Norman Bowker

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Download (Windows)

Music - Ean Herrera

Dev Notes

I made this game for a school project in 11th grade. It was AP English, and we were doing character studies for a group project. The character, Norman Bowker, was from the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

I don't remember a lot from the book. I just know it followed the day to day horrors the Vietnam War, from the perspective of a rag-tag American platoon.

I had maybe two days to make the game with my group member, and he wasn't a game developer. He ended up writing the dialogue and the conclusion for the game, but that left all the gameplay and art up to me.

Due to my strict timeline, I knew I wanted to keep the game low-resolution with simple controls. That fact plus the biographical nature of the project reminded me of Dys4ia by Anna Anthropy, which is an autobiographical game that shows her experience with gender dysphoria and hormone replacement therapy as transgender woman. I'd end up copying a lot of elements from Dys4ia like the short vignette's with saturated colors.

I remember staying up all night working on the game, frantically building the game to my flash-drive before the bus arrived. In the end I think everyone in my class enjoyed our project. I remember hearing whispers after our presentation about how we were over-achievers. Despite being sleep deprived, that made it worth it.

I got an A on that project.

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