Growth is a game that I began developing in the Unreal Development Kit. It was an attempt to convey my understanding of the emotions my partner was going through. It is currently still in development, though presently on hiatus.
The design of Growth began with my partner. At the time, she was going through some rough circumstances and I wasn’t entirely certain how best to help her work through them. I wanted to help her express the feelings she had in some way, so I sat down in the middle of the night with a sketchbook and began to design a game, with the intent of getting some of that emotion out onto the page, and to try and work through all the raw feelings. By trying to convey those feelings to this non-existent third-party, the imagined ‘player’ of this game, I hoped to help visualise and ease through those feelings.
The design that ended up on the paper was something I then wanted to try and develop in some way, so my partner could see the product of that night, and so I began research into various subjects and eventually began working on developing the game prototype.
Based on doodles in the sketchbook I developed a 3D character model for the player’s character, a small bunny-like creature, and added mouse control and the ability for the mouse to interact with objects in 3D space to the UDK system.
Currently Growth is currently still in the prototype stage, and has switched to the realm of 2D, but is planned to be developed over time.
