TIMELINE
Around 2016
FORMAT
Web
ROLE
Game Designer
Background
Venezuela is a personal project of mine that I created during my time in university. It is a narrative based digital game that allows players to simulate what life is like in Venezuela. Players have the ability to experience the country from two different perspectives: a doctor, Luis, in one of the few operating hospitals and a poor mother, Nathaly. Each scenario highlights different social issues occurring in the country and which narrative the player experiences is left up to chance. Depending on the choices the player makes, the game can vary in length and mood. The players’ decisions greatly alter the potential ending for the narrative so they must choose wisely.
Goal
The purpose of the game is to educate people about the social issues occurring in Venezuela and as a result, stir people into action to try and help the situation. The player's goal would be to inflict the least amount of harm to their characters through their decisions in the game and to learn about the life of Venezuelan citizens.
Process
Deciding the Game Topic
The idea to create a social impact game based on Venezuela occurred to me because it was one of the largest political issues happening in the news at the time. Despite having heard of the issue, I knew almost nothing about the details of it or how things became so bad. I had no idea how Venezuelan citizens truly felt. I chose this topic so I could educate myself and potentially other people on the crisis happening.
Educating Myself
I read as many papers as possible. I also interviewed multiple Venezuelans that were residing in Miami at the time.
Deciding a Format
I deliberated on what format the game should be in. I initially thought to do a board game because I found them to be the most engaging gaming format. However, after thinking through the goal of the game, the time constraint I had, along with the content, I decided that a narrative-based online game would be the most effective. It would allow people to focus on the story and feel more connected to the characters themselves.
Crafting a Narrative
I wanted people to feel the weight of their decisions and the near impossible choices Venezuelans had to make at the time.
Nathaly’s story touches upon the poor economic conditions, scarcity of food, crime, and medical conditions in the country. Luis’s story focuses on the poor conditions and corruption of the medical and police system. Players progress through the story by making a series of decisions that can affect the outcome for each character. Their stories can end on a more positive note or a negative note depending on what the player chooses.
For the most part, the game stayed the same throughout the development process. The biggest change was only including two characters instead of three. The third story was supposed to tell the story of what life is like for the rich but after speaking to a Venezuelan person, I discovered that life for the people with more money isn’t that different from the life of the poor. Resources, like food, are still scarce and a lot of people who are considered wealthy moved away from the country when the situation worsened. All that is left is the middle class and the only way they differ from the poor is that they can afford to buy scarce products and sell them at exorbitant prices. This wasn’t enough information for me to create a third story with current resources I had and the time frame.
Testing
The first play test went extremely well. At the time, I only had one story completed so I couldn’t use the randomizer that would set the players up with a random character. I had to manually start from Nathaly’s story. This wasn't a problem because the players enjoyed the story. They became invested in the narrative and all of them were anxious about making decisions because they were uncertain of the outcomes. All of the players stated how they enjoyed the details written into the story because it helped them to envision the situation. One person said he felt like he was transported to the country. The players did say that they were excited to see what the other story would be and that they wanted to play it.
During the second play test, I received feedback of a few problems with the narrative that I needed to address. The information on the introduction page was too vague. I needed to include the decades Venezuela was wealthy in and when things started to fall apart in order to give players a reference point. Also, I never mentioned what the players were supposed to do in the game or what they should expect. To counteract this problem, I included a short section underneath the general information that explained what players were supposed to do in the game. There was also a problem that was brought up while we were playtesting Luis’s story. At the very beginning of his story, players have the option to report the horrible medical situation to a journalist and risk being fired from their job as a surgeon. The playtester brought up how this should probably be moved to the end of the story because she didn’t know the details of the medical situation yet. She said that I should include scenarios that highlight the terrible situation first. A few problems arose with Nathaly’s story as well but a majority of them were minor grammar mistakes. The playtester also stated to make it more clear that the hospital doesn’t have all the supplies it needs and that is why Nathaly had to provide everything. She also stated that if players chose not to spend the money on food, to describe the effect that hunger is having on the characters. Keeping all of her suggestions in mind, I edited the game accordingly.