Designing with Emotional Intent

Med Check started as a game jam project, but what it became in version two was something much more personal — a metaphor for what it feels like to live with chronic conditions, anxiety, and the grind of invisible routines.

This version took the core concept — monitoring your health under pressure — and reframed it as a procedural navigation game, where the player must collect medication and avoid unpredictable threats.

It’s a game about routine, but it’s also a game about tension, and what happens when the world makes even basic self-care feel like an obstacle course.

Emotion First, Mechanics Second:

The emotional intent shaped every design decision. I wanted players to feel repetition, pressure, and unpredictability — and those feelings were baked into the mechanics.

A World That Resets, But Never Relieves:

Each time a game starts, the player starts in a procedurally generated layout. Somewhere out there is their required medication. Between them and that medication? Enemies — abstracted fears or systems — who don’t follow predictable paths and whose presence becomes harder and harder to avoid.

Lessons in Emotional Systems Design:

Emotion can emerge from mechanical interactions if you frame them with care. None of this required cutscenes or dialogue — just intentional systems, shaped by lived experience. Med Check is a game I made to understand and process how I was feeling at a time where just getting through the day was all anyone could do — and players tell me it resonates with them, too.