Sunset Red
A downloadable game
Sunset Red is a puzzle platformer about identity and feeling trapped in the past.
This is my largest project developed over 2 years as a creative component accompanying my Master's degree.
Featuring 60 rooms of puzzles,
3 primary abilities,
4 secondary abilities executed when combining primary ones,
and programmer art.
Use either controller or keyboard (no mouse) to play.
Controls are shown during startup and introduced during play when needed.
Jump is the same as the Accept input. (M or Gamepad Button South)
Plot
You control Ms. Red, a woman trying to escape her imprisonment through a strange dimension opening behind a crack in her cell's walls.
Finding a strange hammer within, she gains the ability to stop and rewind objects and herself in time and space.
The player must use the hammer to traverse 60 different rooms, combining the inputs for stopping and rewinding in different orders to achieve effects necessary for letting Ms. Red escape the ghost of her past and escape.
~Spoilers beyond this point~
I'd recommend playing the game through to the end before reading further.
Reveal
Afterword
My Master's research concerned constructing a philosophy for representing transgender characters in video games without tokenistic or harmfully stereotypical traits.
A portion of this also included the obfuscation of Sunset Red's queer theme and subsequently revealing it to question what effects this would have on the player's perception of the characters and their traits. Through this obfuscation I hope to draw more players to playing Sunset Red and empathizing with Ms. Red beyond queerness alone and identifying with her struggle for freedom or other traits through the play experience.
Ultimately the use of time and space manipulation mechanics being combinable states was inspired by the non-linear nature of identity forming. Much of the game's theme surrounding crime, murder and coming to terms with oneself are based on my own experiences desiring freedom and absolving the guilt I feel for wanting to transition and be myself in a very back-and-forth processing of events and thoughts.
Hopefully the dissertation and other design documents accompanying Sunset Red can also be uploaded with the game in future, or at least linked on this page for an expanded breakdown on my thoughts if you would like them. For any burning questions, feel free to ask through a comment.
Download
Install instructions
Download and extract the zip folder to a location of your choice.
A README is contained within for additional information regarding debug features if you have issues to report.
Simply run Sunset Red.exe to play.
The game can be played with controller or keyboard alone (no mouse needed).
Do not remove any files from the Sunset Red folder, they must be kept together,
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