Family Dinner in hindsight (aka the final update)

Hello. Long time no speak! As I’m writing this, it’s been two years since Family Dinner was first published on itch.io. Time sure does fly. Slow it down please.

For the first anniversary last year, I had a whole postmortem planned, which would’ve recapped the development in minute detail and how the game actually did numbers-wise. I didn’t get it finished in time, and I don’t think there’s much of an audience for it. Instead, here’s my general thoughts on the game, after two years.

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I started working on Family Dinner all the way back in January of 2020, what feels like an eternity ago now. Back then it was a very different project - larger in scope, and without anything related to LGBT issues. Development was on and off until March, when I finally sat down and made the game. That’s when it took the form it takes now - a simplistic text/choice-based game about a transgender teenager.

There was a lot that didn’t make the cut, which I wish I had kept. Dream sequences where you’d actually control the protagonist, different apps on the smartphone (that’s where the whole phone UI stuff actually came from), and multiple storylines and relationships. Instead the game ended up streamlined; and the “hook” (the main plot point) would solely be Toby’s identity.

I should probably clarify that I’m not gay or trans myself. The game was not based on any personal experience. Some news sites covering the game assumed I was, and there’s a photo attached to some articles of someone who is definitely not me. I got a kick out of that. Rather, the trans storyline evolved out of my desire to make a game about teenage mental health, to create a game with a meaning and a social message.

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I used to think that games were a unique medium for that social-purpose storytelling because of their **interactivity **- because that adds immersion. That’s the philosophy I followed while making Family Dinner, but it isn’t one I really believe in anymore. I don’t think it’s enough for a game to revolve itself entirely around a social message. There’s a lot of games that do that now.

Instead, I think games work best when the social message is interwoven with the gameplay, with the story. So, when an issue isn’t the sole focus or reason for the game’s existence. What became Family Dinner had purpose outside of its message before; but the final product defines itself on raising trans awareness. There’s nothing that it does which couldn’t be done as a website, or a YouTube video, or an Instagram post, etc. It’s more like one of the aforementioned pieces of content, than a game. So even though it succeeded in its aim, I kinda feel like it failed as a video game.

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Am I still proud of Family Dinner? idk lol. I’m proud that it did have the impact it did, that people felt seen and heard by it, and thus that it achieved its aim. But I’m disappointed in the format it took. The overwhelming majority of people who played Family Dinner played it because it’s a game about trans issues. That’s fine! But when you’ve made something somewhat popular, yet that popularity isn’t because of any of your work specifically, you get mixed feelings about it. I wish I had done something more with the medium of games.

Anyway! What now? As of now I’m not working on any more projects, nor do I intend to. But if you’ve stuck around this far, or if you’re only just somehow stumbling upon this game - I thank you all the same (I’m surprised you bothered to read my silly ramblings about how games should be!). I honestly do appreciate everyone who checked this silly little project out, and I hope it may have helped you. I don’t mean to sound all self-deprecating - I am so grateful for any and all the support the game got over these past two years. At the end of the day, the game is what you (lovely audience) make of it. I hope it can continue to help and inspire people for the next two years, and beyond.

Thank you so much. :)