Project #7 Bitmap Game:
Meaning of Life
Description
At the worst of my depression, I calculated the worth of life/living as finding more things that give it meaning than things that make it dreadful. Some days ended feeling like it wasn't worth it. I think I trekked through those years trying to squeeze meaning from every remotely joyful thing. This is a game of trying to find living worth it. Avoid the things that weigh life down while chasing for things you (I) derive joy from!
Design Process
I initially wanted to simulate this "balancing act" through a game that simulates a scale.
However, the objective of the game was to have more "joys" than "fears," instead of trying to attain a 50:50 balance.
Finding that the layout wasn't conducive to the mechanism of the game, I played around with different dimensions and landed on a view
that would place the "meaning" panel on one side and "weight" panel on the other, with animations indicating progress on each side.
Reflection
My life view (?) has changed slightly since these years I reminisce on. For instance, instead of focusing on difficulty as something to avoid, I am starting to accept it as part of living & learning (although this can only happen in the luxury of baseline stability). There's just as much bad things as there are good things. A good way to enhance this project would be incorporating more stages (ie. grad school) that feature this perspective shift with different interactions.