Seal Keeper- by Gabe Sotomayor

Artist Manifesto:

               The purpose of this project is to create an immersive and interactive non-fiction story. I would like to showcase artwork that I would have created for pixelated sprites on Bitsy all while creating an interesting and fun dialogue. I want the player, while playing as the main zookeeper, to go through fun and engaging tasks in taking care of a baby seal, as this story can be read here.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/02/10/a-baby-gray-seal-at-lincoln-park-zoo-has-been-named-fisher/

I hope to achieve creating a sense of attachment towards the seal, as what was said from the article was that the mother was not able to take care of it as she was not deemed fit for those types of duties, so the zoo staff must take on those responsibilities of taking care of it while it is a pup. I want this to be a Nintendogs type of game in where you can feed, play, bathe, put it to bed, showcase, and just overall take care of the animal by doing certain tasks and talking to different people while entering different rooms in the zoo. I think that my design is well-suited to accomplishing these goals by creating welcoming and warm atmosphere where you do not have to stress too much about playing an interactive game. I want to make it funny while at the same time having open space meant for exploring and for completing tasks.

               It is interactive as you can be able to communicate with different staff, audience members, items, collecting objects, walking around, and interacting again with NPC’s and other sprites. It creates immersion as you can put yourself in the zookeeper’s shoes in pretending on how to live the day in the life of a caretaker for animals.

               I chose the conditional (branching) advanced dialog options as I wanted the player to find all the seal’s items from the avatar and I wanted the player to deliver those items to the seal. If those items were not there, I wanted the seal to say something about not having those items yet. And once the player does deliver those items to the seal, I wanted the seal to say something about having those items, and then eventually have that become the win condition.

               I chose to add a variable in my fourth room as it works as somewhat of a trick being that it is not one of the items that one of the sprites wants, but one of the sprites still tells the player to grab it. Just to break the monotony of a linear game. I had also added another variable for when the mother of the seal asks to pick up the pup’s brush, as I thought that was a key element into conveying something that has to do with the narrative and for the player’s decision.

               It can create agency by letting the player do whatever they want to take care of the pup. You will have to need certain items to be able to accomplish certain tasks, but whatever you choose is up to the player, as the win condition will be easy.