Hopeless Journey
Year
2023 - 3 months
Brief
Hopeless Journey is a single-player survival simulation game for Windows and Mac, built on Unity. It is aimed for release on Steam, itch.io, and a dedicated website. With a 2-4 hour gameplay length, it offers a realistic experience highlighting the harsh realities of homelessness.
The game addresses the global crisis, where 150 million people lack safe housing, including over 170,000 in California. CNN.(2023).California has spent billions to fight homelessness. The problem has gotten worse By humanizing these struggles, Hopeless Journey seeks to educate players on the root causes and systemic issues of homelessness.
Goal
Hopeless Journey aims to inspire action and support for real-world solutions, transform perceptions, and encourage players to become part of the solution to homelessness.
Realistic Survival Experience: Create an immersive simulation that accurately portrays the homeless's challenges, focusing on survival mechanics such as finding shelter, securing food, and maintaining health.
Educational Impact: Use the game to educate players about the root causes of homelessness, the daily struggles faced by people without housing, and the systemic issues contributing to the crisis.
Empathy and Awareness: Encourage players to develop a deeper understanding and compassion for the homeless, transforming their perspectives and motivating them to support real-world solutions.
Research
We carried out extensive research to ensure the game's authenticity and impact. Our core questions focused on understanding why people become homeless, the obstacles they face in reintegrating into society, and the dangers they encounter.
Key findings include job loss (25.2%), drug or alcohol use (16.3%), and family arguments (10.6%) as significant causes of homelessness.
Essential solutions identified were employment assistance (30.4%) and rental assistance (27.7%). This research informed our gameplay and narrative design, ensuring a realistic portrayal of homelessness and its challenges.
Conceptualization
In "Hopeless Journey," players embody a former blue-collar worker now facing homelessness due to unfortunate circumstances. Over a month, the character deals with life on the streets, including challenges such as addiction and mental health issues. Players determine the character's fate by guiding employment or begging choices. The character's hardships are reflected in his worn appearance.
Mechanics
Resource Management: Players must manage limited resources to survive, including food, water, and warmth.
Shelter and Safety: Finding safe places to sleep and stay warm is critical, with various environmental hazards posing constant threats.
Interactions and Choices: Players will encounter other characters, each with their own stories and struggles, and must make choices that affect their survival and that of others.
Dynamic Environment: A realistic and changing environment that includes weather, time of day, and urban settings to enhance immersion and challenge.
Players navigate challenges such as finding shelter, securing food, and maintaining health in a dynamic environment. Realistic visuals and immersive audio enhance the experience, fostering empathy and understanding.
Brand
In the fifth week of the "Hopeless Journey" project, I developed and shared a design style guide to ensure a consistent aesthetic and visual identity. The logo's shape symbolizes homelessness, while the mustard yellow and black-grey colours represent hope in a dark journey, fostering understanding and compassion.
I used Webflow to prototype the game website, a Miro board for the site map and collected data on California's homeless population for content. 2D and 3D Images were generated by Leonardo AI and Meshy AI using keywords related to homelessness, resulting in a unified brand presence across all platforms, improving user experience and engagement.
UI
The HUD in "Hopeless Journey" boasts an intuitive layout, with elements such as player status consistently placed for easy navigation.
Icons for health, fatigue, hunger, and hygiene feature progress bars and dynamic animations when critical levels are reached.
A clock and weather widget displays current conditions and day/night cycles, adding depth to the gameplay.
The expandable inventory system and quick slots ensure convenient access to items, while the mini-map highlights the player’s location and points of interest.
The quest tracker effectively communicates objectives and progress, and including emotion icons and narrative feedback enriches the player’s connection to the character.
Reflection
The digital agency's positive feedback on our "Hopeless Journey" pitch was encouraging, highlighting its clarity and presentation strengths. However, growth opportunities were identified, including
Providing specific story examples
Conducting a more thorough analysis of serious games
Expanding research beyond California.
We aim to deepen our understanding and narrative approach in future iterations.
