The Hunger
This experimental Bitsy game explores the capacity for every day things to transcend the mundane. Have you ever found your mind wandering when you’re at the grocery store? Where would you go if you just let yourself drift? My design goal was to build an interactive fiction game with elements of exploration. I wanted to make a game that was contemplative, impressionistic, non-linear, while still giving the player a sense of agency in this short experience.
As the solo developer on this project, I was responsible for:
- Design non-linear level layouts
- Design key interactions and points of interest
- Balance player movement with length of text blocks
- Develop and debug using the Bitsy engine.
- Writer for in-game text
- Narrative development of story arc and emotional touchpoints.
Notes on design:
I focused on making the game a good interactive experience through balanced level design. My guiding design principle was to make absorbing the dialogue as easy as possible. Also, to ensure that the interactable sprites were well placed in each room to give the player a constant sense of progression throughout non-linear experience. Finally, I added audio assets for environmental storytelling, to convey a sense of melancholy at night.
This is a game where reading the item text is core to the experience, as opposed to a means to another end. The game has no timer and no obvious win-condition, the player is told they are hungry and given free rein to explore. Every sprite and NPC embodies a kind of hunger or the possibility of its fulfillment. Using the retro, 8-bit look and feel, I hope to convey a large depth of emotion within a small frame. To demonstrate this concept, below is an excerpt from an interaction with a grocery item that provokes life’s larger questions.
