The Lovers

Content Warning: Body horror
The Final Product
test
meadow
tea
A Body Horror Image Under Cut
alt text here

The Concept

The Lovers is a 2000s RPG Maker style survival horror game with a linear narrative and multiple endings. This game would have puzzles with collect/combine/use items and interacting with the environment, as well as a reputation system through choices the player makes.
The core game loop
I asked my father as well as consulted Guampedia for quite a bit of my research!

A Bit Of Backstory I interpreted my randomly selected words "Sunken Metropolis" as an underwater city, although I played with the idea of a cave or sink hole. There is a popular CHamoru (pronounced cha-mor-ro) legend of Two Lovers. There are two versions of this story, one is precolonial, the other including Spainards. For the themes I want to explore, I chose the latter:
    The eldest daughter of a wealthy Spanish business man and the CHamoru chief's daughter was arranged to wed a Spanish captain. When she found out she ran away, distraught. She soon found herself along the coastline where she saw a CHamoru man from a modest family.
    She fell in love in the moonlight.
    They would see each other at night whenever they could.
    When her father found out, he grew angry and ordered her to marry the next day. She met up with her lover and they ran away together. The Spanish captian and his soldiers pursued them up a cliff.
    The CHamoru man warned them to stay back.
    The Captian ordered his soldiers to halt.
    The lovers tied their long, black hair together, looked into each other's eyes, kissed for the last time, and jumped off.
    They were never seen again.
The cliff they jumped off of is a tourist site! Known as Two Lover's Point or Puntan Dos Amantes! I heard it's quite beautiful. In this rendition of the legend, I've changed a few things. The chief's daughter is a trans man - gender was a lot more fluid in Pre-Colonial Guam and as a trans individual myself I wanted to include it. Narratively this would give another reason for him to not return to his family, where he would inevitably be forced to live as a woman. It is an unfortunately common experience amongst trans folk to cut off and go no contact with transphobic family. I've slightly altered the lovers' relationship. Because it is a legend, it has to go rather fast but for this game, their relationship is quite important and their love was developed. Same with the chief's son identity exploration. In the aftermath of their leap, I imagine the Spanish business man, who would be next in line for chief (at least according to his standards) hid the true nature of their apparent deaths and disappearence. He spread rumors that it was the CHamoru man's fault, he jumped and took his precious "daughter" with him.