If anything were to sum up my experience with this project, it would be Ira Glass’s video on “The Gap,” or the difficulties of creating work that is consistently below your expectations.
I really enjoy interactive fiction. I grew up reading stories and playing cozy games and I am very easily emotionally moved by a good rendition in either form. However, I would not say I’m a good writer, especially not a creative one. Creative writing projects have always been the bane of my existence: I struggle when there is a possibility space that feels too large to bridge.
This project in particular was difficult because of the subject matter: creating empathy. I wanted to choose something I cared about, but in doing so, it internally raised the stakes. I felt a sense of responsibility to accurately and respectfully represent the subject, which made starting even more difficult, because starting from a perfect draft is almost impossible.
Not only that but my original game idea was not the type of interactive fiction I found fun. I love interactive fictions that rely on uncovering some sort or twist or having to piece together what was happening, either in the characters’ lives or in the world around them. While I love an emotionally impactful story, I needed some sort of hidden motivation to draw me in.
So, maybe a little too late into the process, I pivoted. I chose restrictions to make it possible for me to progress, such as designing a story around a hidden twist and choosing to tell the story only through journal entries, which coincidentally tied well into my theme. I also chose a topic I personally resonated more with, but that still was a layer of abstraction away that allowed me to comfortably tell it. This made it significantly easier to get started: I could see a possibility of myself enjoying the game and I felt like I was doing a better job telling the story I wanted to.
Despite this, I still felt an overwhelming sense of stress. My project still wasn’t up to my own standards and, because I had pivoted, I felt like I was running out of time. Ironically, despite writing a game about the importance of acknowledging your feelings, I continually suppressed my fear that I simply wasn’t talented enough to make a game that I would feel good about creating. Thus, for the next few days, working on the game was not a very fun experience. I was worried to show work that didn’t meet my standards to my peers who I felt were already well ahead with their projects.
However, as Ira Glass put it, the only solution is just to keep working. I showed my unfinished work during playtests and it wasn’t great, but I did get great feedback and it helped me make it better.
One of the most surprising and rewarding things to come out this project was how simply continuing to work and push through my doubts caused the game to improve. Once I pivoted, I thought I had a solid idea of the story I wanted to tell and the messages I wanted to convey. However, as I developed the game and received feedback, a message that was more true to myself began to emerge. I started with a story about loss with a twist, and ended with a reflection exploring how self-doubt impacts our lives.
When I started this project, I was worried it would be very difficult to refine, because I don’t consider myself “good at writing.” Instead, I like to focus on mechanics and emergent dynamics (the MDA of it all, really). Thus, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to effectively use the process of playtesting as I wasn’t sure I would be able to implement the necessary changes. However, my most poignant story beats came out of refining the mechanics: in trying to make my honesty mechanic accurately portray the message I wanted to convey, I revised the ending to have Heather confess her self-doubt. This ultimately tied together the story, bridging the gap that existed between my original premise (loss with a twist) and my discovered core message (self-doubt).
I am very glad with the way this project ended up going. There’s something deeply fulfilling about sharing a story that matters deeply to you with others, and seeing it impact them.
Ultimately, The Words We Don’t Say is a game I am not disappointed in, and that’s hard for me to say, but truly, I think I believe it.
