in partnership with Jade Lin (2025)
Credits: Writer / Game Designer
Jade Lin and I made this short game during our master’s in game design at Goldsmiths. Definitely check out her itch.io page for some incredible interactive experiences.
Are We There Yet? is about recalling. You play as Luisa, the daughter of Paul. After her father’s death, Luisa rewatches tapes of some of the times they spent together, including their last car ride. Recorded memories seamlessly give way to dreams, as Luisa’s rememberings get intertwined with her mourning. We can never truly return to the past, after all; only look at it through the lens of our present selves.
The idea for this story came from an article published in the Brazilian magazine Revista Piauí some years ago, about a son who reconnects with his late father through their posthumously shared taste in music -- more specifically, Vangelis’ score for the Blade Runner movie. We were also greatly inspired by Charlotte Wells’ film debut, Aftersun. In an article for A24, Wells mentioned the Turkish word hasret as her emotional compass throughout the creative process. Hasret means something in between the English words memory, longing, and loss.
In that space of hasret we also tried to place this game.
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Are We There Yet? on itch.io