A Resting Place
A Resting Place - Game Jam
What is A Resting Place?
A Resting Place is a short, atmospheric point-and-click game set in abstract, liminal spaces. You follow a silent guide, interacting with the environment as traces and signs surface, leaving meaning open to interpretation.
The game is entirely wordless. Progress is made by observing your surroundings and interacting with a small number of objects in each space, guided by visual and audio cues.
A Resting Place was created by a team of five people over the course of two weeks, participating in a game jam hosted by thatgamecompany.
Visual of one of the game’s stages
Role: Game Designer
- Wrote viable game directions, delivered a final game design document containing a core loop description, scope-cut list, and player interaction rules
- Planned out exact player interactions for each level of the game, while keeping narrative intact, translated emotional arc to spatial layout, pacing and experience
- Playtested Unity builds, providing feedback around pacing and adjusting confusion points
- Supported team with both technical and artistic knowledge, minimizing confusion beween the two disciplines and enabling for a stronger, faster workflow
Tools: C#, Unity, Visual Studio, Jira, Google Documents
Team Size: Five people
Design
It was a challenge to try design a game without any dialogue! I spent many hours ideating on paper about different interactions and stages. I would start with looking at our narrative, and brainstorm objects and environments that would support a certain emotion. For example, hesistant and caution were some of our key words for the first arc—to convey this, I wanted the level to include a ridiculous amount of stop signs, and in the next level, yield signs.
One of my favorite parts of this game was the slow transition from pixel art to non-pixel. I helped create the pixel art for two of the stages.
Unfortunately, due to time constraints, our team wasn’t able to add an outline to objects when hovered over—a feature I wrote in to ease the player’s confusion.