In the early days of UI design, I considered whether I needed to add a map system. However, after thinking about it further, I prefer to use the classic Interconnected Level Design movement structure rather than relying on maps or teleportation points for spatial navigation.

The reason for this choice is that “movement” itself in this project is part of the rhythm and time progression of the game. By walking, going back and forth, and repeating paths, players can more intuitively feel the daily consumption and the passage of time. If map navigation or fast movement is introduced, it can diminish this experience and make the gameplay flow too efficient.

Nevertheless, maps or fast movement systems are still possible future considerations, but they are not currently used as core design goals to avoid the rhythm changes caused by over-optimizing movement.

The art style of the original poster is like this… It’s because I’m only good at this style.

I actually thought about 3D games like Rue Valley and Disco Elysium with a 2.5D perspective, but due to technical limitations, I really couldn’t do it. I can only find a style that best fits the theme in the style I am good at.

I’m not saying this style isn’t suitable for this game, but I think there are better options. The current art style is not that it cannot reflect some narrative details, but it feels too ordinary and has no characteristics… In short, considering the change in art style, this poster style has become abandoned. But if I can, I still hope to try the Rue Valley and Disco Elysium styles in the future.

Some small iterations, didn’t changed a lot

When designing player characters, my initial focus was on “substitution.” To avoid overly prominent characters, I deliberately designed it to be an ordinary person who looks like it can be seen everywhere – walking through ten people on the street, maybe eight of them all look like this. This “featureless” treatment is not to create personality, but to minimize the presence of the character itself, making it easier for players to project themselves into it.

But the last time the teacher talked about it, I didn’t necessarily need a role. To be honest, I don’t really agree, characters are a must, after all, this is an RPG adventure game (if according to the steam tag), and anyway, I must need a “thing” to represent the player walking around the map. But it really inspired me – I don’t necessarily need a decent person, I can be like A Chamber of Stars. What players really need in the system may not be a complete character image, but just an existence that can move around the map, be recognized and recorded by the system.

This awareness made me rethink the necessity of the role. Rather than designing a character that was as ordinary as possible but still had a clear human form and identity hint, I began to think about whether I could completely abandon the concept of “character” in favor of a more abstract vector. As presented in A Room Full of Stars, players do not necessarily need to simulate a person to gain the experience, but can enter the system through a more vague and impersonal way of being.

This change is not a simple art adjustment, but directly affects my understanding of substitution. Substitution does not necessarily come from “who am I”, but may come from “am I allowed to exist and move in this system”. When the character is no longer emphasized as a specific person, the player’s attention also shifts from the character identity to how the system responds to their very existence.

In terms of visual style selection, I gradually realized that collage expression was more in line with the overall structure of the project than a unified style. The collage does not try to hide the inconsistency, but allows elements of different origins and different logic to exist juxtaposed. This juxtaposition does not naturally point to a whole, quickly understandable world, but makes the cracks and incongruities themselves visible.

For me, this chaos does not represent “untidy”, but an unorganized state. Just like the results that the system presents when interpreting player behavior, meaning is not generated all at once, but is constantly disassembled, reassembled, and put together. And the collage is very malleable, and I plan to make the collage more and more sloppy and more burrs as the plot progresses, so as to hint at the emotional changes of the protagonist

But after consideration, I don’t think my game is suitable for the collage style.

In the choice of visual style, I have considered collage-like expression because it can visually present chaos and breakage. However, after repeatedly comparing the core experience of the project, I realized that this approach could expose anomalies in the system prematurely.

My game relies more on a “close-to-reality” look: players make serious judgments in a superficially believable, reasonable world, and the system’s recordings and misreadings emerge under this normality. If the visual language itself already suggests the instability of the world, then this tension will be difficult to establish. Therefore, I chose to keep the representation closer to reality, allowing system-level inconsistency to be the main source of conflict.

I want players to believe first that this is a believable real-life environment: furniture, room structures, and items are all from everyday experience, with no obvious stylized cues, just like in Rue Valley.

However, this reality is not neutral. The clues, traces, and systematized information accumulated in the space make it more like a slice of reality that has already been recorded, analyzed, and interpreted. Man still exists in it, but no longer the center of meaning, but is surrounded by the logic of the environment and the system. This approach allows me to introduce systematic intervention in behavior without destroying the sense of reality, so that the sense of unease gradually emerges from the “seemingly normal” world.

In character design, I adopted a “head substitution” approach: preserving the human body structure and proportions to maintain a sense of realism, but replacing the head with patterns or objects. This treatment is not intended to create a sense of weirdness, but rather to deliberately diminish the character’s existence as an understandable individual.

The head usually takes on the function of recognizing emotions and identities, and when this part is replaced, the character is still in action, but no longer provides a clear psychological entrance. Important NPCs in my game are also designed in this form, while other unimportant NPCs (such as passers-by, crowds) are designed in the form of silhouettes

When I first started making this game, I really didn’t think about it that much. The original reason was that when I was sorting out my moving belongings, I found that the power bank sent from the previous apartment was bulging, which was quite serious, and even the plastic shell was pushed open. I haven’t dealt with this kind of thing, at least not in the UK! So I asked my friends in one of my discord groups, and they gave all kinds of strange answers, such as “buried”, “eat it”, “thrown into your enemy’s window as a grenade”, etc. Anyway, most of them are some parody answers, but it also inspired me.
The original idea is very simple, even a bit like a spoof: let the player keep making choices towards a certain outcome, and it doesn’t really matter what that outcome really is. I didn’t have a clear goal system or a “what you have to accomplish” design. For me, it’s more of a toy, or rather, pure entertainment, like the McPixel.

But the problem soon shown.
During development, I gradually realized that there was a rift between myself and the original idea. The earliest designs were closer to a toy-style, low-goal experience, and I didn’t want to force meaning on it. However, when the project is placed in the context of a “final assignment for a game design major,” this deliberate simplicity begins to seem more and more empty.

If this were a completely free amateur project, I would most likely stick to the original direction. But in the current context, I find myself having to respond to the question of “meaning”. This is not because I suddenly think that meaninglessness is wrong, but because I am beginning to realize that when the system rejects meaning, it is experienced as a kind of absence in an institutionalized environment and forces creators and players to constantly compensate for this gap.

It also reminds me of creations that deliberately remove meaning, such as Un Chien Andalou, a film discussed in another course. In creating this work, Buñuel and Dalí deliberately rejected any imagery that could be interpreted, trying to destroy the audience’s expectations of narrative and meaning. The viewer will realize how they are trained to “find meaning” when they watch it, even if the meaning does not exist.
This made me realize that the lack of meaning itself does not make the work empty, but rather exposes the viewer’s own obsession with order and interpretation. In my game, I also try to confront this instinctive need for meaning by not providing a clear goal.

So things started to get complicated. I didn’t want to give up my initial relaxed, almost toy state, but I was constantly pushed into a position where I had to “explain what I was doing”. It is also from this stage that creation becomes less joyful.

It wasn’t because I didn’t know how to continue, but because I realized that I was beginning to be asked to give meaning to an experience that didn’t need to be explained. This feeling is not new to me, and I have experienced many similar moments in my past studies and life: when I made certain choices, showed a certain state, or simply existed in a certain situation, I was repeatedly asked to explain “why”.

It is these “moments that must be explained” that make me realize that meaning does not always arise naturally, sometimes it is a pressure exerted externally. Because of this, the game gradually transforms into what it is: it is no longer just a system about choice, but an attempt to simulate a situation – what happens when you are forced to constantly give meaning to experiences that don’t need to be explained.

This idea laid the foundation for this project, and it’s something I really care about: what do players do when the system doesn’t give a clear goal, when meaning is deliberately suspended? Will they continue to search? Will you give up? Or will it create distrust in the system itself?

I hope my game doesn’t try to answer these questions, it just puts players in a structure where these reactions happen naturally.

Based on class feedback:

Ideal Playtime:

First playthrough — about 4 hours

Subsequent playthroughs — within 2 hours each

All endings and full completion — within 10 hours

I haven’t decided whether to make it a multi-playthrough game. The style isn’t exactly “surreal”, so if multiple playthroughs exist, the second and third ones probably wouldn’t change the story. They would mainly serve for achievement completion, hidden endings, or uncovering the deeper truth.

If a hidden ending exists, I might design it so that it requires a certain number of playthroughs to unlock. Additional playthroughs could gradually reveal new details, but such a system would need strong logical support.

Alternatively, the first playthrough could have a fixed ending with no extra choices, and all available content would conclude there. In that case, two ending achievements might be triggered:

1. A fine.
2. System approval.

After the credits, the game could force a return to the main menu, where the menu state changes. Once both endings are achieved, a special opening CG (the “it’s too late” one) would appear, along with a newly unlocked third option: “bury the power bank”.

This would hint to players that there’s still hidden content to explore, making multiple playthroughs feel more reasonable.

If so, the ideal playtime would become:

First playthrough — within 20 minutes

Second playthrough — within 20 minutes

Third playthrough — around 4 hours (true ending)

All endings and full completion — within 10 hours

The original setup might make it hard for players to realize the game isn’t truly “finished”. Some casual players might simply pick what looks like the most interesting option, finish the first ending, return to the menu, and delete the game.

Since I don’t plan to include any in-game task marks or task guides to tell the player what to do, my current solution is to make the first playthrough extremely short. That way, it’s easy for players to replay and try other options.

Once the first two endings are achieved, the player will notice changes in the main menu when they return, which naturally encourages them to start a third playthrough. In this way, the game subtly communicates: “There’s still more to discover.”

Tasks and Player Routine

At first, the protagonist’s daily routine seems simple and repetitive — going to school, taking a walk, and returning home. This loop forms the basic structure of each round.

However, as the story progresses, subtle changes begin to appear in the environment. New interactive objects and events gradually emerge. While maintaining the same daily rhythm, the player must now deal with additional tasks that arise from interacting with these new elements.

If these emerging tasks are ignored or handled incorrectly, the story will eventually fall back into its predetermined ending.

Next focus:

1. Improve Core Loop
2. Refine the structure of the Task system
3. Plot branch creation