Design Statement
I interpreted the theme track as the feeling of a journey: travelling forward without knowing exactly what will be waiting at the end, then finally finding something meaningful. Pippin turns that feeling into a search through one family's history. Nell walks through five small dioramas from her grandmother Ida's life, following an apple tree and the things people carried, planted, lost, and kept.

The main design choice was to make time something the player can handle directly. A slider changes each place across seasons, years, or a single night, so progress comes from looking at familiar spaces at a different moment. Objects and grafts connect the chapters, while letters gradually reveal why the journey matters. The final discovery is both a physical apple and a better understanding of Ida. The theme track inspired this interpretation, but is not used in the game's soundtrack.

Game Instructions (launch steps, controls, and gameplay overview)
Launch: Play in your browser at https://th1nhng0.itch.io/pippin, click Run game, then start a new game. For Windows, download and extract the Windows ZIP and run Pippin.exe. For Mac, extract the matching Apple silicon or Intel ZIP and open Pippin.app; right-click and choose Open on first launch. If macOS reports the unsigned app as damaged, run xattr -cr /path/to/Pippin.app in Terminal.

Controls: Click to walk, talk and interact. Drag the bottom slider to move through time. Select an item in your pockets, then click a target to use it; right-click or Esc puts it down. Space advances dialogue and letters; click dialogue choices. Click again while walking to run. H opens a hint; the mouse wheel zooms. Keyboard: Left/Right selects hotspots, Enter activates, 1–9 selects inventory, and Tab focuses the slider for arrow-key adjustment. F11 toggles fullscreen in the desktop build.

Overview: Explore five living dioramas from Ida Marsh’s life, solve puzzles by finding the right time, and recover the last Marsh pippin. Includes two endings, hidden keepsakes and five notes. Progress saves automatically; allow about 30–60 minutes.

Gameplay walkthrough video
https://youtu.be/yGxICAE8y-0

Did your project use any AI tools or assets? If yes, please specify.
Yes. All game code was written with Claude (Anthropic), directed and reviewed by the author. The diorama art is drawn procedurally by that code; there are no image assets. Story and dialogue were drafted with Claude and edited by the author. Voices, music and sound effects were generated with ElevenLabs. Interface fonts are VT323 and Caveat from Google Fonts under the SIL Open Font License.