When I started designing games, my first thought was to create games that I wanted to play. It goes against some of my HCI training (“the user is not like me”) but I’m doing it for fun so why not :-) So in this endeavor, end-user == Emily.
We’ve already established that I love cooperative games. I’ve also recently been gravitating toward games that don’t have “super serious” themes. I’m not sure if it’s the pandemic or what, but I’m less engaged these days in games that have me saving the world, building a civilization, or exploring space. I’m also less interested in high fantasy and sci-fi right now. These are genres I love, but I’ve been finding myself more deeply engaged when I discover games that take something from everyday life and make it delightful (No Regerts, Newfoundland Jam, Petrichor, Macaryoshka, etc) or that take those common genres and make them adorable, funny, and a bit less serious (Aftermath, Burgle Bros, The Captain is Dead, etc).
And also, I love cats. I really LOVE cats. I have tattoos of cats. I have artwork of cats. I have actual cats. Fluffy, furry, adorable, murderous little grumps. They are constantly up to no good and trying to pretend that they’re not. I walk out of the bedroom in the morning and they look at me as though I’m clearly interrupting something but also they’re both definitely innocent of any wrongdoing. I’m immediately suspicious: what are they up to each night? As a child of the 90s, my immediate answer is “trying to take over the world!”
And so that was my jumping-off point. If my cats were trying to take over the world, how would they do it? And what does it mean to take over the world when your whole world is just one house and you’re just a cat?
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