New Beloginnigns: Echoes of Belonging
2024
Field: Game Design
Elisava Facultad de Diseño e Ingeniería de Barcelona
Game Concept
The story follows a young refugee who fled their home country due to war. Through the development of the game, they will have to unpack their life and manage to find their own self in a new country.
As they unpack their belongings, the player discovers the life of the character prior to the current time, as well as the difficulties they have faced, worries and uncertainties about their future, all through narrative.
Main Characteristics
The main pillars of this game focuses on building or strengthens a sense of empathy and bring awareness towards refugee’s situations around the world. Those characteristics can be subcategorized into well-known feelings like coping, grief, closure, and more. They can be felt or shown through interactions with images, illustrations, and actions that the player will experience while playing the game.
The goal is to start from a very narrow environment, for example a bedroom, and extend the scale of each environment to explore every level and aspects of one’s life: living room, whole apartment, parc, neighborhood, etc., to immerse the player into the character’s life and create a connection between both.
Using a playful aspect to demonstrate struggles and harder situations can easily encourage players to learn more and change their perceptions of things.
- Educational
- Contemplative and exploratory
- Using narrative to build empathy
- Grief, Closure and Coping
Purpose
The purpose of the game is to raise awareness and educate players about the situation of those who need support in the current state of the world (Ukraine, Palestine). By stepping into someone else’s story, the game aims to create a sense of sincere intimacy between the player and the character; the story should therefore evoke a feeling of empathy.
SWOT-analysis
Genre & Platform
Genre
The genre of the video game is an exploration narrative game, that allows the player to explore and interact with the different environments at their own rhythm. We want to incorporate a few puzzles, but the game is mostly contemplative and story-focused, using narrative to connect with the thoughts and feelings of the character.
Platform
The game is made to be played on a PC, to fully enjoy the visual aesthetic of the game and immerse the player into the story.
Gameplay
The gameplay would be a simple click and point puzzle game. The tone of the game should remain serious, but also become gradually more hopeful as the levels are filled. This could be reflected in dialogue and color palette.
The player has one task to achieve and will stumble upon different objects and useful information while trying to achieve this task. The development of the game is made for the player to get to know Mariya.
The player will need to create interactions with objects, characters, or places to progress in the game. These interactions with some objects or environments makes the player move to that place or to that object.
We never see the character move to another environment. The screen directly transitions from one scene to another, and between those scenes there’s a black screen with a “rotating” or “progressive” logo that indicates we are moving to another scene. We want to add storytelling through pictures and frames; when you stop for more than 2 seconds, a dialogue starts, telling a backstory of the character related to the pictures.
The closing scene swipes from left to right with a black screen, while the opening scene swipes right to left with the same screen.
Main goal
The player needs to unpack boxes, navigate cultural differences, make new friend connections, and explore their new surroundings. While integrating the point of view of Mariya, the ultimate objective is to help her ease into the new environment and build a fulfilling life there. Along the way, the player will encounter various obstacles and choices that shape their experience and outcomes in the game.
Controls
Moving horizontally, the left and right arrows are used to move around the environments, and the mouse is used to click and interact with the different objects and characters.
A button in the corner of the frame is always present to stop the game and save the progression of the player. That same button can be used to go back to the menu.
Category & License
The game and narrative are an original idea, but the concept is inspired by two different video games, “Unpacked” and “Assemble with Care”.
In the first game, the goal is to pull possessions out of boxes and fit them into a new home, to create a sense of intimacy with a character you never see, and a story you’re never explicitly told.
The second game follows the story of an antiques restorer who helps the town residents to fix their belongings. Through narration, we find out more about the importance of each object and the story behind it.
Visual style
We want to keep a toned down and desaturated visual aesthetic at the beginning of the game, to reflect a feeling of loneliness and uneasiness, that would become gradually lighter and more colorful as the player progresses through the game.
The concept of the game would be heavily story based; therefore, the imagery should remain fairly simple, but impactful. We want to stick to a more geometric, 2D style.
As for the visual references, we are taking inspiration from different digital games such as Fran Bow, Little Misfortune, Monument Valley & Land’s End.