A first-person interactive prototype in which players need to navigate through 16 levels representing key moments before, during, and after my parents' divorce, using gravity-shifting portals and personal metaphors to make them feel the disorientation I experienced during this time. 

Explanation

This was my solo graduation project, built around the design question: "How do I, as a game designer, design an interactive prototype about my parents' divorce in which players experience the feeling of disorientation that matched my own experience at the time, for players who see games as more than just entertainment?". 

The project grew out of my own fascination to try and make my inner emotional experience shareable with others, informed by Irvin Yalom's idea of an "unbridgeable gap" between individuals and by my belief, as a designer, that emotions are best expressed through metaphors rather than words. My world turned upside down at the time, and that metaphor became the foundation of my core mechanic. Players interact and traverse with gravity defying portals through the 16 levels and try to reach the ending. 

Recurring elements, like a Christmas tree symbolizing the doubled, fractured family holidays I experienced, and level-specific fonts and audio, tie the levels together thematically, while my gravity-shifting portal mechanic and environmental design work together to make players feel the same disorientation I felt as a child watching my sense of a stable world come apart. My ultimate aim with this project was not just about proving that the mechanic works, but personal: to let players truly come to "know" what I went through, narrowing the unbridgeable gap between my experience and theirs.

Disclaimer: I used AI agents to write the code for this project. 

Topics covered & insights gained