A Life in a Year

2024

Play the demo

Summary

A Life in a Year is a narrative-driven adventure game that explores the emotional challenges of studying abroad. You play as Laura, a 16-year-old exchange student in a Nordic country. The game navigates themes like language barriers, cultural differences, friendship, family, and more.

Engine: Unity
Platform: PC
Role: Solo developer
Type: Thesis project

My Contribution

In-game images
In-game images
In-game images
In-game images
In-game images
In-game images
In-game images
In-game images
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Character sketches and portraits
Character sketches and portraits


Main character's creation process
Main character's creation process

Solo Developer

  • Investigation: Conducted 6 months of thesis research on acculturation, language acquisition and the challenges of studying abroad to inform the game’s mechanics and narrative.
  • Game Design: Designed the core mechanics, including the innovative language barrier system, exploration mechanics, and level structure.
  • Narrative Design: Developed the entire story structure and characters and selected a section of the story for the demo, writing the characters and ambient dialogue. Made multiple dialogue variations depending on the protagonist’s language proficiency.
  • Art & Animation: Created concept art and all assets, including character portraits, environments, UI elements and animations. Designed the game’s logo and splash screen.
  • Implementation: Brought all elements together in Unity using Adventure Creator, ensuring that mechanics, interactions, and narrative elements functioned cohesively.
Download thesis (in Spanish)
Extract of the demo's dialogues
Extract of the demo's dialogues

Postmortem

What went well

  • The game successfully conveyed the emotional and linguistic challenges of studying abroad, resonating with exchange students and narrative-driven game players, both wanting to see more.
  • The language barrier mechanic was well received as a way to create empathy through gameplay.
  • Managing every aspect of development allowed for a deeper understanding of game creation and a cohesive vision.

What went wrong

  • Balancing game design, narrative, art, sound and implementation by myself was overwhelming under a tight deadline.
  • The autobiographical nature of the project made it harder to refine certain aspects objectively.
  • Encountered some technical issues that I couldn't resolve on my own.

What I learned

  • This project reinforced my passion for meaningful storytelling and the impact it can have. The narrative aspect was crucial and by far the most challenging aspect to develop, but also the most rewarding.
  • Even though it was nice having full control of the project, this kind of game would be more managable and less intimidating with a team.
  • Scope. Choosing a section of the full game for the demo was challenging, the workload became almost unbearable because of my ambition.

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