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Context: The Space in Between is a visual novel that tells the story of June, an outgoing college student wrestling with her complicated relationship with her immigrant mother, and her boyfriend Miles, who is recovering after a period of mental illness. Set on a stargazing trip, the player connects stars in the night sky to create their own constellation. Depending on what shape they choose to form, a different story is told.
Inspiration: I realized that there wasn’t a single game that told the modern Asian American experience, one that honed in on the everyday lives of Asian people, specifically that of a first-generation Chinese girl. I didn’t want my game to be in-your-face Asian, but one where the character just happened to be Chinese, in which her actions and speech are imbued with her cultural identity. Combined with the core gameplay mechanic, in which the player influences the narrative not only through dialogue branches, but by imagining new constellations, The Space in Between is a story that will leave you calling your close ones to tell them you love them.
My Role:
Impact:
Inspiration: I realized that there wasn’t a single game that told the modern Asian American experience, one that honed in on the everyday lives of Asian people, specifically that of a first-generation Chinese girl. I didn’t want my game to be in-your-face Asian, but one where the character just happened to be Chinese, in which her actions and speech are imbued with her cultural identity. Combined with the core gameplay mechanic, in which the player influences the narrative not only through dialogue branches, but by imagining new constellations, The Space in Between is a story that will leave you calling your close ones to tell them you love them.
My Role:
- Creative director, project manager, copywriter, and narrative designer for a video game about Asian American identity, mental health, and stargazing
- Creates marketing content (trailer, posts, comic, graphics) for the game's social media, developer diary, and community Discord
- Wrote promotional comic Searching in Between, a slice-of-life series set before our game about a Chinese girl's unfortunate attempts to find a boyfriend (released weekly for a total of nine episodes, 2.9k readers, 8.56/10 rating on Webtoon
Impact:
- Game featured in WorkWithIndies newsletter and Twitter (3k viewers), Daily Bruin (22.8k viewers), GameByte (8.7k viewers), Itch.io's Twitter (86k viewers), How Games are Changing the World (8k viewers), and The Indie Game Site (7.5k viewers)
- Panelist at Empower Asian America and ACM's Humanities in Game Development to speak about the game
- 15k+ plays