As an artist and designer, I love to challenge myself and I also love video games! I decided to design and develop a video game from scratch, even though I had no experience making games. The goal of this game was to explore how coding could create interactive design that was meaningful. This cozy game follows a character through her day making decisions that may be hard for those who struggle with mental health. I wanted to create an environment that felt safe, relaxing, and cozy, unlike our own environment when we agonize over small tasks and decisions, such as cleaning our room or getting ready for the day. This was a completely solo project so narrative, game design, programming, art, and animation were all done by me. Music and sound effects are attributed below.

I designed a formula to figure out what I wanted to create: Portfolio + Passions + Challenge = Designing a Video Game This formula helped me combine my interests with my future goals and pushed me to challenge myself.

Creative Brief: Before the design process began, I wrote out a comprehensive creative brief. It started with a "Mad Lib". The frame of the mad lib looked like this: "I will [investigate, challenge, experiment, etc.] how design can [help, clarify, emphasize, etc.]. This project will impact [the who]. This project is important because [the why]."

What my Mad Lib looked like: "I will explore how design can become an interactive medium to enhance the user experience and encourage reflection and self-exploration. This project will impact those who are interested in mental health and how it affects our daily lives. This project is important because it challenges thoughts about mental health and explores how it affects people who struggle with it."

Interactive Design & Mental Health After the initial concept phase, I was excited to jump into illustrating. I began with character design and then jumped into "level" design.

UI/UX The user experience for this project was important since it was an interactive piece. I had to think about usability, readability, and accessibility. Above you can see how the room design started and how it ended up; the first design was too messy and abstract. The game requires that you press on items in the room, so I implemented line art and a more cohesive color palette and artistic style to make the experience more enjoyable for users. I also designed a user interface: menu design, a "life bar", and a reward system.

If you want to see the game in action, watch the trailer introducing the game and depicting gameplay.