Hug Embassy is now Open~!

Hello all! 

Here we are at the end of Nanoreno and this year I was able to team up with KnickKnack PJ and was able to make this 'hugging simulator'!

3 girls to talk to, 5 people to hug and one weird not-a-cult Hug Embassy! 

You can play the game in-browser but I suggest to download for the 'peak' version of the game! 

And b/c I can, Im going to ramble on a little bit about the thought process that went into this game!

I went on a big trip recently where I got to visit places I had only ever seen in movies and shows and books and it made me really appreciate how physical buildings in real life can seep into our art. The statue of liberty exists in a show because it exists in real life and it exists in real life because (simplifying here) an artist made it in real life and because the people making the show saw it. The things around us in our lives and in our environments have impacts on not only what we write/create but what we would even think to write. 

I normally write fantasy in a way where I don't really want to think about what's going on in my life-- its escapist. But after my trip I thought, well, what would my art look like if I really let my own environmental life influence me? So I set out to make something "only  I could make". 

Each of the characters-- Beatrice, Isabelle and Lily-- are simultaneously good friends of mine as well as myself. They're snapshots of people during low times in their lives. But, if I can be honest, I've always really struggled engaging with work where you play as a 'therapist' and come in and say some nice words and the people's lives get better. Charlotte says a lot of my feelings about this in the final ending, but I'll say it here as well (esp if there are any bugs preventing people from getting that far *laugh cry* )-- 

One of the hardest things to do is to sit with someone in their pain and simply be there for them. You can't fix them, you can't help them, but you can act as witness to them-- that they existed in the here and now and that someone sees them. The truth is that there are bad things that happen to people and that does not mean they 'failed', it means nothing about their moral caliber. 

I read "The Returning" by Christine Hinwood which had a chapter illustrating people's reaction to grief so poetically. In that chapter, a young boy's dog has been shot dead in front of him by an angry farmer. The young boy sits on top of the hill and plots revenge against the farmer day in and day out while the dog's corpse rots next to him. Every single villager in the town comes to visit this boy and each say something very different to him. "Get over it." "You shouldn't have been bothering the farmer." "That farmer was an asshole anyway." This is how the villagers are introduced to you, the reader. Through their reaction to someone else's grief do you learn more about the person who is speaking than about the boy who is mourning. I thought it was a beautiful way of illustrating how the way people react to other's pain is very illuminating about who they are. 

The senses of grief in this game aren't nearly so harsh as in that book, but it influenced me as I was writing this title. The ending might be a bit controversial (LOL) but I didn't want an easy cop out. I wanted to ask-- why do we need a universally good ending so badly? People's lives do not exist for us to feel better about ourselves.  We're here to offer a kind ear and a hug and that's it.

Anyway, despite the complicated emotions that went behind the scenes, I hope the game is still fun to play! Feel free to let me know if you hit any bugs and such. I learned a lot about canvas scalers this time around, so hopefully i can go back and fix Butterblue with that. 

See you again next time! 

- Heiden