My creation

This game reminds me of a more HD version of Baby Tree, one of the games I most frequently show to people to tell them what interactive fiction is. It's also a minimalist game prominently featuring a bed and a child and some agonizing decisions.

In this game you play a single parent, on a bed, with your child interminably crying. All you can do is crawl around your bed, not enough energy to do more. It's a multiple-location bed, something I haven't seen much before. After finding some appropriate reading material (which is coincidentally something I've been discussing with my students a lot recently since it's assigned reading), you have some parent-to-baby discourse on your hopes and dreams and fears.

It was easy for me to vividly imagine this game because in some non-zero measure I was there. The day we took my son home from the hospital, I helped my exhausted and injured wife into bed in a dark bedroom, took a look at my son, and panicked.

For the first time, I realized that our life as we knew it was over. We couldn't just stroll out of the house to get Taco Bell or whatever. I couldn't just hop into the car to go see parents without planning. There was a helpless human being in our car and from now until the (it felt like) rest of our lives, one of us will have to be with that person at all times.

It was daunting, especially after the painful c-section. It didn't help that I both forgot the baby in the car when stopping at CVS that day (for five minutes, and panicked that I would get arrested) and that I let him roll off the bed and hit the ground after rushing outside to grab a credit card for my wife when an aggressive and convincing scammer called.

So this game really hit home. Our protagonist has to deal with all of that, but also alone. There are also concerns about whether they can relate to each other in terms of gender and orientation. I hope that all parents out there know that things can work out well, that there can be many good times mixed in with the bad (although for some people it really is hard all the time so take that with a grain of salt!)

This game reminds me of a more HD version of Baby Tree, one of the games I most frequently show to people to tell them what interactive fiction is. It's also a minimalist game prominently featuring a bed and a child and some agonizing decisions.

In this game you play a single parent, on a bed, with your child interminably crying. All you can do is crawl around your bed, not enough energy to do more. It's a multiple-location bed, something I haven't seen much before. After finding some appropriate reading material (which is coincidentally something I've been discussing with my students a lot recently since it's assigned reading), you have some parent-to-baby discourse on your hopes and dreams and fears.

It was easy for me to vividly imagine this game because in some non-zero measure I was there. The day we took my son home from the hospital, I helped my exhausted and injured wife into bed in a dark bedroom, took a look at my son, and panicked.

For the first time, I realized that our life as we knew it was over. We couldn't just stroll out of the house to get Taco Bell or whatever. I couldn't just hop into the car to go see parents without planning. There was a helpless human being in our car and from now until the (it felt like) rest of our lives, one of us will have to be with that person at all times.

It was daunting, especially after the painful c-section. It didn't help that I both forgot the baby in the car when stopping at CVS that day (for five minutes, and panicked that I would get arrested) and that I let him roll off the bed and hit the ground after rushing outside to grab a credit card for my wife when an aggressive and convincing scammer called.

So this game really hit home. Our protagonist has to deal with all of that, but also alone. There are also concerns about whether they can relate to each other in terms of gender and orientation. I hope that all parents out there know that things can work out well, that there can be many good times mixed in with the bad (although for some people it really is hard all the time so take that with a grain of salt!)

Presentation-wise, the game has a lot of rough-edges. Here is a sample:

Top of the bed
You have dragged yourself up, digging your nails into the bedcovers, to the top of the bed. Here you can reach what is on your bedside table.

You can see your phone and a glass of water here.

The baby looks tired. You are tired too.

>x table
You can't see any such thing.

>drink water
There's nothing suitable to drink here.

The baby takes a quick and wheezing breath, only to continue crying.

>take water
Taken.

The baby's high pitched crying turns even more high pitched.

>drink it
There's nothing suitable to drink here.

You feel your own vocal cords contracting and stinging, asif you are the one who has been crying all this time.

>x it
You take a sip of water from your glass.

Your baby's cries become even louder.

So the implementation could definitely use some work, but the message resonates.