The Love We Leave Behind

All things die, Little Cat. This, we can't ignore.
But I know the secret to live forevermore!
Far away from this land, you will find a fruit-bearing tree. 
Eat this fruit, and gain the power of IMMORTALITY!

Little Cat is struggling to help his favourite person after a death of a family member. Join them in searching for the fruit of immortality, so that Little Cat can prevent their own death from upsetting anyone else!

A short interactive fiction exploring  perspectives on grief and death.

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Use WASD or ARROW KEYS to get around.

If you click full screen, you may need to click in the game before the controls start working again.

HINT

If you don't know what to do, talk to the animals or follow the pebble areas to progress.

Beware of volume - the game is loud, sorry!

Music was kindly made and provided by Ashley Keep.

Game made using Bitsy.

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Made for the University of Portsmouth Gamejam 2023.

This game mainly explored the theme of Immortality, particularly the question of is it really desirable? The Love We Leave Behind is built on the idea that the human experience is in fact more valuable in that it is finite; we know we are not around forever, and so we can make conscious choices about where we invest our time and ourselves.

The thought to briefly touch on religious experiences was also inspired by the additional theme West Bengal, as I was researching cultural/religious beliefs of the area. I was originally going to centre more on the theme of reincarnation and immortality, using UE4 to create a third person game where Little Cat gains new skills from other animals to traverse new areas, but as a solo team working part time, I exercised my better judgement and shrunk the scope pretty tremendously. 

For the third theme All Time Low, to me that describes a very dark point in someone's life. The story for this was partly inspired by the fact I had watched a video from KittenLady (an animal rescuer with an online presence) that morning speaking about the recent passing of her long time pet, sharing how she coped and embraced her grief during the process. Reflecting on my own experiences of losing a beloved pet in the past, this definitely struck me as an all time low, so I sought to explore how one can cope in times of extreme hurt.