As part of this exercise, I pitched and developed the necessary documentation for all of If I Were...'s major story beats, characters, potential scope, and speculative incidental narrative pieces such as lore items and character barks. Each of the main protagonists - save for the primary protagonist Tam, who is themed after Vietnam's national flower - are based on the Five Sacred Animals in Vietnamese culture; all five further explore different facets of Vietnam under French colonial rule and how different regions and classes were treated in order to sow division between the people; to keep them helpless and dependent on their oppressors.

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But more than anything, If I Were... asks the question: if all the pillars of the human experience - your body, your memories, your consciousness, your skills, and your rights - are taken away from you, how are you still human? What makes you human in spite of it all?