Where She Stays is a 2D narrative puzzle game rooted in memory and loss. Haunted by guilt over missing grandmother’s passing, I open her diary—only to find myself transported to Where She Stays. Or perhaps this place exists only within my own dreams.

Where She Stays explores themes of family, friendship, and the search for meaning. Through magical elements, it reconstructs emotional truths instead of literal events, inviting players to connect with the story on a personal level. It is a warm experience, one that carries a quiet and lasting sense of sorrow.

The game was inspired by a friend’s experience filming a documentary at a nursing home. Many elderly residents relied on each other for warmth and support. Some were there because their children were overwhelmed by work. Others had begun to regress cognitively, or had outlived their own families. Despite everything, they faced life with quiet resilience and optimism.

We were deeply moved by this sense of human vitality. That led us to design a narrative-driven game set in a nursing home that highlights the strength of the elderly and the bonds they form. The story also explores family, especially the regret of missing a loved one’s final chapter.

Once we defined our experience goal, which is to deliver a warm, emotionally grounded narrative, the design direction became clear. We began with a paper prototype in which players took on the role of a volunteer spending a day with residents. While this realism aimed to create emotional impact, the unpredictability of real-life routines often disrupted narrative cohesion and immersion.

I quickly realized that while games share elements with film and other visual media, they are fundamentally different. No medium is more immersive or emotionally powerful than letting players step into a world themselves.

The protagonist, Mei, carries unresolved guilt after missing her grandmother’s final moments while studying abroad. Years of distance have blurred her memories, even as she tries to hold onto them. When her mother gives her her grandmother’s diary, Mei discovers she can enter and relive fragments of her grandmother’s final days.

The game uses a dual-timeline mechanic that lets players shift between present-day reality and the world inside Mei’s grandmother’s diary. This ability allows Mei to see two parallel versions of the same world, encountering the same people at different moments in time, and each reveals a different story.

The dual-timeline mechanic allows puzzle design to move beyond linear progression. By enabling interaction between two timelines, the system creates space for puzzles where actions in one timeline affect outcomes in the other. This added layer expands design possibilities, encourages player reflection, and increases replayability.

More importantly, the dual-timeline structure plays a key narrative role. By gathering clues from the same locations across different times, players are invited to reconstruct fragmented story elements and infer what happened between them. This approach deepens engagement and strengthens the player’s sense of presence in the game world.

Both timelines are implemented within a single scene. When switching between them, the player’s position is dynamically adjusted relative to the active map. This allows smooth transitions without loading a separate environment.

Although the logic behind timeline switching is relatively simple, achieving the right feel required extensive iteration. I tested multiple approaches, including material swaps, black-screen transitions, and loading effects, before settling on a solution that adjusts post-processing parameters in real time.

To support this, I built a lightweight system for managing dynamic post-processing states. It allows parameters to be adjusted, blended, and timed consistently during transitions. The refining process was time-consuming, as color values, effect intensity, and timing were highly sensitive. Even small changes had a noticeable impact on the overall mood.

In the final version, the yellowed tone of the diary timeline is created entirely through a post-processing filter. This subtle shift evokes the texture of aged paper and reinforces a sense of emotional warmth.

I built a custom interaction system for the project, including a dialogue system, a gifting system, and general object interaction mechanics. Dialogue content is managed using a scalable Scriptable Object structure to support narrative growth without disrupting existing logic. The system supports choice-based event triggering, enabling player responses to directly drive gameplay events and connect conversations to puzzle progression. This approach kept narrative and gameplay systems tightly integrated while remaining flexible for future iteration. Though looking back, I would consider using Yarn Spinner for future versions.

After entering from the lobby, the player progresses through four rooms. Three are puzzle-focused, while the fourth serves as the narrative conclusion.

In the puzzle rooms, players interact with the grandmother’s close friends and gradually learn how her warmth shaped the lives of those around her. By solving puzzles, players—like the grandmother once did—are able to support these elderly residents, reinforcing the game’s themes of care and connection.

The final room is the grandmother’s bedroom. Here, the fragmented understanding built across earlier spaces comes together, allowing players to process what they’ve learned and prepare for the story’s climax. The ending is my favorite part of the game. It reflects both the continuity of family bonds and the impermanence of life, bringing emotional weight to everything that came before. It also provides narrative context for the game’s surreal elements. I hope players will experience it for themselves.


4. REFLECTION

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This was the first game I fully completed, rather than just prototyping. While I now see many areas for refinement, the emotional experience of making it remains unmatched. I was encouraged by how deeply the story resonated with players. I’m also grateful that the game was showcased at USC Games Expo 2025, where it received positive feedback from a broader audience.

The game’s UX design revealed several areas for improvement. As a 2D game, the control scheme would benefit from greater consistency, ideally favoring either mouse-only or keyboard-only input. Interactions with NPCs and objects could also be more intuitive, using clearer visual feedback and longer-range highlight cues.

The puzzle design also has room to grow. Currently, the three main puzzles share similar logic, which can lead to repetition. There is strong potential to deepen cross-timeline interactions, allowing actions in one timeline to create more varied effects in the other. The player should act as a mediator between timelines, rather than an external observer. This would enhance the expressive power of the time-switching mechanic and add complexity to the puzzle structure.

Looking back, this project—though early—naturally includes many rough edges. Still, it offers a strong foundation for future expansion and refinement. I am currently planning a remastered version to address these issues and believe the result can deliver a more polished and emotionally resonant experience.