Project Brief

I had to design an autobiographical bitmap game reflecting who I am in its presentation. It was made using p5.js and had to incorporate a main character, multiple scenes and few mouse interactions.

Design Process

Beta is an autobiographical story that combines my fears and interests to create a narrative. A picturebook collection, I grew up reading, became the basis of the game.

I made a series of watercolour paintings, inspired by the book, as the game background. The game starts with a girl in a lonely city who begins to see strawberries. Every strawberry she catches reveals a new line in her story.

She reaches a forest and continues on her path–jumping to catch strawberries, swimming in the ocean and climbing mountains–to discover her true self. The scenes get increasingly abstract, muted and calm.

Reflection

Over 3 weeks, I planned, painted and coded a simple side-scrolling game wherein the player had to catch the maximum strawberries. While working, I read an article by Paolo Pedercini about games rationalising intangible qualities. I realised this was exactly what I was doing by reducing my story into a count of strawberries. The project pivoted and in the final version, the player had to catch a strawberry to reveal the next line in the story.

Given another chance at this project, I would work on making smoother movements and enhancing the visuals of this simple game.

Reference