For the final project for my Serious and Subversive Games class at Pratt Institute, we were given the prompt to make a game regarding a real world topic or issue. In this game, the player character is a child in a war-torn country, who must escape their home town. They use memories of their past to give them the strength and courage to survive.

When making this game, I wanted to fully lean into the simplicity and constraints that the Bitsy Engine provides. Through this, I was able to use the Exits and Endings system to change scenes in the middle of a room to subvert player expectations. If I were to remake this game, I would make gathering all items unnecessary for progression, as well as make the game more punishing. Currently the game is linear and there is no true “fail state” which conveys the narrative effectively, but is unrealistic and idealistic in terms of the situation being presented. I would change this into a game with a branching narrative structure, so that there could be different outcomes and scenarios depending on the choices the player makes. I would explore more scenarios of using children’s playground games, to survive and get through various events. For example, connecting with other children through playing clapping games such as Concentration, or getting through the Trip Wire section by playing a game like Freeze Tag or Simon Says.