A Slice of Life by Chikentear
In a Slice of life, you will be playing Sam, a questioning young adult. As playing this Interactive Fiction, your choices are going to define their gender identity. We have chosen to express the theme “Unstable” by the spectrum of the gender identity, to show some of the multiple possibilities, inspired by the life experience of some of our designers. Gender is a pretty large spectrum, which is never fixed in stone, its expression can be expressed and explored in multiple ways. Our game is just a little part of the experience, its purpose is not to be the universal experience but simply a way to make people question themself when playing this slice of life.
Our team :
Kitcate : Writing & Tech // Alice Pi : Illustration // Chikentear : Illustration // Mx Myu : Game design
Some documents for those who would like to get to know more about non-binarity and the expression of the gender spectrum : - (EN) https://www.lgbthero.org.uk/being-non-binary - (EN) https://genderqueerid.com/ - (FR) https://wikitrans.co/2020/01/07/la-non-binarite-cest-quoi/ - (FR) https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/
| Link | https://kitcate.itch.io/asliceoflife |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/a-slice-of-life |
Ratings
| Overall | 1312th | 3.032⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1492th | 2.323⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 994th | 3.081⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1048th | 3.2⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 909th | 3.433⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1093th | 2.345⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 981th | 3.194⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 46🗨️ |
With regard to constructive comments, for most of the questions I was not too sure why they influenced the outcome, as in using everyday tastes to say something about gender identity seemed to kinda play into gender presentation stereotypes, which seems to be the opposite of the game's aim? Or maybe I misunderstood completely and the answers didn't directly influence the outcome and that's the whole point? (In which case that's really cool actually but I'd love to see a hint about that in-game?) Hope this makes sense haha!
Another bit of feedback I had was about the dialogue - the characters seemed to have pretty similar voices, speaking in full complicated sentences etc, while in an online chat I'd expect at least some people to speak shorter, and just from the narrative standpoint would be nice for them to have distinctive voices - although I appreciate it's not relevant to the plot :)
Overall, really like the idea of a choose-your-answer game to make you question your biases, perfect format for that! And by the way great to see another narrative game - we made one as well, seems like very few teams went for this format :)
I think this type of narrative game would've benefited a lot from having music or ambience, maybe even the pc fans humming and keyboard noises.
@sasha-v Your remarks are relevant, the person in charge of the writing wants to take the time to answer you but after a night of sleeping lol
The choices you make have an influence in the game, one choice tends to the "feminine", one to the "masculine" and one is neutral.
It's a number variable : when this variable is under 3, you'll have one ending, when it's more than 7, you'll have another, and between 3 and 7, another one.
The balance is voluntarly biased to tend to give a fluid ending to most of the players, to make people think about gender codes, and think about their own bias.
Some narrative choices and association "things = this gender" were quite random, 'cause sometimes you're qualified with a gender for things that seems random. Main examples are the first and last choices you can make in the game. I mean "loving this plant = you're a man, or woman, or non-binary person" just doesn't make any sense but in our society, there are random things like this.
Also, the reaction of Nour and Marwan are not really significative of the gender you'll be associated for this choice. It was also a way to express that tastes and gender are far more complicated and deep than just a little game and a random list of things.
It was a challenge for me to produce subtle texts and convincing relationship between these three characters in such a short time. I understand the confusion and I'll try to make the game and choices' influence clearer for the improvements we have planned.
And thanks for the writing advice, it's so true. In one hand, I wanted to let things readable for lots of people. Sometimes we forget that people with certain disabilities are not able to understand short sentences or abbreviation so I didn't want to use too much of that. But in another hand, I totally get this impression and I'll improve the writing keeping your advice in mind.
Thanks for your detailed comment btw, it's really helpful!
Lots of relatable references in there hehe :3
Really cool that you're making this kind of game to help spread awareness of different experiences and gender expressions! Dig it, and keep doing what you're doing :)
We made a visual novel as well, completely different genre though :p
Is there a reason why the colours of the names are changing? It was a bit hard to read.
I played it twice with different answers, but had the same ending ^^"
The story might have been interesting, but I wouldn't know.
It would be a good mobile game though I think.
I think my confusion began within the first exchange you have with Nour and Muwan. It appears like the two had friction between them, so I initially thought this conflict would drive the plot throughout the story. I was sort of surprised, and a bit bummed, that this issue was never brought up again. I also got stumped during the movie suggestion section because...well, of the choices given, *Fight Club* was the only movie I've seen, let alone know the plot about. So that was a really awkward moment. I get that the writing was intentional conversational, and moreover, is supposed depict just a moment in our player character's life. But I also found that a bit...aimless? It wasn't what I expected, and I confess I didn't find the banter between the three characters compelling, at least to a point that would encourage me to experiment with the multiple choices.
I did read your reply to @sasha-v to get a better understanding of the intent of the game. It sounds like the "gendering" of each choice was deliberately arbitrary? In context, I do think that makes sense, and the game was effective at catching me off-guard on that. For example, given I'm Japanese-American, I went the full-Japanese route, and got what I assume is the queer ending. It's kind of funny, given I frequently use the cultural differences between Japanese and US culture as evidence that gender roles are artificial. That said, I thought the way this point was presented wasn't very clear. I wonder if there was a more direct way to bring it up, e.g. by exposing the stat in the background, or perhaps use some sort of up or down (or left or right) arrow animation to indicate what sway each choice had. That way, the feedback would be more immediate to the player, and might help them realize the muddy nature of their choices.
Again, I probably wasn't the best player to go through and attempt to analyze what appears to be a complex topic I have no depth of knowledge in. Still, I did like the diverse representation added in at the end. The art and illustrations are all fantastic, too: a shame the music couldn't make it in.