ISA MARI DE LEON

Me & You

is a surreal Twine game between a couple in a fraught relationship, navigating their memories by reminiscing through past polaroid pictures.

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With a gameplay loop inspired by tarot card readings and an amnesiac player character, the pictures reveal new facets of the past, present, and future. Like in tarot readings, photos are randomly drawn in upright or reversed positions, which create different interpretations and meanings. The story benefits from multiple playthroughs and explores ideas of memory, illness, loss, and seeing loved ones in old and new lights.

Created for Cal Marginalized Genders in Gaming’s second spring Game Jam in 2022.

Skills:

• Conceptualized, wrote, and published a text-based visual novel featuring branching dialogue and multiple endings
• Organized and collaborated with a small game jam team (of four) over an extended weekend—scoping, visualizing, and mobilizing quickly to deliver a minimum viable product
• Illustrated 2D cards for in-game interaction and designed ancillary banners

I did narrative design, writing, and illustration for Me & You.

Our lean team of four (myself, alongside Anne Zhang-Huang, Jenny Miao, Daniela Davila) were inspired by the game jam’s theme of “dreamscape.” We interpreted it to be darker, nightmarish—that sense of spiraling when losing your memories, or the growing detachment from falling out of a relationship. As exemplified with Me & You, my work trends toward surrealist (and pretentious, I can’t deny), but hopefully grounded by a human core.