EMOTIONAL SPACE
Emotional Space is the product of a 2-week game jam held at Media Molecule for the
Brand New Planet event in collaboration with BBC Earth and Professor Brian Cox.
I worked on this project on my own and did everything from script writing, narrative design,
level and gameplay design, art direction, art passing, character design and character modeling.
The lovely music was made by Oli Grant and additional animation and design support came
from Mike Pang, Pablo Lopez Soriano and Peter Field.
To make sure I would be able to finish this project within the limited time frame I decided to push the art in a more stylized direction, with simple shape language and a more minimalist approach. This allowed me to design, write, art and finish the entire experience on my own in just 2 weeks.
I wanted to really lean into narrative design for this project, so both the gameplay
and environments are linked with the emotional beats of the story.
In the game you meet a runaway alien teen who bumps into a road-tripping astronomer.
Through their conversations you learn the reasons for why the teen has left home and we
experience their anger, sadness and finally reconciliation.
The three sets of environments and puzzles are tied to these emotions. A red, dry and thorny landscape is paired with a puzzle set on a volcanic planet just waiting to erupt. These are tied to the anger the teen feels towards their family. The astronomer gently probes at the planet and the teen, and both slowly open up.
The foggy, misty and blue environment paired with a cloudy water planet represents the sadness, confusion and feeling of being lost that a child feels when running away. But as the astronomer and teen continue their conversation the clouds slowly disappear, and clear skies follow.
And finally, the astronomer and teen end up in a cozy forest clearing paired with a shattered planet that you slowly have to piece together. At the end of this conversation the planet is whole again and the teen feels ready to go home. The game ends on the final note of them saying 'see you around'.
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My main takeaways for this project were that my choice of art style freed up lots of time to spend on narrative design and writing, that I should maintain a balance between planning and implementing my designs, and that one should spend time on creating a good onboarding experience as it is critical for the game experience as a whole.
You can play the entire game in Dreams on a PlayStation.
Or you can read the full script here and watch the full length video here.