Click Here

July 2023

Featured in Hand Eye Society's Super FESTival 2023!

During the summer of 2023, I began my first internship, working as an eSports intern at Stride. While working in eSports has been a great, unique experience, I wasn't feeling fulfilled when it came to game design. I had that innate itch of a game developer, ready to work on a new project in my free time over the summer.

I had previously been working on a very large project towards the end of my spring semester of junior year, but I wasn't feeling inspired to continue it over the summer. I was looking to create a simple game with deep, underlying meaning, like some of my previous releases a la "Pastoral: Home Invasion".

Stuck on what type of game to create, I decided to do something totally different for me—a game not driven by narrative, but instead by intricate gameplay. I started brainstorming how to turn simple, everyday actions into entire games. Eventually, I settled on the core concept of "Click Here" based on false advertising scams that tempt you to click on specific links in shady emails—aka, phishing! The inspiration for this came from completing my cyber security training for my internship, which I find quite amusing! I began prototyping basic puzzles via my sketchbook, fleshing out the core concepts before seeing how tricky I could spin the gameplay. Not all sketches made the final game, but even the ones that didn't provided useful information as to what the player could and could not do in this world.

But, of course, it's not one of my games if there aren't any weird psychological horror twists! I wanted players to experience the story in a unique way, and so I put some of the more strange and creepy events in secret locations, unlocked only by getting a certain number of clicks incorrect. The idea of getting puzzles incorrect to view the story was a new challenge in itself, as I still wanted players to be able to understand a base-level narrative whether they saw these secret screens or not. To solve this, I made sure to tell the story at a more simplistic level through self-reflection screens in between levels. Additionally, I wanted the story to portray some elements of the queer experience, this time discussing domestic abandonment. Even though I'm lucky enough to have an accepting and loving family, I wanted to highlight a tragically common experience for many queer folk. Especially during a time where our trans family are being targeted in and outside the home, I wanted to show the light at the end of the tunnel and the power of the individual self. I'm so proud of how the story turned out, in all of its twisted glory. It's possible to play the entire game without encountering any other characters. But, other players may have some terrifying interactions with a hacker, or some questionable interactions in a morally corrupt casino!

Click Here. Sounds simple, right? Well, if your brain doesn't hold you back in this clever puzzle game, a host of annoying, aggravating, and sinister characters will! Carefully click in the right location on the screen, or you'll end up face to face with an unsettling psychological horror tale.

You play as a person who is raising money to live on their own, due to their family's abuse towards their queer identity. Desperate for cash, you agree to hack into a company's database for $25,000. However, other hackers are also in a race to successfully dismantle the system, meaning you'll need to avoid their sneaky tricks in order to get the money for yourself!

Adobe Photoshop: used to make all in-game assets, including sprites and backgrounds