Synopsis
When I was four, I started playing the piano. I never had lessons but enjoyed fooling around – making up melodies with zero knowledge of music theory. After many years, music became my first port of call when it came to self-expression. At eighteen, I picked up my first guitar, and now, (over ten years later) I have a digital scrapbook of memories. A song for every major event in my life.
Most raw creation from musicians is driven by some memory of their life, a muse or a tragic event. I guess, in the last case, it’s a creative person’s equivalent of crying into a pillow.
Lately music has taken a back seat in my life. Replaced by creating games. In games I found something equivalent to the creativity of making music. Even though this game features a lot of music, I didn’t write it, I simply chose it, yet I felt more creative than when I wrote my own songs. With every choice, I’m shaping an experience that (hopefully) is greater than the sum of its parts. That is what my mind-set was when creating this project.
‘Come home’ is the first game-like experience I’ve made that is based on events in my life. Two years ago I would have written a song, but today I thought I’d try something different.
Although this is my first attempt to make a game with this kind of inspiration, the feelings throughout the process were identical to writing a song. The elation as the melancholy is drawn out of you while creating – the closure from physically marking the event as ‘happened’ and allowing you to move on, and of course, the joy of having created something from nothing.
In a way this felt more ‘raw’ than any song I ever wrote. Perhaps because the subtlety of the kind of music I made meant anyone could listen to it without knowing what it represents to me. With ‘come home’ the story is direct. Obviously it’s symbolic, but it is all there for anyone to see.
While making come home I felt like a movie director rather than a game creator. Everything involved cameras, cut scenes, and narrative, and it’s the first time I’ve done anything like this. So, much like the first song I wrote for my first crush over 15 years ago was terrible, I’m sure there are plenty of things that could be improved with this. But that’s seldom the point with these kinds of projects, we do them to landmark our lives, for self-preservation, to always remember while simultaneously to help us move on. In that respect I definitely achieved what I wanted to.
Now that’s out the way, I invite you to play and hope you enjoy the journey…
An Honest Review
First of all. I’m sorry for whatever pains and troubles you went through that inspired the creation of this piece. But what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger (or at least motivates us to inspire others through artistic mediums).
I was captivated by the aesthetics and the mood of the game. The music and the leaf effects really added a lot to the experience. I loved the simplicity of the avatars and how it appeared sort of dreamy as if in memories. I feel in some ways, like the opening scenes triggered nostalgic feelings of my own. I feel like the story was well told and had the suspense building narrative that I see in books and movies.
Gameplay Critique
- The WADS keys stopped working on the mini games, had to use arrow keys. Bummer. :)
- The room with the doors. I understand the concept of suspense and trying to catch up with the elusive girl, but the mechanics grew old after I discovered the 2nd door which told me to keep looking for her at the next door and the remaining 90% was running up and down and up and down again. Maybe that’s the game designer in me immediately seeing the algorithm and the way the next 5 minutes are going to pan out, but I lost sight of the mood and the story for a moment. Luckily, I jumped right back in when I caught her! :) Suggestions? Yours would probably be better than mine… but either a twist in the middle, make the doors more easily accessible so it’s not a lot of run to the end, run back, run to the end, run back, etc…
- The final round of the cup game is a little too difficult (for me anyway). I got frustrated and lost feeling of the moment. I feel like either an auto forfeit (after 3 fails) and move on or scaling down the difficulty a little bit would help. I don’t think the goal of this mini game is to really follow the cup, but to convey a part of the story, which will get lost if people get frustrated and quit. Think of the P Wing in Mario 3DS. It’s more important for people to complete your game/story than to get really good at finding the right cups to flip.
Nice job, thank you for getting the courage to share!
Emotional…
Where can i get the full songs ? If there’s any…
Very very short game
Sad, but i am sure there is another soulmate waiting for you out there.
Nice work, I found it very deep and emotional. The gameplay factor is very simple but very immersive. Also, congrats on being one of the runner ups at Unity’s “Flash in a Flash” contest! :)