Synopsis: You’re a child who plays and braids her doll’s hair while your mum is in the salon. Something significant is happening within your family. You don’t understand why they are so secretive around you. Listen to the adults’ conversations and try to make meaning of them without bothering them.

Media Inspirations:

Attorney Woo Kdrama (I found the whale appearing when she is inspired or realises something to be good as a game mechanic)
Facade (Complex dialogue systems that can lead to interesting situations)
Florence (Story Driven w/ Puzzle Mechanics)

**Why this idea?**

I felt it would be interesting to talk about the little things children hear from adults and their parents, while the adults think the children do not know any better. It is also based on personal experiences of being a child and not being taken seriously as a person – something everyone has gone through, so I feel like that experience is worth highlighting. It is cool to show how mundane situations can reveal a bigger threat.

Main Features

Narrative Puzzle Game
Figure out different convos to successfully braid the hair, piece together like a puzzle (The puzzles get harder with each level).
Be Patient. Listen to the conversations and stories. Ask questions, but not too many and learn more.
Your imagination makes you dream that you’re in different locations when you are having fun
Character AI is kind of based on the game, Façade, with a strike system (like in the game). If you ask the wrong questions, you may be more likely to upset them.
Win state is either finishing your doll’s hair or uncovering the secret
Game over state is not finishing the hair (you become bored) or upsetting one of the adults (you don’t find out the truth)

Moodboard

I wanted these images to evoke childhood, as well as the character’s features, her different states of mind, as well as what I want the doll to possibly look like. The protagonist is a little girl with a vivid imagination who uses it to cope with the reality that something is wrong with her family. You will see bright colours pop up for this palette, like greens, blues, pinks and purples.

Photoshop Prototype

At first, I was going to do a photobash prototype, but I decided to do an actual drawing of the scene. The scene depicts the young girl sitting in the salon chair, braiding her doll’s hair, while her mum is at an appointment. She is very happy playing with her doll, so her imagination is high; she imagines herself in the Coral Reef with fish and animals playing around her.

The brushes I used were crayon brushes and loads of texture brushes – texture is a huge part of this game idea, as it’s something that we explore a lot in childhood. Inspirations like Crayons, Play-Doh, Etch-a-Sketches, and building blocks come to mind. I wanted the viewer to see the sensory experiences that a child goes through.

Finished Prototype

I wanted to show the different mechanics, such as the boredom meter normally, and the switch to the “truth” when the adults’ conversations start popping up in the child’s play.

Essential Experience

The game concepts are based on Trauma, Community and/or Aestheticism. Therefore, the essential experience will learn towards one of these with each idea. This idea leans into Trauma.

What experience do I want the player to have?

I want the player to be able to understand the perspective of a child and their world
I want to player to feel frustrated that the truth isn’t given to them – they must uncover it themselves
I want to player to feel the puzzles are fun but challenging, and feel rewarded with the hairstyle outcome

What is essential to that experience?

The feeling of imagination; childish wonder
The feeling of helplessness
The feeling that something is wrong

How can my game capture that essence?

Childish Iconography and visuals
Deliberate delay of information due to the character’s age
Mechanics are made harder due to the character’s age

Gameplay Loop

Braid the hair, and craft different styles – the more you braid successfully, the less bored she is.
Braid by solving puzzles, there will be different keyboard/controller combinations or small sliding puzzles within a time limit to complete.
The butterfly will appear when you have done an action successfully; her boredom will go up the more you get it wrong.
When the girl is happy, the background of the salon will change to depict different scenes that she crafts in her head.
Snippets of adult conversations will leak into the girls’ world, and you must try to understand them from her perspective without upsetting adults. There will be a few set questions to ask, knowing when it’s the right opening to ask through language cues.
You can win by discovering the truth, and there will be a cutscene at the end.

Audience

I expect my audience to be casual gamers or gamers who like narrative games based on specific experiences, like Florence. However, the PEGI 12 rating is still needed for the game.

There will be bad language involved, not too explicit
There will be hints of familial abuse or neglect involved
No gore will be shown or presented
Any violence would be fantasy-like, only in the girls’ world

These may be distressing for younger players, but I don’t think it would warrant a rating any higher than a 12.

*Pros*	*Cons*
– Game from a child’s perspective and how they view themself – Good teaching moment about generational trauma and what children hear and internalise – Calming game overall with its challenging moments	– Need to work out how to make it exciting and appealing – Visuals – more abstract or more realistic? – How do I make a simple task not repetitive? I might need to add more tasks than simply braiding.

Prototype 2: Childhood Doll Braiding