Visual Novel
Mother, Player is an experimental narrative video game featuring pregnancy and early parenthood stories from artists during the global pandemic. Set within a backdrop of the tense 2020 United States election and a terrifying new international health crisis, players explore the maternal healthcare industry and parenting culture as a burnt out pansexual artist who has decided to have a child despite an increasingly discouraging geopolitical climate that deprioritizes and devalues care. The game additionally addresses the lack of multi-dimensional pregnancy and early parenthood stories in video games—something that the game developer herself became sensitive to and critical of after becoming pregnant, giving birth, and taking care of a newborn during this isolated and uncertain time. All of the interfaces, animations, fonts, buttons, dialogue boxes, and icons have been hand drawn and animated by the artist, as part of a commitment to building a poetic, soft, labor-intensive, and complex game-world reflective of the childcare experiences she and the other artist parents have had during the pandemic.