Head back home for Christmas. cue: immediate disaster
Will you survive dinner with the extended family? Or will you lose your cool when your aunt asks you, for the fifth time that evening, if you’re still single, and whether you’re ever going to get a ‘real’ job?
Will the week at home truly be a good ‘change of scenery’ for you, after your recent break-up? Will you find new love, or perhaps rekindle an old flame?
Most of all, at the dawn of a new year, will your relationship with your family make it - and will you emerge with all your brain cells intact?
- Play as female, male, or non-binary - straight, or queer.
- Spend the holidays with your family, and perhaps even find solace in their company.
- Meet your neighbour’s new (edgy) tenant, who your mother despises, because they keep smoking in the common lobby and leaving trails of… mud(?) along the corridor.
- Attend a high school reunion, and run-into your first-love, who’s doing ridiculously, absurdly, well - at least on the outside.
- Ignore your boss’s calls… or not.
- Bail out early and head back to New York for New Year’s Eve, or watch the fireworks with family or… a new flame.
Set in Singapore - explore the city, experience (and customise - to a certain extent) your family’s unique Christmas / New Year’s traditions, reminisce over old memories, and make new ones.
First chapter: 19k words total, ~10k words per playthrough.
Future updates: 6-7 total chapters planned, roughly corresponding to each of the days MC will spend at home.
Although the game will be a largely light-hearted slice-of-life game about the holidays, I do want to tackle some slightly more serious issues throughout the story, e.g. the delicate, sometimes fraught balance of individuality / freedom vs. one’s responsibility to family. Also, I guess I am home for the holidays, and I wanted to write something about where I’m from.
Demo
Check out the game’s Devt blog and say hi on my author’s Tumblr
Check out my main WIP- College Tennis: Origin Story.
Author's note
The idea came to me almost fully formed, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. Also, the WIP is basically my life. It might be the most ridiculous thing ever, or it might be fun for some folks. Who knows?
Either way, it’s meant to be a fun, compact project, inspired by @poison_mara’s winter solstice jam, and @Daleko’s seriously amazing feat (re: A Long Weekend), and wanted to take a bit of a break from my “serious” WIP (College Tennis: Origin Story) over the holidays.
Themes
- Relationships between children/parents when the former moves out/away (and moves halfway across the globe)
- Dating outside one’s “expected” circles (i.e. from one’s nationality, race etc.), or possibly being queer, especially in a slightly more conservative society
- What it means to “take care” of one’s parents (especially in Asian societies - or perhaps just my own)
- Immigration and what it means to ‘belong’
ROs
Nat
Your ex, and flatmate. Your parents never approved of them, but you suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. Despite the breakup, you still live with them in a tiny shoebox apartment. New York rent, man. What can you say?
Qiu
Your first-love. The one you tried to do long-distance with, for the first year of college. It didn’t work out, and you hadn’t kept in touch. Now, they’re ridiculously successful. But, according to your intel, still… single.
Shay
Your neighbour’s new tenant. Your parents also, do not approve. Will you work your magic and manage to persuade them to stop smoking in the common lobby and… more?