Connected: Summer of '09
In a quiet summer of 2009, friendships were tested among a group of friends when an anonymous texter threatened to permanently keep them offline one by one.
Connected: Summer of ’09 is a mystery visual novel about a group of friends and an anonymous killer. It explores and breaks the concepts of trust and loyalty within the bounds of chatboxes.
Personal Notes
This was one of the first digital products that I handled for a school project. With limited knowledge at that time, I had to research several things about Unity such as Scriptable Objects and handling canvas elements to create the a functional chatbox system/social media channel browser effect.
It was satisfying to see the fruits of our labor within a month’s worth of producing this simple visual novel. Now that I am looking back at this, I can point out several design flaws that was implemented here. There are probably more, but here’s a few that I could remember:
- Bombardment of backstory not evenly spaced out or not even paced at all.
- Lack of feedback with the time-bounded choices for the player. The only feedback they have is the decreasing transparency of button’s background.
- Lack of tutorials or contrast among visual elements would leave players not knowing what elements in the screen are interactable.
On a positive note, as a small student project, it already demonstrated growth within our capacities as game designers and developers. This is what makes me proud of this project.
