Creating discomforts

Holy Fire is a Bitsy video game and digital interactive story that depicts the suicidal self-immolation protests by Tibetans against Chinese communist rule of Tibet. The subject matter is an on- going human rights issue that is being actively censored by the communist Chinese state and largely ignored by mainstream ‘Western’ media. This game, available on mobile and PC, seeks to raise public awareness of this important issue through an accessible medium. This paper reflects on the pseudonymous author’s personal experience creating the game. This paper firstly highlights game design aspects of the work: specifically, using the game’s environment for storytelling; utilising behavioural economics principles to balance ensuring player agency with implementing intrusive but helpful and necessary tutorial elements; creating player agency through exploration; and applying ‘Interpretation of Remains,’ i.e., storytelling through what other undepicted game characters and events have seemingly left behind for the player to discover, examine and consider. This paper secondly analyses the many discomforts that this game is capable of creating for the player (both in terms of physical and emotional discomfort), and contemplates the many discomforts creating this game has itself caused to the pseudonymous author and may have caused to other political stakeholders.