality.  

Ria and Malti have played some narrative games (specifically Episode / Sims) before and would likely be in my target audience. 

Key Takeaways:

• When asked about her choice being scribbled out, Malti specifically said not only did she not find it frustrating, but she really liked how that emphasized the character’s self-doubt: “I liked it when she wrote it, scribbled it out, and rewrote it, because then it was the affirmation one, and then she didn’t believe it, and then she rewrote it to make herself believe it.”
• Both players had a strong emotional takeaway, with Ria saying “I lowkey almost cried at some points.” Malti specifically stated that she thought the game was about a long-term friendship and how the fear of holding each other back was getting in the way of that. However, it’s ultimately a miscommunication and a misunderstanding because they cared about each other in the end. 
• Some of the choices (like bringing a pen / camera) felt a little silly, but the players took it as Heather just being a little quirky.

This playtest affirmed the core emotional loop was strong. I made some small clarity changes to adjust the wording and give context to the strange choices. I also added an opening and closing scene. 

Playtest 8: 10/31 Rachel

Watch here: https://youtu.be/FIu3Lr4vzhs

Rachel loves narrative games and is my ideal target audience. 

Annotated Timestamps:

0:37: “Oh the crossing out! I like that.”

2:58: “I like that! I’m the exact same way” Rachel has a positive reaction, relating to the character writing a worry then crossing it out.

3:10: “I like the animation… wow that was beautiful!” Rachel likes the affordances.

3:20: “I like this person so much. He’s so real!” 

4:26: “It’s the type of thing I care about! Oh man…” Rachel feels regret at crossing out the option the character cares about. 

6:10: Rachel accidentally triggers my computer’s hot corner (not a bug).

6:45: “Aww we like Nicole.” Rachel realizes that Nicole is actually a sweet friend, despite Heather’s worries.

8:54: “I feel like this is true, but I want to believe this. Words matter. We’ll believe that.” Rachel names one of the core messages of the game: how what we choose to believe is important. 

10:33: Rachel audibly gasps at the twist.

11:25: Rachel visibly sitting back, shocked and curious about their confrontation. 

12:16: “Write it down, write it down, write it down” Rachel really wants the character to be honest with themselves and hopes they succeed.

12:25: “*Gasps* noo…” Rachel reacts to reading Heather’s confession, saddened, with her hand over her mouth. 

13:05: “This text is so real, it feels like something actually wrote it.”

14:07-17:35: Rachel leaves to put on sunscreen – ignore this part of the video – 

19:40: “Nobody’s ever believed in me. Wow.”

21:02: “Awww this is so cute” after reading the letter.

21:48: Rachel starts giving feedback

21:48: “I don’t think I’ve played a video game in a long time that feels so real. Like the way this person is constantly reassuring themselves felt like something I would have written in my own journal.” 

22:13: “I really like the ending where she’s like, I need you to follow me. Like the lines just hit so hard.”

22:41: “By the end, I feel like I had a lot of empathy for Heather.”

22:58: Rachel talks about how she really liked the graphical polish.

23:52: Rachel discusses how the game makes you consider other perspectives and how the way other people view things might not be what you expect. 

24:45: “They could just be very very close friends who maybe need to be more open about the way they feel about each other.”

Final Touches

• Changed the name to “The Words We Don’t Say” (as suggested by Rachel!)
• Adjusted first screen to have a lighter wood background to tonally match the story
• Made text descriptions next to photos larger

Reflection

Overall, I think this project was pretty successful in its goals, especially in its final iterations. It was fascinating to see different people’s emotional responses. Some players, like Snoopy and Rachel, journaled before and had a strong connection to the characters and the emotions they went through. Others, like Malti and Ria, went in with the mindset of wanting to “fix” the character or improve their life, but came out with a better understanding of the difficulties of trying to do that immediately. 

Through creating an enacted narrative—having players live Heather’s life and write Heather’s thoughts—regardless of whether players had shared or experienced those feelings, they came out learning a little bit of what it was like.

I’m also proud of how this project evolved to land on that emotional core. It kept the initial premise of a semi-embedded narrative, hiding the twist within clues and what Heather didn’t say, in order to draw players in. Yet, the emotional core was developed over many iterations.

If I had more time, I would have wanted to add more multi-media elements, especially photographs, as that was a recurring request from playtesters. I also think music would greatly add.

I would have also wanted to explore some of the affordances of the medium further, such as including flashbacks to further flesh out the relationship between Nicole and Heather. 

Finally, an idea I had intended but didn’t get time to implement before the final playtest was to have a physical letter be delivered, in replacement for the current digital letter. I designed the letter around being the same in every ending so it could be printed beforehand and handed to a player when they finished the game. I think this would help ground the story in a final bit of realism. 

AI Disclosure

I used Claude Opus to implement the story, using Twee3 compiled with tweego, involving giving Claude a plaintext script and having it convert it into Twee3. I also had Claude do the programming for graphics and other affordances, such as the handwriting font and scrolling text.

Claude was also used to draft the story from my plot points and to make specific edits that I decided would be beneficial. I read, edited, and manually approved all changes so any remaining poor writing choices are my own.

I also had Claude generate my branching map, since I used twee instead of twine and the twine-generated map was unreadable.