So, as you probably know, I thought of this game while going out grocery shopping. In fact, the places featured in the game are loosely based on my current residence. Where I currently reside, we had a 9 months long of very intense lockdown due to Covid. Truly, during that time it felt as if  time had stopped for the entire city, it felt a little like the end of the world. I barely saw any humans around and instead I saw tons of birds, animals and nature slowly taking things over again. 

During those long 9 months, I have also; by coincidence, found myself deeply interested in learning about nature. I got myself plant and birds identification guides and every time I went out, I learnt to identify and name the plants and animals that I met: the common Myna, Australian Magpies (which isn't even a true corvid), Rosellas, Plantains, Begonias, true Clovers (my home country had clover lookalikes but they were, in fact, not clovers but Oxalis. also, a PSA to fellow SEAsians, Bayam is NOT spinach, it's Amaranth. fight me on this (ง •̀_•́)ง jk i was shook when i found out too....) 

Even just a short walk to the nearest grocer was something I could now revel in and enjoy, just by looking closely at the nature around me, and noticing a little violet plant growing from the cracks of a building, or seeing ivy creeping on a neighbor's door because they haven't been out for a while, it was almost like a little game to me. Not to mention, walking out to the same place two weeks later and realizing Oh, the irises have bloomed, and the magpies on that tree has built a little nest or noticing things like oh, that random spill of milk on the floor looks like a heart, and I wonder where that seagull got those fries from? That was the kind of childish, wondrous feeling that I wanted to emulate in the game. I wanted people to look around them, and notice the little changes or how the world changes even if time has stopped for us. I wanted folks who were (or are still) stuck under lockdown to appreciate little things like that and at the same time realize, that you know, things are hopefully going to be alright. Things may be dreary but learning to enjoy little things like the simple chirps of a sparrow, or just checking on that houseplant that grew a new leaf, it may make things a little more bearable, it may make you feel less stagnant.

At first, I had planned on making this purely a visual novel, but upon realizing all of the above, I decided to take the leap and try to make a hidden objects game. What better way to emulate the joy of finding a nesting bird than actually making you find one? And yes. As the title of this little essay suggest, I almost made you all look for and identify wild plants (I'd still love to make this game someday, but with better identification guides and all) But I figured that was a very niche interest of mine, and i know for a lot of people..... all plants look the same HAHA. I did still manage to sneak a couple of those in there, mostly some birds and fungi because you know, I do still want people to possibly learn something new (my housemate was laughing in hysterics when she googled what a Potoo was and what it sounded like because of this game) but I didn't want players to have to constantly look up things either because that doesn't sound like fun. I wanted people to look for things themselves out of curiosity, not because the game necessarily made them do so and i do hope that worked well enough that some of you who played it manage to learn a thing or two about my favourite wildlife creatures haha.

Anyway, thank you for reading this far if you did read this far. To be honest, a lot of the design aspect of this game had been quite instinctive, which is new for me because I'm usually that stickler who makes a 23469493 page GDD and art bible but I don't think it's all bad to work like this. And I do find it quite inspiring to find game ideas just from my own experiences, just by existing, because I truly, truly believe that life can be a lot of fun. Call me a hopeless optimist, but that's what I'd like to believe. I do hope some of that positivity rubs off from this game and that you'll enjoy looking around you as much as you enjoyed it in my game!