Dear Sarah,
It’s been a while.
I thought you might like to know what’s been going on…
Homing is a 3D low-poly epistolary game where you navigate a messenger pigeon through a city, using either the arrow keys or the joystick on a controller. During your journey, you hear the contents of the letter you’re delivering and learn more about the relationship between the letter-writer and the recipient. Flying over specific buildings will change the narration to reveal memories tied to those locations.
Homing started as a game intended to champion pigeons and redefine society’s view of them as dirty pests, but it transformed into a game about the complexities of loss within a complicated relationship. Stories about death so often focus on characters with clear relationships to the deceased (family members or significant others), and I wanted to explore what it would be like for someone to lose their ex-spouse. What happens when a person you once loved and had a child with dies? It was also very important to me for the characters to be queer women, without the game being about their queerness.
Michelle Lega (design, writing, programming, art)
Michelle is a writer / narrative designer / artist / graphic designer who is striving to fill the world with creative work about love, passion, and loss. After getting a Bachelor’s degree in English and Gender Studies, she moved on to get her MFA in Game Design from DePaul. Along the way, she honed her game design practice and focused on creating narrative-based stories that reflect real-life situations and emotions. Her work often exudes her love of nature and animals, as well as her desire to creative positive, impactful work that is representative and accessible.
Jes Klass (music)
Jes is a Chicago native currently pursuing a MFA in Game Design at DePaul. Before pursuing games as a career, Jes had a long “career” in “researching” games by playing them most waking moments. Earlier years of Jes’ life included: completing a Bachelor of Music in Trumpet Performance from the University of Illinois at Chicago, playing roller derby, working at Medieval Times, and a never-ending quest to find the best fried rice in Chicago.