You Owe Me
You Owe Me is a short first-person narrative adventure exploring how interactive systems can communicate uncomfortable social dynamics through player perspective.
The goal was to experiment with interactive rhetoric: using gameplay and player decisions to communicate a message rather than relying solely on traditional storytelling.
Project Overview
This project explores whether interactive experiences can communicate uncomfortable social situations more effectively than traditional storytelling.
Rather than explicitly explaining the message, the game places the player in a situation where social pressure gradually overrides their ability to disengage, allowing the theme to emerge through the player's experience
​Project Details​
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Role: Game Designer
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Genre: Narrative adventure
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Focus: Narrative design, dialogue systems, player agency
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Dialogue: ~150 main lines + ~50 optional exploration lines
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Engine: Unity
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Project type: Solo academic project
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Production Time: 2 months
Brief showcase of the dialogue and interaction systems
Narrative System
Dialogue-driven storytelling
Dialogue interactions gradually escalate the tone of the conversation, shifting from casual interaction to uncomfortable persistence.
Player-driven conversations
Players choose how to respond during conversations, attempting to either engage with the situation or set boundaries.
Exploration dialogue
Environmental interactions provide additional optional dialogue lines that expand the characters and context of the story.
The project investigates how social pressure can limit a player's ability to set boundaries, gradually reducing their agency during a conversation.
Design
Design goals
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Explore how gameplay perspective can communicate uncomfortable social dynamics.
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Encourage players to experience social pressure firsthand rather than being told about it.
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Use restricted agency to reinforce the theme of boundaries being ignored.
Narrative setup
The player controls a man recovering from a breakup who is pressured by a friend to meet someone at a bar.
The interaction initially appears like a typical social encounter, but the situation gradually becomes uncomfortable as social pressure and expectations escalate.
The design intentionally places the player in situations where leaving or rejecting the interaction becomes socially difficult, mirroring real-world dynamics of unwanted attention.
Full Gameplay
Restraining player agency
A key design choice was limiting how easily the player can disengage from the interaction.
Even when players attempt to leave the conversation, the situation continues due to the other character's persistence.
This mechanic reinforces the theme of social pressure overriding personal boundaries, allowing the player to experience the discomfort directly through gameplay.
Environmental design
The playable space is intentionally small and focused, consisting of three main areas:
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The protagonist's house
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The street in front of the bar
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The bar where the main interaction takes place
Escalation of social pressure
Optional objects (and hitting level boundaries) provide additional dialogue that expands the context of the story.
Challenges and solutions
Challenge - Communicating the theme without explicit explanation
The project aimed to convey the message through gameplay rather than narration.
Solution
Dialogue structure and interaction design were used to gradually shift the player's perception of the situation, allowing them to discover the message through their own experience.
The story and dialogue were iterated multiple times based on feedback from professors and peers to improve clarity and emotional impact.
Lessons Learned
This project reinforced how player agency can be used to communicate narrative themes.
By gradually limiting the player's ability to disengage from the interaction, the experience creates tension without explicitly explaining the message.
It also highlighted the importance of iterating on dialogue and narrative pacing through feedback, as early drafts lacked clarity in how the situation escalated.