Design Statement
Our team thought that the track invoked feelings of nostalgia, childhood memories, and "a better time in the past", but also mellow undertones of bittersweetness. We thought that it was quite a chill song that ended upbeat and hopeful, so we went for a visual novel style game with low stakes for the player, that also left off with a positive ending.

For the emotions that we were inspired by from the track, we decided to work together as people who had shared some form of outsider/immigrant experiences, especially with our cultural and language differences. We decided to make a game that gives the player the feeling of struggling with a new language, the discomfort of being an outsider, and the value of having a helping hand in that situation.

Game Instructions (launch steps, controls, and gameplay overview)
After downloading the file (and unzipping), double-click on FarFromHome.exe. You should be led to a menu where you can play the game.
Gameplay is relatively simple, you can click the text box to progress through the story, or click the Spacebar key. During puzzles, you can click on the words to submit them into the puzzle, Wordle style, and hit the enter button or Enter key to submit the sentence. You can also hit the backspace button or Backspace key to remove a word from the submission.
There is a notebook button that appears in the upper right corner that serves as a notebook for you, the player, but you can also take notes on potential word meanings on physical pen and paper if you wish! Enjoy the game!

Gameplay walkthrough video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_QCli478SY

Did your project use any AI tools or assets? If yes, please specify.
AI disclosure: Claude (Anthropic) was used in part to write code for the Yarn Spinner dialogue integration, UI scripts, and settings/audio scripts, and to help with general debugging. All art, audio, music, and dialogue were created by the team.