A Ghost Story

Passion Project: Creating a videogame from scratch

Timeline

October 2021 – December 2021

Tools

Processing 4, Figma, Adobe Illustrator

Role

Coding, Content Writing, Illustration, UI/UX Design

01. INTRO

Project Overview

A Ghost Story started off as my final project for my class DES 111: Coding for Designers, but turned into a passion project. The prompt for this project was to create something in the coding language Processing 4 that would be too difficult to do using Adobe Creative Suite or conventional tools.

I knew from the start that I wanted to create a game around the concept of the afterlife and the transition between life and death. However, it took several iterations and discussions with my professor, peers, and friends before I finally decided to create a narrative game about ghosts. Once I started writing this story, I knew that I had to go all the way and push myself as a writer, designer, and coder to do this project justice.

Concept

In between this life and the next life there is Ghostland Interdimensional Airport where all ghosts have to pass through before they can move on to their next life.

There is a ghost named Kevin who has waited 99 years for his soulmate Nathan to come so they can move on together. Players are a ghost who helps Kevin on his mission to find his soulmate.

Playthrough

02. PROCESS

Research & Inspiration

At the beginning of this process, I created a moodboard with photos from films, tv shows, and media that I wanted to reference when designing my own game.

I took inspiration for the storyline for A Ghost Story from "Hotel Del Luna" a South Korean TV drama written by Hong Jung-eun and Hong Mi-ran and directed by Oh Choong-Hwan. The show revolves around a woman who runs a hotel for ghosts, which serves as a place for them to stay in between their death and moving on to the afterlife. From this show, I got inspiration to have the game take place in a liminal (transitional) space, to mirror how the ghosts are in between life and the afterlife.

In terms of the artistic direction and game design, I looked at the videogames Among Us and Pokemon Heart Gold Soul Silver which both used the overhead perspective and allowed players to move up and down and left to right.

Storyboarding

Before I started coding, I sketched out all of the individual scenes I needed for the story and the code that would be needed to excute the interactions.

Wireframe 1

I started my first interation by using placeholder colors and shapes for the characters and backgrounds. This game relies heavily on switching between different modes and so I started out by creating the modes and making sure that I could move between them.

Wireframe 2

In my second iteration, I finished writing the script for the story and created the characters and backgrounds using Adobe Illustrator. Then, I imported them into Processing to replace the placeholder shapes.

03. FINAL ITERATION

In my final iteration, I reworked my illustrations and art style and rewrote parts of the script and finalized it. I also reworked my code to make sure all of the my modes connected and iteractions worked.

04. REFLECTIONS AND NEXT STEPS

Challenges

Building the entire concept and story. This was the first time that I've ever made a video game or really any type of creative story. Usually, I'm writing for academic purposes and so this was my first experience with creative writing. It was difficult for me to make decisions about my characters and to figure out what the world of Ghostland looks like.

Lessons

I learned how rewarding it is to myself creatively during this passion project. I initially designed "A Ghost Story" for a class project, but once I became more invested in the story and world of the game, I decided to go beyond what was outlined in the requirements to create this game. I am so happy and proud of this project, and I am so glad that I decided to go all the way with it.