"An exploration of self-sacrifice and a brilliantly godawful exercise in free association." - PC Gamer
My second game with Incisor Studios and collaboration with LeafLet, Thanks, Come Again is a game about a shopkeeper and the things they must do to keep their shop — and themselves — afloat. Based off of the tarot card The Hanged Man, we approached the themes of self sacrifice and acceptance of self with a surrealist lens, the customers of the shop being manifestations of vague concepts rather than people.
As the lead behind production, art direction, and asset creation, I was responsible for much of the overall direction of the game, as well as contributing heavily to the game design itself. With direction from our narrative designer, I created abstract yet meaningful character designs for each customer in the game. With UX assistance from Anna Marcelo, we collaborated together on wireframes to create an intuitive and interesting UI that the player can intuit without much context.
Released within the Cartomancy Anthology alongside 21 other games in 2022, Thanks, Come Again stands alongside the other major arcana as a unique experience among unique experiences.
After we were assigned our theme, the Hanged Man from the major arcana, we got to work brainstorming and spitballing ideas. I created a Figjam to whiteboard our different visions for what the card means and what we could do to make that interactive. After every team member wrote down a selection of ideas, we reviewed the team ideas at large and ultimately decided on a combination of ideas: that of being a shopkeeper, and that of removing parts of yourself. From there, we began populating a GDD with our game direction as well as moodboarding and defining the game's art direction.
Continuing pre-production, I started creating fake screenshots alongside my beginning to learn Blender 3D, leading to the direction of 2D character art in a 3D scene. As the narrative progressed, characters became defined enough for me to start sketching concepts, leaning into the abstract and surreal direction the characters were taking within the story. I also created user flow diagrams to define the gameplay loop early on in order for us to start iterating puzzles and character interactions.
Bringing in a consultant for UI layout and UX research allowed us to evolve our quick sketches of the UI into more actionable directions. Creating the UI involved not only bringing the wireframes to a hi-fidelity level, it also involved illustrating the objects inside the menus and creating the dynamic cursor. I was also responsible for designing the main menu, game over menu, and end-of-day menu.
Asset creation progressed quickly due to our programmer making an interface within Unity to easily import different layers of character art into a shader developed for the game. I spent time learning Unity asset integration in order to populate the 3D scene with objects on the shelves, as well as to adjust lighting and staging to better match initial direction.
In terms of producing, I was proactive in collaborating with my team members and progressing us along our timeline. As well, I took an active role in narrative design as an editor, allowing our narrative designer to integrate the theming of the story seamlessly into the gameplay.
Thanks, Come Again released within the Cartomancy Anthology, published by Compact & Code Coven, in 2022 on Steam and itch.io. The game features 5 in-game days of conceptual puzzle-solving, three endings available depending on how much of your self you give away. PC Gamer references the Hanged Man in its review of the Cartomancy Anthology, describing the premise of Thanks, Come Again as "a surreal dollop of body parts in a sort of mucky cosmic junk shop".
The development of a standalone title is underway.
