My House is a Home is a 2D typing narrative RPG following Cam (she/they) coming home from their first semester of college. Cam navigates her relationships with her Mexican-American family and girlfriend, revolving around themes of generational trauma, queerness, and cultural differences.
This game was created during a semester with co-developer Denise Bermudez-Canciobello with sound design and composition by a team of 4 Berklee students.
Roles: Programmer, Designer, Artist, Producer
As a programmer,
I implemented the typing game aspect. I programmed 5 different modes: one where every input is valid, normal typing input, the test changes after you finish typing, the text changes randomly as you type, and choice-based input.
I created a state machine to track the conditions to activate each conversation based on the day, previous conversations, and location.
I used a Game Manager to handle transitions between days and interactions between objects like the bed, door, phone, suitcase, and posters. Events needed to happen in a certain order and based on certain conditions.
I used the tool YarnSpinner to create custom functions and text bubble behavior.
I animations for Cam and transitions between emotion states for character sprites
As a designer, I brought to life...
a game loop revolving around typing to have conversations with characters - reflecting the emotions our main character, Cam, has on the player
balancing typing difficulty and feedback to players
dialogue for Days 2, 3, and 5 and overall story structure
As an artist, I created...
all the character art, including emotion states
a walking and sleeping animation for Cam
kitchen background and environment props
title screen art
As co-developers, Denise and I partnered in the direction, production, and QA of our game, including
playtesting and collecting metrics within the game and through questionnaires
creation and maintenance of a game design macro and burndown chart utilizing an agile development process
communication with our Berklee audio team
