Emma Higgins – Game Designer

Writer, Programmer

November to December 2023

Made by: Emma Higgins

Deal or No Deal is a visual novel about choosing how to live out your last day in the face of the inevitable end of the world. You play as Melinda, and along with your brother Jeremy, your dad, and your best friend Malcolm, you must decide if you accept the end, fight against it, or deny its existence. All four endings end with the end of the world, but vary wildly in who you spend it with and what you do about it. Also, everyone is a skeleton, because skeletons are awesome. I was the sole creator, writing the branching dialogue and coding the game in Ren’Py.

Writing Deal or No Deal forced me to grow as a writer. It forced me to get more comfortable with character motivations and character arcs, in order to make the game both compelling and enjoyable. I also learned how to convey information naturally through dialogue, since I wanted the story to be told entirely through the interactions of the characters, and not through narration or internal monologue.