uic bfa class of 2020

(Disclaimer: The product is still a work in progress, and I intend my progress to continue beyond the exhibition). 

 

My work presented in this exhibition is an interactive story based on the story of two college students and the difficulties of their differing cultures. I’ve created a game with the player navigating the protagonist throughout the story, while also using Twine, a story-building interface best for making stories and allows flexibility and a nonlinear path telling said story. The program is simple, yet it requires a lot of preparation; my process begins with creating a setting and a cast of characters, with a heavy focus on a script to properly portray the story.

 

My main goal for this story is to convey a deeper understanding of different relationships between friends and family, whether those relationships can be toxic or misunderstood. While topics like this are subjective, I want this to make players think about their own relationships and these themes in their personal lives. Alternatively, I want the player to feel they have an influence on their actions if they were abruptly thrown into said relationship, whether they have or have not experienced it themselves. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong answer, but rather what the player chooses is right. With the choice to dabble into different routes of the story, I intend this to be an informative experience for different kinds of relationships that are not talked about often.  

With the pandemic slowing down the progress of my thesis, my side project, Dance with Words, portrays some of these relationships through color, posing, and dance; with this, it can hopefully serve as a preview of what is to come.

I want the difference and variety of living styles between cultures to be more clear and vivid if not already. Let’s see if I can help with that.