A Moment Free From Darkness

Contribution: Design and Programming

http://amomentfreefromdarkness.com/about.html

I was part of the Inflatable Reality team that developed A Moment Free From Darkness.  It is a game intended to raise awareness and empathy for women and girls sold into sex slavery in Cambodia and elsewhere.  The game is split into 4 acts, each of which was developed for a different platform.  I worked on the first and second acts, which were developed for Android phones and Windows computers respectively.  I contributed to each through programming and design, as well as art direction feedback and thematic portrayal.

The biggest challenge with the project as a whole was striking a balance between representative storytelling and portrayal- we didn’t intend for the game to be graphic or literal in its portrayal of life as a Cambodian sex slave, but rather to be representative of the feeling of resilience in the face of helplessness that these situations bring out in people.

The biggest challenge from a technical perspective was the heads being dragged away on the people in Act 2.  This feature proved extremely difficult to balance and pace, as different players would come into the game with different expectations as far as the goal or purpose, but I’m proud of where it ended up.