Courageously arachnophobic, I wish.

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Game description

My encounter with a wolf spider at home when I was 12 years old not only traumatized me, but also cemented a lasting arachnophobia in me. Regardless of color, shape or size, my fear does not discriminate.
In this autographical game, I want to acknowledge and honor my irrational fear of the (generally) tiny, 8-legged cohabitants in my apartment. The game is based on my worst nightmare- having a spider infestation in my apartment. A mind-boggling fact that is that an average female house spider can give birth to about 4000 eggs in her lifetime, which means that my already frequent encounters with spiders in my current place could very well be a telltale sign of an infestation underway. The game enables players to do that I could never do in real life- preventing spiders from taking over my apartment by bravely exterminating them with a slipper.
The characters in the game include a slipper, mother spiders and baby spiders. I excluded showing any part of a person in the game to symbolize the kind of out-of-body experience when I am in a face-off with a spider. My body would literally freeze: my breath is held unconsciously, my brain gets foggy and my limbs barely moves. Sometimes I wish the slipper I was holding could take over my body, so that it can take away my fear and restore my senses. Once the game starts, the player can move the slipper with the mouse. Once it is on top of a mouse, slap by clicking the mouse. Mother spiders will give birth to one baby spider every second, which scurries all over the place. Every four seconds, one more mother spider appears. The objective is to exterminate every single spider from the apartment. If there are more than 100 spiders, player loses to spiders and the infestation begins...
storyboard

Reflection

Working on this project let me see two things more clearly. First, there are many similiarities between the UX design process and the process I followed to make this game. Both use storyboards to share the concept and emphasize on iteration and testing. Although I only gathered feedback from one frined who playtested my game, observing her play let me see many gaps in communication that were not evident to me before. Another takeaway is searching inwards for project inspirations. Upon a reflection of my past projects, most of them were not exclusively inspired by my inner emotions, rather they address issues in the outside world. This project let me see that my own lived experience provides ample opportunity for exploration. This game is by no means intended to cure anachrophobia, it is just me honoring a part of me that I was not proud of. Although it solves no problem in the world, it provides me with relief that at least in a game that I created, I have control over my body and mind in front of spiders.