PROJECT OVERVIEW
Year: 2023
Role: Game Designer/Artist
Collaborators: Rook Liu, Beckett Rowan, Matt Wang, Leslie Zeng, Mischa Huynh, Jenny Beck
Medium: Browser game
goodbye.monster is a game about saying goodbye, and grief, and transience by a small team of four thesis students at the NYU Game Center: Eugene An, Rook Liu, Beckett Rowan, and Matt Wang. It's written in JavaScript for the web, using the Svelte framework and web sockets. Gameplay consists of taking care of loosely-described creatures via feeding and cleaning; wandering through a text-based world; and having simple interactions with other players (without access to chat box or fully freeform expression). Our inspirations include nostalgia for Neopets and other 2000s pet care websites, the creature systems of Tamagotchi, and the world-building and player interaction of Bloodborne.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS
During my time on the project, I worked as a Technical Game Designer and Background Illustrator. This project taught me to think out of the box when it comes to visualizing the design. Using a limited color palette in my art, only having text as a tool to create boundaries of the level are tasks that you don't meet in more mainstream gaming experiences.
This experience not only showcased my ability to quickly adapt to new technologies but also highlighted my versatility as I actively contributed to background art creation and collaborated on designing systems for mechanics such as feeding and aging virtual creatures.
This experience not only showcased my ability to quickly adapt to new technologies but also highlighted my versatility as I actively contributed to background art creation and collaborated on designing systems for mechanics such as feeding and aging virtual creatures.
TECHNICAL DESIGN
I was closely working with our frontend, coding planned levels in JavaScript. Integrating my work with in-house proprietary tools went smoothly and I adapted to the new coding environment quite quickly. I was responsible for creating locations' scripts, where I would install and utilize pre-created functions and fill them with content.
The most important part of this process was, first, understanding the structure of the code created by my collaborators, second, being able to source all the materials needed for the location to look as we intended: from correct writing and background image to the types of nodes (which are subject for change based on the feedback). Integrating the location into every document is crucial - otherwise, it simply would not appear. Sometimes locations required unique code written for planned interactions to work, where I would need to create my own functions.
Lastly, this process was secretly hiding another huge part of the intended game design: level design decisions.
main location setup and nodes order - 'reserved' node is represented by negative space on the page, my main level design tool
node setup, grouped by their type
action setup, on this level of development, we mostly performed take actions
tree nodes are especially complicated, since they normally contain choice action
LEVEL DESIGN
Working on the project's level creation system meant using my level design skills to evoke a feeling of walking through space using text. How do you show a long sandy beach using only a web page as an instrument? The answer is negative space, but as with more traditional level design, the most important thing is the balance between this negative space and our content - it was crucial to realize when a long walk turns into a non-immersive toll of a scroll. This, of course, meant adjusting the pacing of each level based on the team's and playtester's feedback to ensure that the level design correlates with design intentions.
BACKGROUND ILLUSTRATIONS
This project also benefitted from my illustration skills. When goodbye.monster was still in the concept phase, it was agreed to have as little imagery as possible, being a text-based adventure with only graphic-based visual representation of other elements of the game. At the same time, we felt the need to give a bit more context to our locations and find a way to make it feel even weirder. That's when I started concepting background illustrations and we, through continuous iteration, found a way to represent it on the screen.
Since we were planning on filtering illustration with dithering effects and subtle animation, extensive rendering and details weren't needed, the beauty of these illustrations come from their uncertainty. I also resorted to using negative space as a main part of these illustrations - for seamless integration into the page, especially visible in the Peaceful Town illustration.
Another level of challenge added the predetermined color palette - having set colors for the graphic design of the page, how do you distinguish between illustration and the rest of the elements? I think our solution created a very nice balance between graphic and raster imagery, enhancing our design intentions.
original image
in-game screenshot
original image
in-game screenshot
PROJECT PRONOUNCEMENTS
The story of goodbye.monster casts the player as a lonesome and undying creature. Once the world was full of what Danny Schmidt called the "prideful immortality of children in the home". Now immortality is literal and the world's children are all gone. The world has been stuck this way forever; everyone left shambles endlessly through stifling decay or sits and turns to living stone.
But recently the player has seen something. Out of nowhere, there are little creatures that spring up vibrant and alive and remind the world of how it used to be, but as soon as their spark really starts to shine, they die. They live so quickly, within about a week or two. The world barely has time to process these creatures, but they live their own full lives, complete in every way that matters to them.
While the player doesn't get to keep them forever, saying goodbye to them is a hopeful act. they change. they die. The player changes, and the world becomes a process again.
Our overall goal is to interrogate autonomy, agency, and instrumentalization in “creature collector” and “creature care” games, ranging from Neopets to Pokémon. We have focused on the creature being able to die specifically in opposition to player-centric models of gameplay and against the idea that these creatures can be meaningfully “collected” or put to use at all.
