Alma is an interactive narrative that puts you in the role of Alma, a pediatric Cuban nurse, working at South Florida's Children Hospital. While she's tending to other people's children at work she must also tend to her own child at home. Alma is a story of self-care and the struggle to find balance in an imbalanced life.
Indiecade Impact Award Nominee
The Impact Award honors a game which explores social, cultural, and/or political issues in a whole new way. It may take us out of our comfort zones, and confront us directly on social progress yet to be done, or mark a real change in the industry. Impact isn’t simply about diversity or doing good in the world. It can be creating new access points for unlikely players engaging with unlikely topics, new points of connection for people across the globe, or new shared experiences that resonate in our modern culture.
BIG Best Social Matters Game & Best Student Game Nominee
BIG Festival (Brazil's Independent Games Festival) happens since 2012 and is the most important games festival and business forum in Latin America.
On top of showcasing the most innovative games in the world, the event is also the most important meeting point for those who want to have a deep understanding of games, with lectures, workshops, keynotes and the biggest games business forum in Latin America.
The Importance of Choice
All Alma’s choices all have high stakes. Not only will your decision to use or withhold compassion immediately affect your interactions with patients, but it can also affect interactions later in the game. Utilizing branching narratives in this way, we can make a personalized experience for each player and improve the replay value of our experience.
An Innovative Mechanic
Far from being yet another visual novel, Alma has a gameplay loop that ties in closely with the theme of the game. Players have a limited resource of compassion and must either conserve it or spend it as they see fit throughout the narrative.
Opportunities to use or gain compassion present themselves throughout the game. Certain dialog choices require compassion, as well as responding to texts from family and friends that might come in throughout the game.
Empathetic Feedback
Players will receive feedback on how empathetic they have been throughout each chapter of the game. As a game that centers on empathy, you can’t get a “high score” in Alma. Instead we wanted to visually emphasize that each choice of using or keeping compassion has trade-offs. Either you were compassionate with yourself, your family, or your patients. Unfortunately, no one has enough resources to score perfectly with everyone.