<aside> 💡 Summary: 🧱🧱🧱
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turn on the lights whenever you can
After browsing through the bitsy library, I noticed that I enjoy ones that are contained in one frame/one room with a simple mechanism/action that drive the narrative forward (like visiting a gallery, zooming into stars, or stepping on flowers), so my goal for this week was to play around with elements within one confined space. I thought of the idea of turning lights on/off, and how different kinds of lighting can introduce dimensionality to the space.
I remember seeing an Instagram caption from a friend, lamenting that they have been spending a lot of time envying their past selves, the more “productive” and “successful” selves before depression took over. I really resonate with that, since I am also not where I thought I would be and am in a constant state of feeling like I have failed my past self. I am never enough, while my past self is placed on an unrealistically high and unreachable pedestal.
In the game, the light switches turn on and off to reveal different compartments of the past. The player can go around to explore the small stories nested in the items. There are a total of 6 switches, with the last one being inaccessible and out of reach, because the player is “not ready”. In a way, we all have small rooms of compartmentalized memories that we are not ready to let go of.
I kind of like bitsy! It’s quite relaxing to work with (besides the whole sprite duplicate drama) and find their limitations to be quite inspiring. I came into bitsy knowing I will not make the most fleshed-out or realistic pixel art, so it helped to set out a mechanism or intention and build them using simple blocks.