Detachment
Follow Charlie's story as he progress through stages of dementia
"Detachment" is a thought-provoking 2D point & click game featuring a puzzle mini-game, offering an exploration of psychological hardship. The narrative centers around Charlie, an elderly man grappling with dementia. Players assume control of Charlie, navigating through the various stages of his illness, ultimately reaching a state of complete "blankness."
Fact sheet
Genre
Point-and-click adventure with puzzle minigames
Platform
PC
Project Length
6 weeks
Engine
Unity
Team Size
4
Trailer
Responsibilities
Provided gameplay direction and design input
Iterative design from early development stages
Designed and implemented game progression logic using custom-made visual graphs
Designed and implemented the interaction system using custom-made visual graphs
Designed and implemented the puzzle mini-game system, tuning the overall system
Worked closely with other disciplines to provide and update requirement lists for mechanics, art, sound assets, etc.
Implemented game content except sound and dialogues
Project Gallery
Design Process
Project Description
Detachment is developed as a semester project to deliver a narrative game with the theme of “Blank Page”. I collaborated with a programmer, an artist, a sound designer and a narrative designer to create this short point and click game. We approached the topic by exploring dementia from the perspective of memory loss.
Design approach
Design decisions on the location and game progression allowed us to reuse the limited art assets
To show the different stages of Dementia, I incorporated some of the symptoms in the gameplay mechanics like limited inventory system
Game progression is designed to trigger events showing the different mental states of the character
I designed a recurring mini game that imply the character’s retrograding memory
Challenges
Addressing the delicate subject of dementia with accuracy
Scoping down the initial ambitious concept for limited time and resources
Designing gameplay mechanics reflecting different stages of dementia
Greatest achievements
Working closely with the programmer on designing the game systems
Implementing assets, the game progression logic and interactions using a custom node-based graph system
Designing the mini-game that included an AI entity
Outlook (with more time)
Implement each act based on real-life stages of dementia
Add more locations and characters for a richer narrative
Learning Objective/Outcome
Understanding challenges of developing a Point-and-Click game
Implementing game content and logic using a custom-made tool