Storm warning
“I don’t want to just introduce puzzles for puzzles’ sake,” Yuts says of the game’s focus on story over systems. “All the puzzles that we have are kind of mechanics or that are an outgrowth of the narrative.” It’s a tale rooted in personal experience: protagonist Kay recalls that her childhood home had been through four hurricanes, which reflects Yuts’ own experience with natural disaster. “I’ve got a drawer at my parents’ house where I’ve been putting all my old videogames, CDs, pictures, and notes in Ziploc bags since I was a kid because our house has flooded so many times,” he says. Other key influences include Super Nintendo and PlayStation, Phillip K Dick, urban theorists such as Mike Davis, and country musicians Townes Van Zandt and Merle Haggard.