A
narrative journalling game about a cryptid researcher who goes missing
in the field. How will you, her protégé, carry on her legacy?
Field Guide to Memory is a journaling game about legacy, wonder,
cryptids and the vastness of a human life, designed by Jeeyon Shim and
Shing Yin Khor. Your mentor, the beloved and illustrious cryptid
researcher Dr. Elizabeth Lee, has been officially declared dead five
years after she went missing in the field. You will end the game with a
physical artifact you've created yourself - your journal - in
collaboration with us: your own field notes and documentation of your
relationship with Dr. Lee. You will continue her legacy.
I loved reading the in-game letters, and then adding the letters to the journal so the reader can go between the correspondence Robert is sending and receiving. I also started doing research on kangaroo rats while working the horned rat drawings & collages into the journal.
I also ended up researching other cryptids and eventually other mythological creatures. Batsquatch is real; I did not invent it for this project. I, of course, then had to look up various animal tracks and maps too.
The game took me to around here, but only filled about a third of the journal I had chosen. So I did my best to keep Robert researching and writing, but without the benefit of the prompts.
I researched early descriptions of animals by naturalists, like that description of a cuttlefish, as well as cryptids and mythological creatures.
I tried to cover the difficulty of researching creatures known by multitudinous names. Pill bugs, as it turns out, have more than a few.
I had a good time working in bit of my life, religion, cartoonists, and internet nonsense into the entries alongside the actual research. I did a few fold out pieces, but I should have done more; much like the inserts, I think they add to the veracity of the narrative, or some other set of art-y words.
In my search for horned beings, I discovered Furfur, which led to Furfur's fun facts. I was pretty pleased with myself. While it's just terrible in its authenticity, the inscription around him is based on actual cuneiform, even if completely illegibly.
Some of my favorite spreads are the most... nonsensical? Ridiculous? These are all ideas swirling loosely around the concept of unicorn, but they look like a rhino puppeting Punch talking to... Guy Fawkes, I think.
