Developed in 2018
Solo Project
“Trash Island” is a choose your own adventure style app in which you are a prisoner living on an island of waste in the ocean. This waste is comprised of trash that the people on the ‘mainland’ have tossed away. Your character starts with limited knowledge of the area they've ended up in, yet must start exploring on their own. Your goal is to continuously choose the correct choices in order to eventually escape the prison you're in.
This game is meant to commentate on the current issue of waste that's present in today's world, and provide a speculative vision of our future. By showcasing this dystopian future through the main character's eyes, users are able to empathize with and explore the issue at hand.
This story originated from thinking about the issues with waste disposal and the existence of garbage patches within our ocean. The world building for this storyline is based on the idea that in a fictional scenario, those garbage patches could become so dense they would be habitable. This game explores who would be present in the unlivable environment they create, and what kind of things would go on there. This main storyline guided me to create a few scenarios in which users would be prompted to create choices. After I pieced together quite a few of those scenarios, I began writing and piecing it into an app called Twine. After multiple drafts and edits, it then got placed into the app and tested. Throughout this process I tried to keep in mind the key ideas I wanted to display, and the general atmosphere of the game.
I wanted to create a design that focused on muted colors for the background and some muted yellows and green for the borders and text. The muted tones set the mood, and the yellow and green represent waste. The font choice as well is meant to be a dark green for the idea of waste, and have a faded look to it.
If this project continues, I believe it would be great to add a much more cohesive storyline that was a lot longer. I also think that adding some elements like the ability to gather and store items to use to influence the story, or other gameplay mechanics beyond the basic choose-your-own adventure would be really interesting. The premise of the garbage patches that are shown in this game helped my team come up with the idea for my capstone project, Tidal Waste. I encourage checking Tidal Waste out for a version of this concept targeted to a younger audience.