Joanna Lam

Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare: The Game is a video game proposal based off Henry Fuseli's painting, The Nightmare. This project features a young girl who suffers from sleep paralysis and nightmares. As a player, you, a college student and barista, suffer from sleep paralysis and experience the same nightmare every night. In the nightmare, you are being chased by demons and must surmount multiple obstacles and puzzles throughout the maze in order to escape. This game provides many plot twists and challenges in gameplay. This game dives into the research and understanding of sleep paralysis and the conditions patients undergo when they experience it.

At the end of the game when the player has defeated all the puzzles and is able to escape the dream world, the player ascends a foreboding flight of stairs. At the top, the player sees a mirror. Looking into the reflection, the player realizes that this whole time they have been playing the demon trying to escape the dream realm. This allows players to have a desire to replay the game in order to notice the subtleties of being the demon rather than Mara, the college student.

Navigate through Mara's labyrinth by going through her schedule and daily duties. Mara's schedule is itself something you must solve in order to understand the game more. The more time you spend in the nightmare realm, the more subtleties you'll notice.

Made with Unity, The Island & The Island is an abstract game focuses on challenging normal video game environments through the jaws of an alligator. This game incorporates the landscape as the game and challenges the limitations of player movement and assessment of the land. The space is itself a time fold in which overlapping identical areas can be changed by unique individual factors, of which spark separate chain reactions that evolve the entire space. Inspired by China Mieville's novel, The City and The City, this game forces players to reconsider virtual space and question the boundaries in video games.

In Ernest Adam's Designer's Notebook: The Role of Architecture in Videogames, he speaks about how the primary role of game architecture is to support gameplay. The Island & the Island, however, seeks to challenge this belief and promotes game architecture as the source of gameplay. Game architecture is as vital to the game as the story, characters, and gameplay. According to Jon Brouchoud “architecture can tell a story, evoke emotion and shape player experience more effectively than any other aspect of your game. You can have the best characters, storyline, and UI graphics, but without an equally considerate approach to architecture, your player experience will always fall short of its fullest potential.” Thus, my game entirely focuses on game architecture and highlights game architecture as the game itself.

The Island and the Island deals with concepts regarding space exploration, particularly spaces no one usually explores or touches in video games. Within the game are mini puzzles and obstacles, but the main purpose of the game is to focus on minute changes occurring in the landscape based on the player’s choices. When the player figures out what those changes are, he or she will be able to unlock another dimension of the game. Players depend on the structure of the game's virtual space to guide them through the journey.

The exploration process includes trekking on places that are usually restricted in video games, like the backside of mountains, inside rocks, and underneath islands. Within the island are hidden triggers that teleport the player somewhere else on the islands. The game centers mainly on problem solving and strategic navigation in order to discover hidden Easter eggs and clues on the island. The idea is about uncovering and exposing the island so the player becomes more familiar with the landscape.

Landscapes in typical games are used for supportive roles that act as barriers, aesthetic purposes, or something to get past. This game, however, incorporates the landscape as the game and challenges the limitations of player movement and assessment of the land. Players must have faith in the space that it will guide them to the endgame. From the perspective of the alligator’s mouth, the game also is much harder to navigate and see the environment.

Furthermore, in the Mieville's novel there is a speculation of a third city in between these two cities. Playing around with this concept, my game incorporates a hidden third dimension that can only be found through exploration. The significance of the third space is to challenge the idea of two dimensional space and how space is accepted in today's culture. Space within a virtual game environment is represented as the game itself. Even though I disagree with Adam's notion of game architecture as only support, I do agree that games should have a supportive architecture yet also be a fundamental part of the game itself. Players should feel that the game environment stimulates creative thinking, imagination, and problem solving.