Just a Burger Joint

The obsession I chose was “speakeasies.” I love the idea of a hidden space that is camouflaged behind a faux-front. A speakeasy obscures ‘reality,’ allowing someone to be in a different place than what people assume. Much like when someone zones out of ‘reality,’ I wanted to explore the physicality of losing yourself in grief –– no longer living in the now. 

The thematic argument I urge the player to partake in, is a journey with a grieving child who wants more than anything to live in the past with their mother. The protagonist abuses ‘dust’ –– a drug that physically poofs someone into another moment, so they can escape their reality. However, like (almost) all addictions it cannot be controlled. As the player travels back to memories with their mother and moments with their friend, I wanted the player to also feel like they were travelling through time and feeling the child’s grief, just as everyone feels the pain of their friends.

Branching from Greg Costikyan’s definition of a game, I wanted the player to feel like they were uncovering various aspects of the protagonist’s reality; uncovering new information the more times they travelled through the passages. The opposition is, in many ways, the players’ curiosity to learn more about the protagonist’s pain and their memories with their mother. Some of the memories cannot be avoided and have to be ‘passed’ through, however it is up to the player to determine what the protagonist relives over and over.

Through different ‘key nodes’ as described in Nat Mesnard’s “Branching Infinity,” I created the structure of my game. I wanted the game to ‘end’ with the friend comforting the protagonist after they finally allowed themselves to mourn the loss of their mother, but still have various ‘pathways’ that the player could travel through to develop a unique storyline.

During playtesting, I kept in mind that Mesnard mentioned it is important to have a certain theme or message you want to portray in the story that really resonates with you. As my aunt passed away last week, I wanted to incorporate different moments I had with her in Michigan –– on the beach. So I specifically asked playtesters if the different flashbacks were impactful, driving the story along. Throughout the flashbacks they suggested I have moments that overlapped more with each other. From their feedback, I tried to focus on the water and the lake, pulling in the pie scene as a nod to Michigan (and its cherries), to emphasise how physically the child felt the grief through all their senses.