You are Piper's—a graduated senior from a Catholic all-girls high school—laptop for 4 years. After experiencing an intense senior year with mixed feelings, your usage life will finally enter the end at the time of 6: 24 AM of May 29th, 2022. However, instead of just waiting through the garbage time, you get a chance to use up your last power in the freeze moment of 5:03 AM to save all the data of memories for Piper before she drives to the new chapter of her life.

MOTIVE

The term “garbage term” refers to the final moments or minutes of a game in which one side has an insurmountable lead. Although as a sport word it is usually used to describe the possibility of score under a weaker defense under landsiding gaps between two teams, this word used in the political context often emphasizes the meaningless of this period due to the impossibility to change the incoming dilemma. The time between May 3rd 2022 and June 24th 2022—when the Roe vs Wade overturned decision was leaked but not conducted yet—can be considered as a typical garbage term. To explore the efforts and pain women were experiencing and record the meaning of this “awaiting execution period”, I decided to develop a game narrating this part of history, specific from a Catholic High School girl’s gaze.

INSPIRATION

There are diverse computer-interface games on the current market, including many classic pieces like Do Not Feed the Monkeys and Home Safety Hotline . These pieces narrate their stories across various generations of user interfaces inside computer systems. However, they all shared the systematical nature trait of computer interface, embedded their stories into the digital data, removing the attraction from the player identity itself. I feel like this “bystander gaze” offered a novel perspective of exploring history, especially when this period of history happened right at the internet age. The idea of being the personal laptop of a high school girl not only allows players to uncover the stories during solving puzzles, but also correspond to the irony of civilization going backwards within the era of rapid technological advancement.

AESTHETIC

Similar to other computer-interface games on the market, I want to have the aesthetic and the design of the user interface to be representative to the particular time spot. In addition, it should also be representative of its owner and atmosphere. Although the game narrates to be a story of a 2022 high school graduate experiencing the strip away of her reproductive rights before becoming an adult, it should also be a teens year story with specific youth, dreamy, Gen Z sense atmosphere. As a result, I adopted the color proportion of one of Taylor Swift’s albums (Lover) and the Y2K style as the main aesthetic of this game.

PUZZLES

The story of Piper—my protagonist of the story—has been divided into two parts, which are her junior year and senior year (5/2021-5/2022). This period of time not only covers the whole college application period of a high school student, but also a phrase with continuous deterioration of women reproductive rights in the United States (Texas Heart Beat Act). The player will uncover the experience of Piper around this period by solving puzzles, collecting memorial fragments and composing an important item of her experience.

Notably, corresponding to the background of being an old computer that no longer operates soon, the player will have limited movement in solving puzzles. The mistaken puzzle solving might cause the game to end (the laptop to shut down) before uncovering the whole story.

Flour Baby is the important memorial item in Piper’s Junior Year, signifying the friendship, relationship between Piper and her mother, and her reflection on some policy of her Catholic high school. In this part, Piper’s best friend Mia’s final project for the religion class, Flour Baby, was broken in a sleepover. The player is required to uncover the process of Piper helping Mia to fix the project by collecting memorial fragments listed below: Flour Baby Blueprints, Broken Flour Baby, Pigment in the right color and Needle & Thread.

Card is the important memorial item in Piper’s Senior Year, signifying the fade of friendship, family relationship, fellowship, academic performance and her resistance to her Catholic high school administration. In this part, Piper experienced not only an intense application period, but also the tension between the school and family towards specific topics on reproductive rights. The player is required to uncover the reason for Piper being rejected by her dream schools by collecting memorial fragments listed below: Card Blueprints, Hand Cross, Note between Classmates, School Honor Ring.

APPLICATIONS

ShotSnap is designed based on the real life Instagram and Snapchat, which is where Piper connects with all of her contacts: friends, families, classmates and even teachers with close relationships. It is mostly where the player explores all the relationships of Piper, or serves as the supplemented information of the story. It is the first app to be open, no previous unlock needed.

Mail is designed based on any real life email app, which is where Piper receives important and formal notice from colleges, schools, classes and instructors. The update of the mail usually signifies an important notice to change Piper’s current status. For example, the rejected letter from her dream school.

School is designed based on any real life school website, which is where Piper’s academic performance and every file related to the high school is stored. The player can explore everything related to the Piper’s school activities. It is the third app to be opened, unlocked from ShotSnap.

Trash is designed based on any real life computer trash, which contains a lock program inside. The player will only use the lock program here at the beginning of the second part. It is the fourth app to be opened, unlocked from School.

College is designed based on CommonApp and CollegeBoard, which is where Piper’s college application related process and filing to be conducted. The player can review everything related to Piper's college application. It is the fifth app to be opened, unlocked from the first part completed.

Compose is a special app specific for the game flow system, which is where the player stores the collected memorial fragments and composes them into an important memorial item. Each memorial item will only be used once and one memorial item consists of four fragments.

Computer is a special app specific for the game flow system, which is where the player can exit the game to the lockscreen at the middle of the game.

Notice is a special app specific for the game flow system, where the player can open the notice history of the instruction notice to see the hint of puzzle solving.

NARRATIVE

Mia is Piper’s best friend, or was Piper’s best friend. Although they shared great bone and connections, even subdue the Flour Baby crisis together when they were both at the high school, the 1 year early graduate of Mia led to the gradual fade of this friendship and the potential loss of Piper’s best girl friend. The message history between Mia and Piper shows the dynamic of Piper’s friendship throughout these 2 years.

The message history inside the class of 2022 Senior group chat represents the fellowship between Piper and her classmate, even if the group chat eventually got deleted due to the exposure of violating school policies. It shows how students in this Catholic school, not only Piper, navigate to resist what the institute has put upon them together.

The academic performance of Piper is an important part of the story as well, which can be demonstrated in different aspects, including her relationship with her instructors, her GPA and her application result. The player can tell that Piper was always a behave student who put effort into applications, which makes the eventual academic sacrifice for the resistance especially significant.

The dynamic of Piper’s family is a supplementary storyline for the whole narrative. Piper’s personality and decision making style are highly impacted by her controlling mother and the escape “sister” Kateleen.

WALKTHROUGH