49 Days with You

‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.

1/18

An uneasy experience where players sit back to back to create a story on the effects of grief and the unresolved internal and external conflicts from loss.

Navigate the difficult conversations that come with losing someone, learn to move forward, confront fears or attachments, and peacefully let each other go — or fail to do so.

Prompt-Based TTRPG

2 Players

1.5-Month Class Project

Playtime: ~60 min. (Short Ver.) | ~90+ min. (Regular Ver.)

Play

Ideation

Playtest

Ideation

In Buddhist, Taoist, and Shinto religions, rituals are performed for 49 days after death to aid the departed in the bardo, a state between death and rebirth. Through these rituals of prayers and offerings, it is believed that the deceased can then gain a favorable reincarnation and have a peaceful trip to the afterlife.

49 Days With You is a 49-day prompt-based, physical back-to-back duet of the complex memories, perspectives, & connections between a grieving individual and the recently deceased as one tries to move through life while the other stays stuck in time.

Furthermore, this game spurred from my interest with the fragility and ephemerality of life and memory even beyond the death of a being. It is an experimental experience for players to explore these themes while having fun creating their own stories.

Prompt

Designing the prompts come with many considerations, such as how they should be framed and what questions to ask in order to influence conversation or storytelling for players. It was more efficient and intriguing to create situations that occur every day, where players get to respond with a set “toolkit”. This allowed for more varied and unique storytelling, avoiding a set storyline. I wanted players to explore beyond just the modern world and beyond just loved ones relationships. Deceased players could be a spirit in a medieval fantasy world, a victim to a murder mystery, or perhaps a pet!

Taking inspiration from Thousand Year Vampire, prompts often just described a situation or encounter that has already happened, then players build off of it. As a player, I felt that games were more fun when it described an encounter--something that just happens, or something that you did. Then, you deal with the details and repercussions through your own creative choices. This helps players feel like they are the character when they have no influence over situations or events that happen in a broader world. Prompts do the job that GMs would--decide encounters, create situations, and more.

Physicality

I incorporated a leaning mechanic, inspired by the physical mechanism within a hauntingly beautiful game, The Time We Have Together. It is a story about two siblings and the time they have left before the other is completely infected by a zombie virus. They sit on opposite sides of a closed door, having perhaps their last conversations together. At the end, the uninfected sibling must decide to open or close the door. The physical door prevented players from seeing one another, which allowed for a heightened imagination of the world and person beyond the door. It also acted as a physical object that could be felt, heard, and seen. When our senses are actively used in a game to perceive the world, the world becomes more immersive. Furthermore, our brain naturally attempts to fill the gaps of any missing sense with imagination, filling the gap and making "sense" of the situation.

Using this same principle, I implemented a mechanic that utilizes touch. Players sit back-to-back, unable to see one another. This meant they could only rely on the sound of their voices and the warmth and pressure of the other person's body. Creating a barrier in which removes visual confirmation and replacing it with something that could be felt forces players to fill the gap of what is missing, heightening their imagination of the world and the person they can only partially perceive. As they lean against one another and the weight shifts throughout the game, players become emotionally and physically codependent.

Design

Colors: Black, White, & Yellow

Oftentimes in Buddhist funerals, white and yellow

are most common. Yellow is used to symbolize

humility and enlightenment. White is used to

symbolize purity, serenity, and mourning.

Font: Amanojaku and EB Garamond

For titles and statement phrases, a brush stroke,

calligraphy font will be used to simulate Buddhist

scriptures. EB Garamond is the closest I could find to

the translated Buddhist scriptures I used to see and

read when I frequented the temple.

Playtests + Iterations

Iteration Document

Playtests were completed with friends, family, and classmates. Some were partners, siblings, or acquaintances. There were a total of three iterations spanning one month and two weeks of development.

Through Iteration 01 and 02, I learned that:

Players tend to forget mechanics and rules mid-play.
Roles were not clarified sufficiently.
Play styles varied drastically and they should be embraced.
The weigh mechanic was easily forgettable.
The back-to-back physicality caused fatigue and pain, despite prior precautions.
Day and night transitions felt abrupt, disturbing the flow of the story.
Grammar and punctuation were lacking, causing further confusion.
Play would go on too long on regular mode.

With Iteration 03, I implemented:

Small, cuttable reference cards that players can look at throughout play to remember the core actions, rules, and roles.
Embraced any play style!
Made the weight mechanic an intentional closing reflection by moving it to the end of each day instead of each turn.
Restructured an action loop that requires both players to establish part of the event/situation and to properly close the day.
Cleaned up grammar and punctuation for clarity.
Added more physical alternatives to reduce strain from prolonged back-to-back sitting.
Added the Ace of Hearts as the base win condition.
Changed the card to time scale. Each card represented three days (regular play) or a week (short play) instead of one for faster and more detailed gameplay.