The Order

About the game:

This contains a few spoilers, so I’d recommend reading through it after you’ve played the game! I thought I would add a few notes about decisions I made and the way that this game connects to my paper.

The audio: I thought about including music, but ultimately decided against it. I think music might have made the experience a little too comfortable, and the constant rattling of the train better captures the unnerving, unpleasant feeling I wanted to communicate.

The art style: I went with pixel art because it’s what I have experience with, but I think it also helps lull the player into a false sense of security. When a cute little pixelated railway baron starts threatening your livelihood, it’s jarring and engaging. I think a stylized look also communicates that I’m not going for realism in the plot. Things like what you see in the game really happened, but especially as a White person, I want to make it clear that I’m not going for a complete simulation of the Black porter experience. 

The tasks: The work of porters was menial but not mindless. I intentionally switched the buttons for a few tasks so that simply clicking the same spot repeatedly would cause the player to be fired. I think this helps communicate the paranoia Black porters would have felt. The constant looming threat of termination meant that they could not afford to go on autopilot. It also keeps the player engaged, reminding them that these jobs were not as simple as clicking a button. 

The ending: The decision to kick the player back to the menu each time they get fired was intentional. A big part of my paper was about how no single person or event resulted in the formation of the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, and the player returning to the main menu reinforces that. Even if the player continues from a save, that break in the narrative suggests that they’re playing a different person. The many ways the player can get fired allows them to feel that incremental progression that I think was a big part of the Black porter movement. This is also why the end is left ambiguous. The fate of the individual player is unknown, but their movement succeeds.