Daddy I’m Dying

Roles: Game Design, Level Design, Narrative Design

Featured in USC’s 2018 Game Expo

During my Fall 2017 semester at USC I lost my cat to cancer. The disease progressed incredibly quickly and I struggled with balancing my responsibilities with spending her last days with her. In the following semester I was given the opportunity to take something deeply personal and make it into a commercial product, I chose to document the last days of Danger Kitty’s life using RPG Maker Fes for the 3DS. If you’re interested in playing the game and have a 2DS or 3DS you can download the game using the free “RPG Maker Fes Player” and search for “Daddy I’m Dying”, detailed instruction and screenshots of the process are below.

Game Trailer

Design Decisions

The core loop of the project is based around choosing whether not to eat each day. If a player decides to eat their life is extended, but their human doesn’t know that there is a problem.

Time was an important system in the project. At the end of each day the player’s life is lowered, half of which can be offset if they’ve chose to eat. I provide a little personalized statement about my relationship with my cat at the end of each day. Each day the amount of time grows a little shorter, limiting what you’ll be able to experience and signaling how the growth of cancer affected Danger Kitty. The decision to shorten each day was based on feedback from playtesters.

Along with shortening the time for each successive day, playtesters expressed an interest to do more in the game. In response I added a sewing room that you aren’t allowed to enter until you are down to one life, based on being less strict with Danger Kitty when I noticed how sick she was. I also added some more interaction between Danger and Sasha, my sister in law’s dog.