Come High Water

Come High Water (in progress) is a small tutorial portion of a third-person exploration game in which the protagonist collects material to make their own sail boat. 

Check out my portfolio at https://www.alilouwagie.ca/ and keep an eye out for updates. I have ambitions of making a boat that sails with the wind!

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How to play:

F for instructions

WASD for directional movement 

Mouse Movement to control camera movement - player also moves in the direction that the camera faces

Space Bar to Jump and ascend while swimming

Q to dive

Tab Key to drive boat

B to access your menu

E to interact

R to speak

The grander goal of the finished game is to address climate grief through exploration and play.  The environment is a nautical world of sea and sky, but themes of displacement and ecological trauma lie just below the surface.

The player assumes the role of Minnow, a child who wakes up one morning to find herself  in a flooded world.  This is not a realistic depiction of ecological disaster or societal collapse, but a symbolic dreamscape built to enable the player to delve into the emotions of displacement, survival, and adaptation.

Disoriented, with no memory of what has happened, Minnow is granted refuge and guidance from a weathered community of survivors.  Aided by the friends she earns, Minnow rises to the challenges of this environment, learning to sail, navigate, and scavenging for resources to conserve, repurpose and build with.  Humankind has begun anew, rebuilding atop of older submerged structures.

As Minnow and the community sort through what can be salvaged from the ruins, they access the past and assess what should be carried forward and what should be left behind. Adaptation and survival necessitate that they live in community not just with each other but with the natural world, a force that humbled humanity but also a source of renewal, sustaining Minnow and her friends.

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This game was created during eight weeks for the 2024 session of Pixelles' Make Games Program, a volunteer-run course and mentorship program that guides participants through the process of releasing their first game. This is the first, small prototype of a portion of gameplay and requires much more work and polish, but I learned so much from the process of making this.

Many thanks to the organizers - Julia, Hanine and Maude - for the time and energy that they dedicated to us, to my mentor Sam who demystifies blueprints and patiently helped with debugging. Thank you to the online Pixelles community for encouragement and to Ramy for his help with code logic.

Thank you to Nguyen Dinh for contributing two beautiful music demos, for his encouragement, interest and support.

Thank you to my many other friends and family who continue to support my projects in small but meaningful ways, to Thomas for sitting down next to me to untangle logic and to my brother Jamie for playing Windwaker back in the day.

 Eight weeks is no time at all - it flew by! I hope to be able to continue to learn and improve upon what I have made so far.