EXISTENTIAL BUMMER
For Sarah every day was pretty much the same, and she was okay with that. At least she thought she was. When a small misstep at Burning Man leaves Sarah stuck reliving the same sequence of events, she finds life and her future aren’t as clear cut as she wanted to believe.
Role: Writer
Made with Twine
Overall Vision
Existential Bummer is a choice-based, narrative game that seeks to explore aspects of the human psyche that lead to a disimpassioned mind.
Spanning three choice-rich chapters, the experience is heavily reliant on the replayability of digital games – exploiting and subverting it to create a 'Groundhog Day' phenomenon that leaves players feeling unsure of their choices and their results.
Project Origins
Existential Bummer was developed as the culminating project for my major. I had been interested in the thought of what happens to our characters when we die in a game -- it's a complete reset for them with, generally, no lasting trauma or consequence. I wondered what would happen if the opposite were true and how that could tie into existential musings.
Over the course of two terms, I worked on creating a Game Design Document for the concept, prototyping its interactive script using Twine (playable below), and playtesting extensively.
MAKER'S PRESENTATION
I presented virtually on the project for the Dartmouth Film Department -- answering questions from my advisor, Mary Flanagan, and the audience while a friend plays through the game prototype.