Wake Up is a visual novel that invites players to explore a mysterious new world, searching for clues and piecing together secrets to unravel its narrative. The objective was to create a narratively rich, story-driven game that captivates players with its engaging plot and striking visual style. Collaborating with a story writer, we conceptualized a game that blends immersive storytelling with beautiful hand-crafted artwork.

My Role

As the creator of Wake Up, my responsibilities encompassed:

• Art: Designing vibrant, hand-crafted artwork that sets the mood for each scene.

• Branding: Creating a cohesive visual identity for the game as well as our two person game development studio.

• Coding: Developing the game using Ren'Py and learning various aspects of game development and narrative strategies in the process.

Design Process

Conceptualization and Collaboration: The initial phase involved collaborating with a story writer to conceptualize & flesh out the game's narrative. The game went through multiple iterations and improvements as we kept bringing the initial narrative beats in front of new players and capturing their feedback.

Art Creation: Drawing inspiration from the beautiful visual styles of games I admire, I poured my love for art into creating the game's visuals. Each piece of artwork was crafted to evoke the mood of the scenes, using vibrant colors and meticulous details. Central to the games narrative is Lucy, a character whose emotions drive the story. To bring her to life, I created emotion reference sheets, capturing every subtle nuance to convey her feelings to the players.

Narrative and Dialogue: In Wake Up, dialogue plays a crucial role in storytelling. We aimed to illustrate the impact of each conversation on Lucy's emotions, using a pseudo-animation technique that adds depth to the narrative. This approach allows players to fully immerse themselves in Lucy's journey, forging a deeper connection with the game world and the character.

Game Development: I used Ren’Py to code the game and, through the development process, I gained proficiency in a wide range of features, including:

• Player Experience

• Writing Dialogue

• Adding and Positioning Images

• Transitions

• Music and Sound Effects

• Choices and Python Integration

• Video Playback

• Tools and the Interactive Director

• Building Distributions

• GUI Customization

• Styles and Style Properties

This comprehensive learning experience enhanced my understanding of game development and enriched my skills as a UX designer, allowing me to create more engaging and immersive experiences for players.

Outcomes

Player Engagement: The game successfully engaged players, offering a rich visual experience that enhanced their connection to the story. The meticulous depiction of Lucy's emotions and the impact of dialogue on her character added depth to the narrative, making the gameplay experience more immersive.

Artistic Recognition: The art for Wake Up was very well received, becoming a standout feature of the game. Creating the artwork was the most enjoyable part of the project for me, and it played a significant role in defining the game's identity.

**Achievement:**Wake Up was shortlisted in the top 32 contestants in the Buildspace Nights and Weekend program, a testament to the game's quality and the effort put into its development.

Learning and Growth: This project provided me with valuable experience in art creation, game development, and narrative design. The lessons learned from this project will inform my future endeavors, inspiring me to continue creating visually captivating and narratively rich games.

Empathetic Learning:

This exercise provided valuable insights into the game development process. This experience was particularly empathetic, as it allowed me to understand the intricacies of game design from the developer’s perspective. Given that much of my UX design work involves creating experiences for players, these new skills have enabled me to approach design with a deeper understanding of both sides of the equation, the player as well as the creator.