I'm an independent video game designer who has mad 18 games over the past 13 years.


I'm working on a trailer for my forthcoming video game One Hour One Life.

In the game, players live an entire life over the course of an hour, with each minute marking a passing year.  When they start the game, they are born as a helpless baby to some other player as their mother.  With their mother's care, they grow up, and pass through all the stages of life, perhaps having a baby of their own---another player just joining the game---along the way.  Eventually, they grow old and die.  If they play again, they will be reborn as a different baby to a different mother somewhere else in the world.

Each life experienced in the game is unique and can never be experienced again.  The game involves a gigantic family tree of parents and grand parents and great grandparents---and endless chain of ancestors stretching back into antiquity---each person in the tree having lived their little hour and contributed their little piece to an ever-changing world.

The trailer is supposed to capture the grand scale of this emotionally-evocative game.  Life is passing for all of us (even outside the game), and that passage is bittersweet.  Imagine the emotions one experiences at the end of a long life, looking back, at the unique experience that they had---and experience that they are now saying goodbye to forever.

The current working concept for the trailer is that of a brief memoir of an entire life told from the first-person perspective. The narrating voice will start as a little girl, telling us about the circumstances of her birth, what her mother was like, and what her early years were like.  As the memoir goes through later and later chapters of this woman's life, the voice will age along with it, passing through a preteen, teen, adult woman, middle-aged woman, and eventually an elderly woman's voice.  At the very end, in a very elderly voice, the narrator will describe the circumstances of the woman's death, and express gratitude for a beautiful life well-lived.

In terms of emotional (but not voice) tone, consider this short film by Chris Milk, "Last Day Dream":

https://vimeo.com/4155700


Sample script lines at different ages:

Little girl:
When I was born, my mother was living alone out on the frontier.  She told me that survival was tough at first, but she eventually worked the land into a small farm.  Our farm.


Preteen girl:
Then my brother was born.  My mother told me I was old enough to help out, so I had to watch him and feed him sometimes while she was working.


Teen girl:
Getting the bakery up and running was a ton of work.  As I got older---and my mother got older---more and more of that work feel on my shoulders.


Young adult woman:
We managed to build a second oven, and we expanded our fields to match the increasing demand for our bread.


Middle-aged woman:
When I was 41, my mother died, leaving the farm and bakery to me and my brother.


Old woman:
My brother eventually got sick of life on the frontier and moved to the city.


Elderly woman:
Looking at this little farm for one last time---our farm---I can't believe how much things have changed.  What a wonderful life I lived, during this little hour of mine.
