I continued working on my Bitsy project. Admittedly, I wasn’t feeling very inspired but I wanted the project to be complete when we had to play test it in class. It definitely wasn’t my best work, but I enjoyed working within the limitations of the engine. The simple graphics even enhances the immersion into the narrative further as the player is forced to imagine the world instead of the graphics doing it for them.

I titled my game The Verdant Trail. It was a simple story. Someone wakes up in the middle of a wilderness. They’re given environmental clues from a radio and a note as to where they are. I tried to make the dispensation of information purposeful and vague to build up tension as they explored the world. As the player walks north they see many corpses, attacked by some kind of creature- or person. It triggers a sense of nostalgia as the amnesia they are suffering from prevents them from remembering any specifics. All the player knows is a sense of familiarity roused from the bodies they see. Entering a cave, they go deeper and deeper, acting as a metaphor for some sort of internal reflection. Eventually they see themselves as a corpse as the protagonist arrives at a final state of introspection and realise that their murderous rampage was fruitless, they were all stranded anyways. The only thing that their actions achieved was just further torment in their final hours before succumbing to the cold cave water.

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Questions to consider after completing The Verdant Trail:

How can simplicity strengthen emotional impact ?

Where does meaning emerge in minimal player interactions?

As I elucidated earlier, I believe that when the graphics and game mechanics are very rudimentary it can bring greater immersion or personal connection as each play through will be unique to the player interpreting it. Much like reading a book, everyone could have their own interpretation on even something like a linear storyline. As well as this, the simplicity means that only certain features of the game will get the most focus. In the case of my bitsy game, the narrative would naturally have the most impact as it’s the most developed part of the game.

In order for anything to have meaning, there needs to be a purpose or intention. The meaning and emotional impact stands out greater when there is less competition of other features vying for the player’s attention. Obviously, this is all down to execution. A lot of games, such as Skyrim, are vast roleplaying simulations with features that work with each other mostly seamlessly (If you ignore the jankiness of the creation engine) Yet minimalism requires less precious time and resources and is often times a much more reliable way of communicating a game’s intention. 

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The essence of The Verdant Trail is an internal struggle expressed metaphorically through motion. Hiking is a great vector for that metaphor as the natural world and the way it changes is ripe with meaning. Artistically, it’s a beautiful thing to depict. Moving forward with this project, this will be the driving creative factor with my further research.

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FEEDBACK

The final game poems made in class were then play tested. Some of the feedback I received I didn’t frame properly hence the inconsistency in the table.

Name	Interpretation of game and experience	Design Intention	Feedback
Ollie	I really enjoyed the writing and storytelling – especially the contrast between the visuals and the story told.	I think it did reasonably well at portraying loneliness – there were a lot of empty spaces. Even though they are all dead, I’m unsure if the mild abundance of characters is a good way to convey the theme.	I had trouble finding some of the exits (and would probably have more if I hadn’t seen the game in-dev lol). I feel like the corpses could have gotten across the idea that they were dead better..
Vanissa	Desperation, wilderness – this was enhanced by the music, sounds, and text (blood, body, death).	Intensity with narrative tones; loved the cave and the feeling of going through them + sound; balance of different moments/pace	Bitsy related limitations; towards the end there was a lot of text (break them down); assets from the beginning can be easier to spot/identify
Iris		Really impressive about the writing skill…and the symbolism is also brilliant	Maybe smaller text size, it makes the reading experience kinda weird……
Yufan		Good transition animation and level connection	The guide of the exit
Kamilla		Good time management	The plot is a little bit too evident

Aside from the time and engine limitations I found the feedback from the play testing to be valuable moving forwards with my project.

• Text overload: Vanissa pointed out that I need to intergrate my writing smoothly into the medium of the game to space out exposition dumps and take advantage of the medium
• Level design: Players found the layout of the game difficult to navigate as Ollie and Yufan noted to me. A compounding factor of this was the limitations and time factor but I will definitely give this aspect more attention next time.
• Accessibility: Accessibility is one of the most important things to consider in a game as it’s the determining factor for groups of people, a lot of them disabled and otherwise marginalise, to access my content. Iris mentioned the text size which was just my lack of experience with the text editor but I definitely want to keep certain people in mind, such as those with dyslexia, if I did a narrative heavy concept.

Overall this endeavour has been especially helpful in the refining of my project’s scope. With my creative vision in sight I can start moving onto more specific research and flesh out specific ideas and work on my strengths and weaknesses.