In 2024, I experienced waves of drastic changes, not all positive, in my life. It all began with the death of my family’s cat, Snake, from cancer of the mouth. Months later, my grandmother Shirley fell and broke her hip, and she shortly passed as well. She was the last of the Silent Generation in my family, and it felt like the complete closing of an era where stories, music, and laughter filled the room of our reunion gatherings. After the funeral of his mother, my father’s health rapidly declined. He was close to my grandmother, and spoke with her every day on the phone. He had lost his best friend, the person he could be nostalgic with, and remember the world that he grew up in, the world that he knew best, the place that he loved. My father was hospitalized, and I desperately looked for ways to escape my reality.
Video games did not work, but further instilled a sense of existential dread, and my growing fear of time quickly slipping between my fingers. I was ashamed of how much my life relied upon the foundations set by my father, but it showed me that so much of my means were not based on my work, but the surplus of my ancestors. I realized it was time for me to get to work and build a life that will endure for a lifetime, and hopefully provide for the lives of others as my father did for me, and my grandparents did for him.
This situation required me to be flexible, courageous, and balanced in order to overcome the sudden instability of my everyday life. However, this was difficult for me, for obvious reasons. I, too, lost one of my best friends when my father died. We would play music, sing karaoke duets, share stories about our travels, swap cooking tips, watch films and television together, and laugh a lot. When he died, I struggled with finding inner peace in my mind and steadying my footing in the “new” era of my family. There were so many objects, including the musical instruments surrounding me at home, that reminded me of my past life — the life where my father and my grandmother were still living. These memories clouded my mind for months. I would pick up an instrument and play the same songs over and over again. It was obvious to not only others but to me as well that I was stuck in a tiny, repetitive loop.
I also found it difficult to think straight and focus on completing projects. My quick fix when I was feeling low was to distract myself with films. All I had to do was push a button, and voila, I could sit back and enjoy the imaginary world without having to do much of anything, really. I was mentally “checked out”, and my father’s death was an excuse for me to not move on, make new memories, leave the habitual, and participate in the material world beyond eating, self-care, and sleeping. I don’t think it was a bad thing, but it wasn’t balanced out with work. I didn’t want to work, and procrastinated on looking for a job that suited my personality, cultural background, skills, talents, and passions.
When I wasn’t watching a film, I was fortunate to experience moments of clarity and heightened awareness, amid my confusion, that I needed a solution to stabilize my life, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, and socially. In these moments, I decided to start paving a path to recovery through the process of self-discovery and made it easier for myself by trusting the process of intuition, even when I did not know or understand what I was doing and why I was doing it. I had to ask basic questions all over again. Who was I? What role was I playing right now? What is this and that? How was this made? Why was it made? I would meditate on a single thread of thought to see where it would take me. This is when I had the idea to mix a variety of elements that I found comforting during my solitary time.
As a way to have fun, inspire my creative mind, and reignite the joys of life, I developed a simple music mystery puzzle game that blends the human system, a 20-sided dice from Dungeons & Dragons, an individual’s personalized music library, and the internet’s search engine.
The video below is an example of the game mechanics.
The game requires traveling to meet people, getting to know them, and building mutual trust and alliances. This is the “unlocking of a map” in which the rest of the game can occur. For someone who likes to have a purpose for pretty much everything, this motivated me to get outside and have a solid reason to do so.
In addition, the player has the choice of developing a character for the gameplay. This can enhance the experience, break down communication barriers through the art of clowning and dramatic role-playing.
