girl i see right thru u

Student Entrant 2016


SCHOOL
DigiPen Institute of Technology
CREATOR
DigiPen Team Transparent Media

Description

"girl, i see right thru u" is a poetic platformer about accepting the loss of someone close to you. In the game, you assume the role of Bethany, the ghost of a 10 year old girl who travels into the subconscious minds of 3 close friends to help them overcome their internal struggles involving her disappearance. The narrative follows her journey as she is helped by local punk wiccan wannabe Effy, as she gathers Bethany's old friends in attempt to bring her back to life. The game's major mechanic allows the player to travel through physical objects, becoming intangible like a ghost. The aesthetics focus on a moody low-res pixel art style meant to evoke a sort of sad nostalgia.

The game was made for a student project, but as the lead designer my goal first and foremost was to make a game that meant something to me on a personal level, and that would hopefully speak to other people in a similar way. The idea for the game came to me during a time where there was a lot of death in my family. A close family friend died, my aunt died, and my grandfather tried to commit suicide all within a few months of each other. Needless to say, this put death on my mind. For the game, I wanted to capture that feeling of loss by presenting a game whose narrative and mechanics conveyed a different kind of story. The game is funny and light hearted at times, and it is sad and dark at times. That was my personal experience, and I think that for the narrative, it wouldn't make sense to be just sad or tragic, because life is full of humor, even in death. The main mechanic is the ability to go through objects in the subconscious world. Essentially, this is a metaphor for dealing with grief. Going around your obstacles is much harder than going through them. This also ties back to the name of the game, "girl, i see right thru u".


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