For our homework we had to create a game poem using Bitsy that would develop on what we were talking about the previous week. Bitsy is a browser based game engine that is incredibly simplistic, not even requiring any code.

I figured that I’m missing some context on the work as I hadn’t attended the class on Monday. I also couldn’t find a partner so the work would be solo. As well as this, I began this diary entry project to keep track of all of my thoughts and pieces that I commit to in this project.

The emotion I chose was loneliness. A lot of mental health  issues stem from loneliness and lack of support systems so I think it has a lot of potential in its use. For instance, people who struggle with addiction tend to do so when they lack other fulfilment in their life, with relationships being the most common. Twenty first century society is very alienating for a myriad of reasons that occur in day to day life that aren’t as severe as addiction. It’s a feeling everyone relates to- to some extent which could make any game based off of that more relatable to the general audience and increase the scope of players engaging with the experience.

I started using Bitsy for the first time to work on this game jam. It’s pretty intuitive and fairly easy to get a hang of immediately. Stylistically, the limitations look really nice with the retro, stripped down graphics due to a three colour limit per room and limited pixels in the first place.

The usability definitely lends to its simplicity so I think the trade off in features is worth it. I particularly liked the tune editor where you could create simple 8 bit songs as well as the immensely satisfying animation panel. 

My two gripes were its layout and stability. I wish I could let the tabs of tools hang freely so I wouldn’t be scrolling left and right constantly as it was natural to be switching tabs very quickly. 

Considerations

How does the player feel when moving through the scene?

The player begins the game with virtually no information given aside from the simple graphics they appear in. I let my classmates play the game and they said that they felt curious about uncovering the mystery and that the music affected their emotions, building up a sense of tension. Hearing this was pleasing, I precisely wanted to achieve that with the tunes.

Does the visual style reinforce the emotion?

The visual style is extremely minimalistic in terms of graphics and the sparseness in the solid colours and lack of detail can look alien which reinforces the emotion of loneliness.

How do sound, repetition, or space enhance the metaphor?

The metaphor I chose was the wilderness. The lack of human presence there works as a pretty on-the-nose metaphor. I, of course, repeated assets in the game. The multiple dead bodies are indistinct which further enunciates the intention loneliness. I tried to use sound with the music editor to build up the tension as the player