erica lee


Away From Home



A four-part interactive storytelling game driven by the narratives of people and their definitions of “home”.



Team

Elleyce Pahang


Senior Capstone


Spring 2019



"Away From Home" is a project driven by our passion for storytelling. Over the course of year, we interviewed 32 people about what "home" means to them, synthesized these narratives to create the world of AFH. By following the journey of the main character in AFH, players explore the space of "home" and reflect on their own experiences with "home" and the environments they live in. We launched part 1 of the game for our senior capstone.



Why home and why a game?



Elleyce and I both active listeners and are passionate about the power of storytelling. So we decided to take the time to listen to people in our community through the topic of home and share these stories so that their voices could be heard in an interactive way.


We chose home because we believe that our well-being begins with this idea of "home." The idea of wanting to belong and having a space of your own to return to is a feeling that we've all experienced. Home also being such a central part of our lives, many difficult issues can root from an unhealthy home environment and unhealthy upbringing at home. So we wanted to explore this topic and portray the different perspectives people take on them with the hope that the audience could resonate and reflect on their own experiences.


Inspired and touched by games like "Florence", "Father and Son", and "To the Moon", we chose a game as our medium of choice because it allows the audience to actively engage in an immersive experience rather than just viewing or watching. The content is easier to digest and by going through the journey, feelings of empathy can be evoked.



“Games are great for supporting educational or activist programs where fostering empathy is the goal. Players can inhabit the roles and perspectives of other people in a uniquely immersive way.“

— Belman, J. & Flanagan, M. Designing Games to Foster Empathy



Away From Home: a four-part narrative



AFH is a planned, four-part narrative. The player goes on a journey through four different environments, each helping to drive a different theme around home such as immigration, diaspora, homesickness, racism, and displacement. These themes reoccured throughout our interviews and as the player goes through the game, home is understood through different contexts.



Main storyline:

As Sol explores and meets characters in the forest, a fire occurs and destroys one of the character’s home.


Underlying theme:

There are times where we lose our home beyond our control. However, Sol comes to learn of home as not a physical space, but about the people that occupy that space.



Main storyline:

Sol enters a place like paradise, only to find that the characters are suffering from trash that is left behind. But with the help of a character, Sol takes small steps to help clean the ocean.


Underlying theme:

Sometimes home is a toxic environment, but this can be hidden. It’s a reminder that no place, no person is perfect. Sol learns that it won’t go away all at once, but we can take small steps towards healing.



Main storyline:

In the rainforest, Sol meets many “odd” pairings, and starts to feel hopeless. However, towards the end, they learn that family living under the same roof doesn’t always have to be by blood and that there are strengths from being different.


Underlying theme:

Within our community, our differences aren’t always celebrated. Just like the earth’s rainforests, we suffer from forces that aim to erase our diversity. But the characters that Sol encounters teaches them to embrace the diversity.



Arctic



Main storyline:

Sol meets a lone bear cub whose family has been lost. They eventually help the cub connect with others and with the help of the cub, Sol also finds their own home.


Underlying theme:

Being alone in a place you don’t belong doesn’t mean you can’t connect with others. Sol has met many characters along the way who has helped Sol through isolation and loneliness.



the journey of getting here



Goals that we kept in mind



  1. To open up the discussion about “home”
  2. To respectfully and justifiably portray the people the we interviewed
  3. To have people genuinely enjoy the game and feel emotion from it (resonating with the story!)
  4. To spark conversations on topics that aren’t always easy to discuss and use what we’ve learned in design school to shed light upon the life stories of others.


Beginning with interviews



With a general timeline in mind and a list of questions, we spent 2018 summer and a bit into fall to conduct 19 in-person interviews and also received 13 written responses. These were all people from Elleyce and I's inner community and we could not be more thankful for their time and vulnerability.



Post interview process & timeline



Post interviews, we picked up AFH roughly during winter break in January to set us up to be at a good checkpoint in order to complete part 1 of the game for our senior spring capstone.



synthesizing interviews



creating character personas



outlining the storyline



writing dialogue script



writing music



mixing music on garageband



creating art assets



coding in c#



building in Unity



Lots of game testing in between!



The launch!



All of our work led up to the big launch day of our senior design show! It was incredibly rewarding to see so many people get a peak at our game and we couldn't be more grateful to all those that offered their help along the way.



Erica's digest



It's an incredible feeling to see something we've planned to make for so long come to life and it's all the more special because of the conversations we were able to have with our friends and family along the way. Away From Home has more stories to tell and I'm eager for the journey ahead of us as we juggle our adult life out of school and building the rest of the game. We will be updating our progress on instagram! @projects.exe