APD Week 9 - Play and Abstract

Context:
When considering the word abstract, one associates it with many dystopian films and television productions. But real life is much more exciting and uncertain than in films and dramas. This uncertainty is like an abstract object, which can be interpreted in various ways, with a fantastic storytelling in its absurdity.

Method:
For this semester's gamejam, our group (khatim, Yi-Han Lin, Chenlin Zhang) worked together to create a life simulator, where different random events were generated by pinball touching different obstacles. Finally, the events are used to form a complete life path. At the same time the order in which the pinball touches the obstacles is the order of growth (change of age). We have designed a lot of unexpected situations in the randomly generated events. For example
Good things: becoming President of the United States, becoming the richest man in the world.
Negative things: for example getting cancer, being told you only have six months to live, your parents leaving, getting lost and disappearing on your own
Little things: getting top of the class, going to MAGI to study, getting a girl's kiss for the first time.
Some things seem quite normal and ordinary, but when the events are combined with age they take on a wonderful meaning.
For example: getting a girl's kiss for the first time at the age of 80. Entering MAGI at the age of 2.

Response.
Gamejam is inspired by an existing game called "life restart", which unfortunately is not available in English. The game is based on 4 initial indicators set before birth: face, intelligence, physical strength and family status. Events are then generated for each age based on the base indicators. The events include personal events and social events. However, I found after a few playthroughs that because the starting values don't vary too much before, the overall story is unlikely to be particularly varied. So our group turned the mechanism for triggering events into a completely random pinball to make the story more interesting.

Reflection:
When our group was working on this game, the meaning we set for the game was that life is full of possibilities and there are infinite ways of interpreting it. Everyone is on their own timeline and everything is just right. I like the saying "Every flower has its own time, there is no need to envy others".

video link: https://youtu.be/afmHWUdS6QE