Exhibit 5

This game is a non-linear story. I was inspired by a similar game called Survive Covid that my teacher Dipti showed us. It raises awareness on disadvantaged people's struggles during the pandemic. Around the same time, I heard from my sister that her friend's mental state is worsening because he is depressed, has an oppressive father who has been beating him all his life to the point of having scars, and now must stay together with him in confinement. One of my friends is also having a hard time, being quarantined with 4 family members who constantly judge him and don't accept him for who he is. My mother's friend has a girlfriend with mental issues and a controlling personality, and after being together for 10 years, he was supposed to break up with her and move our, but Covid-19 happened so they have to be isolated together. All these situations inspired me to write this sad game about a family that doesn't make you feel like home. I made my version of Survive Covid and I added real-life stories of people around me. I used Twinery because it's easy to keep track of the plot, however it was extremely difficult to keep track of the Points because of all the different situations and nodes (HTML document can be viewed here). It would have been much easier if I had created variables and updated them and displayed them as the game moved on, but that was a lot of programming language that I did not know of. I used Itch to upload my HTML file and have it run on their server. The password to play it is "exhibit5"

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I also watched a video about designing vector characters in Adobe Illustrator, and since it looked very difficult because Illustrator is a complex tool and I have never used it, I decided to do similar artworks with Vectr. Even though it was my first time with Vectr, I could feel that it is much simpler than Illustrator. I created characters for each family member and I gave them 2-3 different moods to align with the plot of the story. Not all the characters were used, but they are all on the left and can be enlarged. I also created the title art and game over art using Vectr. 

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Media form: interactive game (non-linear story) + text + image + audio

Inspiration: the situation at home of people around me + http://covid.xrlabs.cloud/ + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1LpFn1OHa0

Music: The Complex by Kevin MacLeod

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz1amCLEuoE

Tools: Twinery + Itch + Vectr + YouTube music + YTMP3