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• 1 2020-12-06T05:48:56-05:00 Nightfall 7 A short, surreal audio game gallery 2020-12-06T08:10:20-05:00 Nightfall is my first experience creating a game. I initially set out with the intent of making a more traditional horror game. However, I quickly abandoned this approach for two reasons: I felt I lacked the game-making expertise to execute the ideas I had, and my theming and impetus felt forced, unnatural, not my own. Instead, I settled on a more abstract, surreal experience involving only a small number of horrific elements.
  
  Space is emphasized in Nightfall. There is a lot of it—the player has quite a ways to walk for each sound, ranging from about thirty seconds to several minutes. I wanted to give the player time to just listen to the sounds and think, maybe even get slightly bored. I tried to convey a sense of longing, transience, and isolation through this journey through a surreal, mostly empty, desert landscape. 
  
  The objects I chose to place in the game—a church, a mask, a clock, a tree, a disfigured man, and a baby all evoke various emotional flavors of these themes, ranging from horrific (the man) to hopeful (the baby). I’m curious what other players will think—will they reach these objects and wonder what the point is, or will they, at least unconsciously, feel as I do?
  
  The thematic area I explore in Nightfall seems to be common, especially within a pandemic. For example, LA Opera’s Modulation advertises “themes of ISOLATION, IDENTITY, and FEAR.” We seek some sort of unreachable consolation or resolution for some pain or longing that never seems to be clearly defined. Abstract art and surrealism is one way of expressing these feelings. Music is particularly well-suited to this endeavor. It is inherently abstract, and given that so much music is based on dissonance and resolution, depriving sound of resolution is almost a built-in way to propel these themes.
  
  Download link: https://cjdowd.itch.io/nightfall
  Playable only on Mac OS for now, unfortunately.