Class Related – New Media: Storytelling in Literature, Films, and Games

Omission – A Remediation of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Introduction

Embark on a strategic escapade as Sadie Green in Omission, navigating from the game room to the nurse’s desk. Your mission: log community service hours without being caught by Sam. With each passing second, your logged hours diminish, along with the prospects of earning the community service award. Most too fast, and you may alert Sam, ending the service project.

Why Remediate Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow?

Although there are several games woven into the narrative of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow that we could have remediated, we wanted to create a new game based on the central relationship in the novel. The book follows thirty years of conflicts between gamemakers Sam and Sadie, beginning when they met as children in a hospital game room. It was during these formative years, through shared gameplay and blossoming friendship, that Sadie covertly logged her time with hospitalized Sam as community service hours–a fact she kept from him.

The months of lying by omission lead to their first major conflict, shaping the beginning chapters of the novel and hinting toward the future of their relationship. We chose to use the community service conflict as the foundation for our game, believing that it reflects the pivotal moments that will define and drive their relationship forward, both personally and professionally.

Game Design Process

Revisiting Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow – Our initial step in the game design process involved re-reading the beginning chapters of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It was essential to re-familiarize ourselves with the characters Sam and Sadie during their time in the hospital. The game adopts young Sam’s perspective on the community service conflict yet paradoxically casts the player as Sadie. Essentially, we wanted to make the game as if Sam was the creator trying to understand Sadie’s actions in her lying by omission ‘game.’

*Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow* by Gabrielle Zevin

Upon discovering that Sadie had been logging their time together as community service hours, Sam’s initial response was to shut her out, feeling reduced to a mere means to an end rather than a true friend. Although he grew out of this mindset, we used his initial perspective to make our game competitive. We integrated a countdown mechanic into the game, where the longer Sadie takes to beat the level, the more community service hours she loses. The countdown begins at 609 hours – the number of hours Sadie records in the novel. This mirrors Sam’s perception of Sadie’s priorities––questioning whether her intentions stemmed from genuine friendship or a mere tally of hours. Understanding the nuances of their relationship and their personalities at our early design stages was crucial for accurately translating their dynamic into our game’s narrative and elements.

To translate our vision into a playable game, we planned every aspect of the gameplay with detailed road maps. These plans outlined the journey from the welcome screen to the various end-game scenarios, with clear instructions for programming Sadie’s and Sam’s interactions and specific conditions for winning or restarting the game.

Program Selection – After evaluating various options, we carefully selected GameMaker Studio 2 to develop our game. This decision was driven by the specific needs of our project, particularly the demand for a program that excels in 2D game development with comprehensive features such as sprite and animation management, and a drag-and-drop interface that simplifies complex game development tasks.

Sprite and Background Design – Our first real step in the game design process was designing the sprites. After discussions on the visual style we wanted to achieve, Henry meticulously crafted detailed sprites for Sam and Sadie, and a nurse. Sam and Sadies’ sprites included profiles for multiple directions (front, back, right, left) to support a more fluid gameplay experience. Henry utilized GameMaker’s sprite editor to layer colors and add depth, ensuring the characters stood out against the background.

Background design followed, with specific attention to interactive elements like doorways, which are vital to the game’s aesthetics and mechanics. In designing the background, we aimed to mirror the ambiance of a hospital by incorporating elements such as checkered floors and numerous doorways while also integrating a bright wall color to create a more engaging atmosphere for the game.

Character Movement – For character movement, we programmed Sadie with basic directional controls (right, left, up, down), while Sam’s NPC movement (right, left) included pathfinding and collision interactions with walls. We also programmed character interactions, such as collisions between Sadie and Sam.

Sadie Basic Movement (Up, Down, Left, Right)

Challenges

GameMaker Studio 2 & Collaboration – One significant challenge we faced was GameMaker’s limited support for real-time collaboration across separate computers. This limitation posed difficulties in our early development process, as it restricted the ability to simultaneously edit our design game elements as a group. In an attempt to overcome this limitation, we tried to integrate Git to share game files between different computers. We successfully created a repository and separately downloaded the programs; however, integrating Git with GameMaker proved more difficult than anticipated, and we had to look at other options. Instead, we used Henry’s computer to install GameMaker Studio 2 and scheduled in-person meetings to collaborate on programming the game.

Complexity of Wall Collisions – Handling collisions, especially with walls, introduced a new layer of difficulty for our group. Initially, our characters would react unpredictably upon hitting a wall – sometimes getting stuck, other times passing through as if the barrier didn’t exist. We initially suspected it was a boundaries issue, but our many attempts to edit didn’t yield the results we were looking for.

We had to program walls not only to stop character movement but also to influence it depending on the game’s physics. For example, when Sam (the NPC) hit a wall, he needed to turn around and bounce back.

Score/Countdown Timer Error – The most challenging aspect we faced – and one that caused errors even after game creation – was implementing the countdown timer that updated Sadie’s logged hours. The finished game was meant to work as follows: a countdown timer starting at 609 seconds would begin at the start of the game; when Sadie reached the nurse’s desk, the timer would stop, adding the remaining seconds from the timer to the player’s score. The player’s score was meant to be cumulative, meaning that if they did not get the necessary score of 609 from their first playthrough, they would need to play again. For example, if Sadie finished the level with 598 seconds left on the timer (which translated to hours on the score sheet), this would be her starting score for the next level. When the next level starts, the points will be cumulative, but the timer will restart at 609 seconds. Additionally, Sam’s speed would increase, making the game more difficult at each level.

The root of our problems came from updating the score based on the amount left on the countdown timer. Due to GameMaker’s limited drag-and-drop ability, we were unable to update the persistent (cumulative) score variable with the temporary (resets each level) timer variable. Our limited knowledge of how to stop the game’s clock and, therefore, stop the timer prevented us from storing the remaining timer value in the score variable, as GameMaker could not update the score variable with a constantly changing integer. We tried storing the timer’s value at the exact moment Sadie reached the nurse’s desk using an intermediary variable, but this, too, failed to resolve the issue. If we had an expert in GameMaker on our team, we certainly could have fixed this error; however, over several days and many YouTube tutorials watched, the error persisted. Ultimately, we had to accept this unresolved challenge, deferring its solution to the future.

Successes

Sprite Design – One of our major successes was our work on sprite design. Our sprite designer, Henry, decided to craft each sprite from scratch instead of relying on premade options available in GameMaker. This decision allowed for complete creative freedom to personalize Sam and Sadie. The detailed and unique sprites Henry created added a distinct visual appeal to our game, enhancing the overall player experience.

Movement Mechanics – Another satisfying achievement was mastering the basic movement mechanics. This fundamental aspect of our gameplay had to be smooth and responsive to ensure a satisfying gameplay experience. After a series of interactions and adjustments (and with a lot of help from Lizzie), we managed to program movements for Sadie that were not just functional, but simple and fluid.

Collaboration – These successes were not just about getting certain aspects of the game right; they were milestones that reflected our growth as game developers. Each sprite and every movement that worked were testaments to our evolving skills and deepening understanding of game design. We celebrated every small achievement. These successes propelled us forward, encouraging us to tackle more complex interactions within our game.

In addition to technical achievements, another area of success was our ability to work as a cohesive team despite the initial challenges with collaboration tools. We found ways to streamline our communication and workflow, ensuring that everyone was on the same page and could contribute effectively to the project. This collaborative spirit was crucial to overcoming the obstacles we faced.

Final Takeaways

The limitations of the free version of GameMaker Studio 2 initially slowed down our progress. In any future projects, we plan to invest in the paid version of the software, which offers enhanced features for real-time team collaboration.
The varied skills within our team played a pivotal role in our project’s development. For example, Lizzie’s programming expertise and Henry’s talent for design provided a balanced approach to tackling technical challenges. Sterling’s documentation was crucial in articulating our process in the game design document, while Alex’s creativity shone through in creating a compelling game trailer that captured the essence of the game’s story.
One of the key lessons we learned from this project is the importance of persistence and continuous learning. Game development is a field that is constantly evolving, and being adaptable and eager to learn new skills is crucial. Sometimes, it was difficult to find a tutorial to aid our programming difficulties, so it was essential for us not to give up and try different approaches on our own.

Credits

Game Development: Henry, Lizzie

Game Design Document: Sterling

Game Trailer: Alex

Link to Game Trailer: OMISSION – Game Trailer

MarxBlaster

*The Cover of* Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow *by Gabrielle Zevin*

Introduction

For our game design project, we were particularly inspired by Gabrielle Zevin’s novel Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, a book about game-making, friendships, and lives lived together & in conflict. We were particularly inspired by the passion, creativity, and care that Sadie and Mazer put into each game they created over the course of the novel, even as they struggled with their relationships with one another. In creating our game, we wanted to remediate the novel by pulling together aspects of two different games that Sam & Sadie made: EmilyBlaster and The Master of Revels, in order to touch on the importance of the name of the book & explore more deeply the scenes within it. This led us to create our game, MarxBlaster.

What Our Game Is

MarxBlaster is a remediation of two games, EmilyBlaster and Master of Revels, from Zevin’s novel. EmilyBlaster is a first-person shooter game, one of Sadie’s early games described in the book, where the player shoots down phrases from Emily Dickinson’s famous poems in order to assemble the finished works. In Master of Revels, the game is set in Shakespearean London, where the gamer has to discover who killed the playwright Christopher Marlowe. Our game remediates, in part, a section of the game Sadie created an actor styled after her deceased partner Marx, who gives the “Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow” speech from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the same speech that the novel is titled after. We combined the two games by borrowing the scene and the speech from the Master of Revels scene while placing additional emphasis on phrases like Sadie did in EmilyBlaster. In our game, the player is tasked with navigating the Globe Theater in order to find her friend Marx, who is preparing to deliver the “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech. Over the course of several levels, you must collect speech bubbles containing the lines from Marx’s speech while moving through various rooms of the theater, including the light room, a makeup room, on the side of the stage, and at the end, meeting Marx on the main stage. The speech bubbles constantly change speed to increase difficulty as the game progresses. Upon collecting all the speech bubbles, the player completes the game by reaching Marx, who then performs his speech before the audience (and the player).

At the end of the game, a voice (voiced by our group member, Sarah Beth) reads the speech aloud. The screen switches to the lines of the speech displayed and read together for the first time in front of an image of Under the Wave off Kanagawa, also known as The Great Wave, by Katsushika Hokusai – the same image referenced on the cover of the book alluding to the iconography in Ichigo – Sadie & Sam’s first game.

*The end scene from* MarxBlaster *where the speech is read aloud and shown as a whole work*

Game Design & Our Process

In designing this game, we tried to balance what scenes we thought would be interesting to remediate with our group’s game-making inexperience. Originally, we were deciding between our final project idea, inspired by our love of Marx, or trying to recreate one of Sam’s mazes in LA, with several dead-ends referencing core plot points of the novel. In learning more about game-making, we decided a platformer game would be within our skill level while still having the capacity to remediate the work how we wanted to. In placing Marx’s character directly in our game, we remediated the novel by both featuring games & scenes in the work, but we also remediated Sadie’s love letter to Marx by placing him in our game, just as she placed him in hers.

Once we decided on MarxBlaster, we tackled the design of the obstacles to reaching Marx. This is where we took inspiration from the mechanics of Sadie’s game EmilyBlaster. We used the concept of shooting phrases to create the obstacles to getting individual lines of the “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech but implemented it within the platformer rather than as a shooter game. We decided to use the platform Scratch, as none of us had any coding experience. Because our concept was more complex, we tried to balance it with the simpler system in order to add in all the details we wanted to, such as moving from scene to scene through the Globe Theater and with our moving text boxes.

*One of the scenes from the game, which is also an interior shot of the Globe Theater*

Visually, we decided to use photos from the inside of the Globe Theater in order to give the player the feeling of walking through the game. We made text boxes that simulated text we associate with classic video games and tried to reference the font used on the cover of the novel in the process, especially considering the phrases the game’s main character collects to reference the speech.

Our character design was based in part on convenience and in part on the type of remediation & game we wanted to create. There are only two characters in the game: Marx & the main character. Marx’s character was chosen mainly because the sprite was dressed appropriately for an actor in Macbeth. The main character was chosen for some of the same reasons: she was an existing sprite that had good costumes available, especially to animate her while she walked. However, part of our motivation was also because, as we’ve talked about in class, there is a lack of diverse representation in video games, and we wanted to challenge some of those notions in our protagonist selections, especially because race & representation are hugely important themes in Zevin’s novel.

*A screenshot of our game where the character jumps to hit a moving textbox*

Our entire group collaborated on the design of the game. Mariah did the majority of the coding, especially around creating the stages, coding each sprite’s movement, creating the beginning & end sequences, and figuring out how the text boxes would move. Brynn did most of the graphic design work, especially in the end scene & with the text boxes, and coded the movement between scenes, the point value system, & switched the text between levels. Sarah Beth helped with finding the scene pictures and created our trailer.

Successes & Challenges

In terms of concept, our game was very successful. Our finished product does what we set out to do: we have multiple levels the protagonist goes through, the text bubbles move with varying speeds and difficulty, the introduction & end of the game align in terms of our messaging of the game, and we were able to create text bubbles that disappear when touched and add points at the top left of the screen. Our game was also successful in that we learned a lot about game-making and just how much goes into it – although Scratch is certainly a simpler tool, we were able to use it to learn more about game mechanics and foundational lessons around game-making. Marxblaster is certainly not without bugs, and because of time and experience constraints, it is not as difficult or complex as we may have wanted it to be, it is cohesive in terms of the story we wanted to tell through game-making and the way in which we wanted to remediate core aspects of the novel.

Along the way we did have a lot of difficulties. Learning to code with zero experience between the three of us led to a huge learning curve. We had a lot of difficulty even getting our game to save our progress in Scratch because too many of us were signed in, leading Mariah to have to recreate more complex sequences of code multiple times. Although the simplicity of Scratch was why we chose the program, at times, it also was too simple for us, and we had to come up with workarounds to the software in order to get our game to do what we wanted it to do. Additionally, we had a lot of issues with our text boxes and changes between our six total scenes. We had to come up with a bit of a convoluted workaround that led to some of the boxes running across the screen upside down, and difficulty in keeping them on screen in order for players to be able to collect points. For a while, we struggled to get the player to progress through the game and had to switch around our mechanics; first, when the player touched every text box they would switch screens, and then we moved to a model where when Avery touches an x-value on the right end of the screen, the backdrop switches and a new level begins.

What We Learned

We learned a lot about how difficult game making is, but also how unique a tool it is for remediation & storytelling. As we discussed in class, game type has a lot of impact on the feeling someone has playing a game; in LOTRO, the ability of players to never have to beat Sauron while enjoying the world of Middle Earth creates a far different atmosphere from that of the book & movie, which draw on the imagery of fated heroes on impossible journeys. In our game, we tried to use the platform game type and the remediation of text as a backdrop to MarxBlaster, creating a game that anyone could play but that a reader of Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow would get a lot more out of. Games allow for multiple levels of remediation: we were able to combine aspects of two different games described in the novel, several major plot points in it, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth into one project. Although it’s far from polished or complex, we hope the nuance within our concept and the variety of scenes you experience offers an interesting game to play!

Trailer

Thanks everyone!

How The Impermanence Of Online Games Both Mirrors The Human Lifespan And Gives It Meaning: A Study Of How Cyberspace Occupies Time Through The Lens of Retired Online Gaming Platforms

As human beings, we have the pleasure and curse of occupying a relatively short amount of time within the existing timeline as we know it; from the moment we are born, we can make the fair assumption that we will live anywhere from 0-122 years old based on all prior recorded human lifespans. We can live comfortably knowing that no matter what we do, eventually our time on this Earth will end. We can leave remnants of our existence behind in the form of art, history books, nuclear waste, and to be more abstract our loved ones’ memories, but as far as we know there is no way to immortalize our existence. Art erodes, history books burn, nuclear waste decays, and families forget. No matter how much time we individually occupy, which I’ll define as any period of time that is touched by any result of one’s own existence so I don’t unnecessarily limit the impact a human life can have, a single human cannot have existed within our timeline from the beginning of time to the end of it. Some may argue that religious human figures such as Adam and Eve break this logic if they existed and are still known of today, but to that, I would argue that even before those first humans, time marched backward–for at least five days according to the original source text (The Bible). For those who are of a different belief, or are not religious, I would emphasize that there has always been a time before humans: whether it be a time of dinosaurs or a time of cosmic energy. Given all of the logic above, it is safe to say that we, as individual humans, occupy a subsect of time. If you give me three minutes of your short subsect of time, I’d love to tell you a bit about why I believe that just as we are allotted time to exist on the ultimate timeline, online games are allotted time to exist on the internet. Then, after that, if you give me one more precious minute, I’ll tell you a bit about how the impermanent nature of these video games should teach more about how we view our own lives and impact.

Part One: A Brief History of My Own Experience With Retired Online Games

*Poptropica* is an online role-playing game that was first released in 2007. It operated using Adobe Flash Player until 2020, when it was briefly retired before being reprogrammed to run with Haxe. In the transition, many of the original gameplay aspects were lost, but players could still access them using a Flashpoint work around or the Steam download of the game (with a few server issues). However, in 2024, with CoolMathGames’s acquisition of *Poptropica*, the Steam download has been rendered largely inoperable, and many of the old aspects of the gameplay have been lost outside of Flashpoint.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling a bit nostalgic for my childhood back in the late 2000’s (do you feel old yet because I do), and I wanted to visit my childhood gaming website: Poptropica. As I remembered it, the site was a beautiful Oasis in my elementary school computer lab where my after school care friends and I would congregate to solve puzzles located on in-game islands in order to unlock different achievements and mini-games. My favorite island, and one I can still remember every step to solving to this day, was Reality TV Island, where you could follow a sequence of steps as your character to effectively apply, get accepted to, and compete in a Reality TV show. Obviously, still on that nostalgia kick, I immediately went to look for that island after logging into my old account. What did I find? Nothing. A big empty space where the island was supposed to be located on the map. My hopes and dreams for reliving my childhood were crushed. Needless to say, I was more than a little upset, but this got me thinking: how many games has something like this happened to? I knew of Club Penguin, which was another of my childhood games that was recently retired, but I didn’t know of the over sixty online games that had gained a cult following online before being shut down. This list includes, but is not limited to, Marvel Heroes 2016-a free MMO released in 2013 and shut down in 2017, Firefall-another MMO released in 2014 and shut down in 2017, and Spark City World-an MMO geared towards girls released in 2008 and shut down in 2017.

An interesting pattern you may have noticed was that all three of the games I listed shut down in 2017. This is not the result of me manipulating data and only showing you games that shut down in 2017 on purpose, as the games I selected were entirely random. A better explanation, however, is that Adobe Flash Player was deprecated in 2017, rendering many online games that relied on the software as good as dead, as there was no chance for players to emulate them on their own machines. In a matter of months, due to a corporate decision, the lifecycles of these games within the timeline of the internet were officially ended. To make this concept a bit easier to understand, I’ll employ an analogy that helped me wrap my own head around the idea of relative time: humans are to the ultimate timeline as a game is to the section of the ultimate timeline that the internet takes up. Therefore, when an online game hasn’t existed for the entirety of the time the internet has existed, that game mirrors the temporary nature within the timeline of the internet that humans have within the ultimate timeline. If you’re a keen reader, which I know you are, you may take my examples of retired games and argue, “If you could find information about them on the internet, then their lifespan hasn’t ended yet.” To that I say, first of all you have a great point, but second of all you’ve got to think a little bigger. Think back to before the game existed-the game’s lifespan certainly doesn’t extend to the first ever instance of the internet, as the internet was originally created to house and parse raw data. Then, think to the future. If these games could be deleted because the software they relied on for the backend was given up on, the same can be said for every website that houses an article written about those games, as well as every website that houses a video, and every website that houses any information about it whatsoever. These games, therefore, are not immortal within the timeline of the internet, just as we humans are not immortal and all-existing within our own, ultimate timeline.

Part Two: Why We Should Care That Online Games Are As Temporary As Human Life

A representation of a wormhole, which Forbes uses to link to the possibility of time travel. For our purposes, it’s best to think of humans as at the very least occupying contiguous time. With our current scientific knowledge, for something to happen in the future, it must have happened in the past. For our theory, this means that the human who caused something in the future would occupy all of the time from when they started the future event to when the future event happens, as it happens as a result of their existence.

The fact that these games are not permanent will effectively allow us as humans to experience the games within the time of the internet as if we were the ultimate timeline experiencing humans. In the same way that we view these games as just a glimpse of an event within our lives, we are a glimpse of an event within the ultimate timeline. Nevertheless, just as the games were well-loved, fostered connections, and were entertained within their brief time allotted within the time of the internet, us humans are well-loved, connected, and entertaining within the time of the ultimate timeline. It is in this comparison that the main reason we should care as humans is revealed: no matter how short our allotment of time within the ultimate timeline, we can still make an impact on those who have the pleasure of perceiving the time we occupy. Just as we are impacted by perceiving the limited lifespan of the games, the ultimate timeline is impacted by perceiving the limited lifespan of humans. What we do may seem insignificant or small relative to such a large amount of continuous time, but if online games can make an impact within the timeline of the internet despite occupying such a small amount of it, us humans can do the same with the ultimate timeline. By recognizing that these games have limited time, we can hopefully become more comfortable ourselves with our own limited time, knowing that it can have an impact. I can only hope that through the lens of ultimate time I am as loved, cherished, and important as Poptropica is to me and the internet.

With love,

Lizzie

Sources:

Poptropica Picture: linked here ; Human Lifespan: linked here ; Retired Online Games Reference Buzzfeed: linked here ; More Retired Online Games: linked here ; Poptropica History: linked here ; History of the Internet: linked here ; Spacey Picture: linked here

Character Design and Customization in Video Games

In the realm of video games, the art of character design and customization is fundamental to shaping player experiences. From the specifically crafted protagonists of games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Assassin’s Creed Mirage to the diverse characters in Lord of the Rings Online, character design is more than mere aesthetics; it influences game immersion, emotional engagement, and player agency.

Characterization in video games serves as a channel for players to interact with virtual worlds; it is a tool that allows players to shape their virtual identities. One example is in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, where players assume the role of Eivor, a fierce Viking warrior navigating the landscapes of 9th-century England. Eivor’s gender, hairstyles, and tattoos can all be customized, allowing players to tailor their experience to align with their preferences and identities. Additionally, players can acquire various weapons, armor sets, and skills to suit individual play style. The ability to customize Eivor’s settlement further enhances player agency as you invest resources to construct buildings and unlock new services. This level of customization offers players a sense of agency over their character’s journey and the world around them.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

In contrast, Assassin’s Creed Mirage lacks certain aspects of character design and customization. When Assassin’s Creed Mirage was released in 2023, I was excited to play the next installment of the series. While researching the game, I noticed that it lacked many customization features seen in previous Assassin’s Creed games. The most notable is that you cannot choose to play as a female character; there is only one male protagonist, Basim. Additionally, the game focuses more on gameplay customization, such as upgrading skill sets, than appearance. In my opinion, removing these customization aspects takes away from the player’s ability to fully engage with the character’s storyline. Players may feel less invested in Basim’s journey, as their ability to project themselves into the character is limited to predetermined traits and appearances. As a result, the game experience may feel more similar to passively observing a story unfold rather than actively participating in the world as the character.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Unlike the Assassin’s Creed games, Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) offers a comprehensive and immersive customization experience that extends beyond appearance. Players are granted complete control over their characters’ visual appearance and other aspects of gameplay, enriching immersion and emotional engagement. Players even have the opportunity to design their characters from a wide selection of races, like Hobbits, Elves, and Dwarves, each with their own unique traits and visual aesthetics. Players can further customize their avatars by adjusting any aspect of their appearance, from facial features to body proportions. This level of customization allows players to create avatars that can resonate with various aspects of their personality; players can even design a character to look similar to themselves. Another notable aspect of LOTRO’s customization is the housing system. Players can purchase and decorate their homes in various locations throughout the map. This feature gives players a creative outlet for self-expression and fosters a greater sense of belonging and attachment to their virtual world and community.

Lord of the Rings Online

The depth of customization in LOTRO contributes to the emotional impact on players; it fosters a sense of ownership and investment in the game world, helping players make personal connections and memories that continue outside the game. Compared to the Assassin’s Creed series, LOTRO’s emphasis on extensive customization sets it apart, offering players unparalleled opportunities for self-expression and immersion. While both franchises excel in creating immersive gaming experiences, LOTRO stands out through its player-driven customization and community-building mechanics, fostering deep emotional engagement and lasting connections.

Sterling

Who’s Playing Who? The Hidden Connections Between Video Games & Firearm Manufacturers

Doom. Halo. BioShock. Call of Duty. First-person shooter games are some of the most popular on the market, placing the gamer in a “first-person” perspective, as the name would suggest, seeing the world from the protagonist’s point of view and allowing the gamer to see the game through the scope of a gun. Some games, like Big Buck Hunter, are found in arcades, allowing you to pick up a plastic gun and shoot it as the controller, blurring the lines between reality and your furry victims. As entertaining and popular as these games are, first-person shooters exemplify an opacity in games we tend to overlook but should pay more attention to: Video games aren’t made in a vacuum devoid of corporate interests. In the case of first-person shooters (FPS), domestic arms dealers use these games to glorify and sell high-powered firearms to young men, regardless of their consequences.

When people talk about the connection between video games and violence (as SB did in her blog last week), we often think about how games influence gamers. But, we should also think about how corporations influence games themselves and how corporations trade on the popularity of games to sell products, whether through the addictive models of gambling games, persistent ads, or, in the case of the gun industry, through gun glorification to sell high-powered firearms to very young adults. I started to learn about this a year ago when I was researching some of the firearm industry’s marketing tactics that ran afoul of the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines regarding misleading marketing tactics and unfairly targeting minors. From there, I learned about an entire branch of the gun market dedicated to getting younger and younger kids access to bigger guns by using misleading statistics, bright-colored firearms, and intentionally marketing guns to attract young men who played FPS.

Firearm Manufacturers Allude to Games in Their Marketing

One way firearm manufacturers do this is by alluding to popular games in their marketing. For example, the pictures below show two Instagram posts by a gun manufacturer, Anderson Manufacturing, where pink palm trees are painted on guns and displayed on their Instagram. Next to them are two promotional images from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, a popular FPS (which depicts illegal gun use, among… many other crimes), which also feature the same palm trees and color scheme.

Images 1 & 2 show Anderson Manufacturing’s Ads, and images 3 & 4 show promotional images from GTA Vice City which use the same colors & palm trees

Another example is from a 2018 gun show, where four men with guns fight off a “mob,” with the slogan “Not Today Antifa” plastered above it. There are a lot of concerning aspects of this ad, but for this discussion, note the style in which these people are depicted. It’s not realism or cartoon; it looks like the type of animation we associate with first-person shooter games, linking real-life ownership and use of high-powered weapons with people’s actions in violent games.

The “Not Today Antifa” ad from 2018 used at a national gun show demonstrates how the gun industry has turned towards militaristic messaging which also alludes to gaming

Game Makers and Firearm Manufacturers Work Together

Perhaps even more troubling, proof of deals between the gaming companies and the gun industry has been unearthed. Remington, the firearm company that made Bushmaster an AR-15, went bankrupt after a settlement with families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. As part of this settlement, emails and documents were recently released that show undisclosed details of a deal that took place between the company and Call of Duty to put their guns in the game, expressly hoping to appeal to a new generation of potential customers. According to reporting by the Wall Street Journal, one of Remington’s rifles, known as an “ACR,” was put into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2009. Remington wanted to sell a civilian semi-automatic version of the ACR, and Activision Blizzard, the company that published the game, wanted a more “realistic” feel for players. It was mutually beneficial. The game sold over 22 million copies, and the civilian version of the ACR developed a cult following. This deal, which is far from the only one out there, shows that a) video games can be used as marketing tools, and b) it demonstrates the desire of the firearm industry to use games to reach a new, younger audience. Another report by Intercept discussed how the firearm industry is moving from an older consumer base that primarily used guns for hunting to a younger market, where the industry advertises how high-powered weapons can be used for “self-defense.”

Ryan Busse, a former executive at a gun manufacturer-turned policy adviser at the gun-safety group Giffords, describes how the industry shifted from hunting-focused advertisements in the 90s to marketing which now focuses on high-powered weapons, military imagery, toxic masculinity, white supremacy, young men, and games. The impact of this is palpable: for the last three years, guns have been the number one killer of children, teens, and young adults in America. Mass shooters in Uvalde, Texas; Aurora, Colorado; Sandy Hook, Connecticut; Highland Park, Illinois; Parkland, Florida; Buffalo, New York; and doubtless countless others used firearms from video games that they had played. In Busse’s words, “The gun industry’s modern marketing effort did not just arm these shooters; in a very real sense, it created them.”

To be fully transparent, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with first-person shooter games. I think they can be really fun (even though I’m pretty terrible at them), and there is no proof of causation between playing these games and engaging in real-world violence. However, pretending as though these games are created or played in a world removed from the weapons they depict is dangerous. The gaming industry needs to take accountability for the deals they’ve made with firearm manufacturers to place real guns in their games. We should all be more aware of the consequences of the gun industry purposefully linking their guns to popular games: they intentionally use militaristic imagery to get (mostly) young men who play FPS, which often show firearm use in active combat, against zombies, or for illegal purposes, to buy real semi-automatic firearms for “self-defense” against other civilians. But beyond the gun industry itself, games are a powerful marketing tool for companies willing to use them, and we should view any product placement, even if it’s seemingly innocuous, with some vigilance. Because although we play games, sometimes they play us too.

— Brynn

Stranger Games – Group 11

Introduction

For our game design project, our group decided to remediate the Christmas lights scene from season one of the hit TV show Stranger Things. We decided to make a puzzle strategy game using Game Maker Studio 2 where we use the Christmas lights on the wall to decipher a message. While our group did not have much coding experience, we truly enjoyed the game design process. From making the sound effects and sprites to developing the frame-by-frame game functions, we got to set foot into the challenging world of game-making.

Source: Stranger Things season 1, episode 3

Why Remediate Stranger Things?

When brainstorming game ideas, our group wanted to create a classic puzzle game with a complex background. After reviewing a few movies and TV shows, we landed on Stranger Things: a TV show that remediates the timeless game Dungeons and Dragons. In the specific scene we chose, a young kid by the name of Will has gone missing from his home. Later, it is discovered that he is trapped in the “Upside Down”, another world that exists beneath Hawkins, Indiana. While trapped in the “Upside Down”, Will tries to communicate with his family by interacting with different electronic items in his house (traversing worlds). At first, his family thinks it is an electrical issue but his mom, Joyce, later finds out that it is Will communicating with her. She decides to set up a wall full of Christmas lights, each light representing a letter of the alphabet. Will uses this wall to send messages about his whereabouts.

Through this scene, our group decided to make a puzzle game where one deciphers a message using the light wall Joyce created in Stranger Things.

Game Design

In terms of game design (led by Diego), our idea was pretty straightforward. Our idea was to develop a three-part cryptic puzzle. The first part of the game focused on understanding what the lights on the wall indicated. We went about this by developing a two-room platform where the player can switch between the light wall room and the living room. In addition to the two rooms, the player is also given a text box with 26 text slots. Each text slot corresponds to a letter in the alphabet. As well, each light on the wall corresponds to a letter in the alphabet (but the player has to figure this out). In the living room, a variety of items lay around and will shake. On top of the shaking, the lights on the wall would brighten up corresponding with the letters in the name of that item in chronological order. For instance, if a lamp shook, the first light on the wall would turn on as it corresponds to the letter “a” in lamp. The player must figure out the relationship between the items, the lights, and the chart. Once they fill up the chart and understand that the lights represent the alphabet, they are free to move on to the second part.

In the second part of the game, Will turns on the lights to communicate various words that are part of a phrase. The players’ job is to use their knowledge of the light wall to decipher the words Will is trying to tell Joyce. The player must type the correct word into the text box in order to move on to the next word. Once all the words are properly guessed, the player can move on to the last section of the game.

In the last part of the game, the player must take the words from part 2 and put them in the correct order to decipher what Will is trying to say. Once the player puts them in the correct order, the game ends.

Art Visuals

In addition to the game design, we also had visual sprites and audio produced by Amelia. The intention was for all the object names to cover each letter of the alphabet, so we came up with a list of 10 common household items that held the letters A-Z. Each item had to be drawn separately from the backdrops and to make a sound when shaken by Will, so we drew several of these items and sourced sound clips that correlated with each object. We then hand-drew the two 2D game backdrops – the living room and the Christmas lights display – in a style we found fitting for the era of the show. Stranger Things is set in the 1980s, and the cartoons of the time often featured marker and outline-based drawings, which we incorporated in the style of the object and background drawings. We thought it would be fitting to have a visual remediation that matched the visual media of the characters’ temporal setting, especially as the protagonists are middle-schoolers who would be watching cartoons. We also studied the clips of our remediated Stranger Things scene to try and match the rooms as closely as possible (ex. the pink floral wallpaper behind the Christmas lights).

Background Music

The music was the most difficult artistic element to create, as we wanted to take inspiration from the Stranger Things theme, but still create something inspirational out of it. We followed a theme and variations, in the form of ABA, where we took the main Stranger Things theme and remelodized it in different lead lines throughout the A sections. We swelled in and out treble and bass elements so that the music would not feel stagnant, even with the same repeated harmonic construction.

We then added an original B section that we felt broke-up the repetition of the main theme, but still kept it in the same synth-based style of the A section. We made the B section more harmonically complex and introspective than the A section, reflecting the game’s original intention of being a puzzle-solving experience. We also wanted the B section to reflect Joyce’s worry over her son, Will, in a way that the A section isn’t as capable of. The synth sound we used for the lead line is based on an FM radio, which is indicative of their communication between the two dimensions through artificial means (and the Walky-Talky and radio elements which were integral to our original game-design).

The piece then returns to the A section, which allows the piece to repeat over and over (as often occurs when playing a videogame…the track can’t just end at its 5-minute conclusion) without any jarring re-start. We also added some little sparkling, high-frequency synth hits in this second A section that reflect the twinkling of the Christmas lights on and off. We felt that the composition both reflected the 80s-instrumentation style and pulled elements from the original Stranger Things theme in a way that suited the goals of the game the best (in musical remediation). The music isn’t meant to be the focus of attention, but instead an integral background element that helps provide necessary atmosphere.

Challenges Faced and Remodel

While we wanted to develop this game with Game Maker Studio 2, we, unfortunately, were not able to. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, our team had to remodel our game design and build our project with Twine since we did not have any coding experience. Jamaal led our efforts by creating a “choose your own adventure” game along with the script and video trailer! The new game concept follows the same storyline as our original game design with an emphasis on the plot surrounding the Christmas light scene. The player is tasked with picking various potential storylines within this scene. In order to beat the game, the player must select the right storyline options that lead Joyce to Will’s location.

Twine “Strange Games” home screen

What We Learned

Throughout the game development process, our group learned a lot! Our biggest takeaway from it all is that there is a lot of work that goes into making a video game. From the game design and script to the coding and audio/visuals, a lot of hard work is required to make a game work. Additionally, we learned about the importance of collaboration. Everyone has to play their part in order for the game development process to work. If one person falls short, it sets the design process back a big step. All in all, video game development requires a team effort where everyone must contribute their strengths. There are so many moving parts in the design process and each part is just as important as the next.

Closing Thoughts

While we were not able to create the game we wanted, it was fun exploring video game development. For all of us, this was a new, fun, exciting, and scary experience that we are glad we got to experience. Being able to work on all the moving parts of a video game and seeing what it takes to put such a production together was also pretty eye-opening. Anyways, while this isn’t a finished, polished product, we hope you enjoy our game!

Game link: http://jamaalfinkley.vudigital.net/Media/StrangerGames.html

– Amelia, Diego, and Jamaal!

E.T.’s Escape – Group 3

Introduction

This game is a remediation of the famous chase scene from the 1982 sci-fi/adventure movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. A staple of Universal Studios Entertainment for about 40 years now, the scene is referenced in the company’s cover art and has its own ride at their theme park. For its widespread reach, engaging plot, and easy-to-root for characters, we felt that it was an appropriate scene to remediate.

Game Background

Elliot is the protagonist who has recently befriended an alien, E.T., from outer space. After E.T. ‘s sudden appearance in Elliot’s backyard, Elliot is initially terrified of the alien, but begins to grow fond of him. Unfortunately, after the two develop an unlikely yet strong friendship, the police look to take E.T. away. Their motives are unscrupulous, as they plan to run experiments on him. The consequence is this seminal scene of E.T. and Elliot escaping the police on their bike, which ultimately flies thanks to the alien’s powers. In the game, we showcase the two looking to reach a safe zone, needing to avoid being captured by the cops on the way to get there.

Our Process

We began the design process by selecting the Unity Engine for our game. This software is a professional-grade game development platform, giving us the most possible freedom in our game at the cost of extreme complexity. To emphasize just how powerful Unity can be, some of the famous games made in the engine include Hearthstone (a card game based on the World of Warcraft universe,) Pokémon Go, and Hollow Knight.

Upon choosing Unity, we knew that we had the freedom to create any type of game we wanted, but knew we couldn’t be overambitious. We decided on a 2D escape-style game, in which the player would be chased by police units as they attempt to get E.T. to his ship. We chose continuous movement, where the player can move in any direction using the WASD keys, and the police are constantly moving toward the player. Each level would contain a starting point and a “goal” which the player would need to reach without being caught by the police.

We followed this decision by storyboarding each of the three levels of the game.

Our level design set out to increase the challenge as the player progressed through the game. The first level contains the fewest number of police and has the smallest area, as well as two paths which each lead to the goal. The second level is larger, and has several dead ends along with more police. Additionally, some police units in the second level are faster than normal. The third level is by far the largest, with a maze-like structure and the greatest number of police, which move at the highest speed.

Coding and Unity Development

After planning out each of the three levels, work began in Unity. The early stages of development in Unity were full of frustration and challenges, but the basics of the game were eventually completed. We used C# scripts written in Microsoft’s Visual Studio software to determine the behavior of the game objects.

The basics of the game include movement, enemies, collision, and level transitions. The player’s movement is controlled by a C# script which converts a player’s input into a 2D vector and moves the player character accordingly.

The C# script which controls player movement

The movement of enemies was coded similarly with a 2D vector function, but rather than waiting for player input, the enemies are coded to continuously move towards the player. Both enemies and the player were given a RigidBody2D component which enabled physics interactions; this prevented them from passing through walls. This additionally allowed collisions between the player and an enemy to trigger a reset of the current level, though this required the addition of a C# script to the enemy’s collider.

The “goal” on each level was given a similar collider component with an added C# script, so when the player collides with the goal, the next level is loaded. This required the use of Unity’s SceneManager package, which allowed for multiple levels to exist without all being loaded at the same time. This limits strain on the hardware and cleans up development substantially.

The levels themselves were created using 2D Tilemaps, a native function of Unity which allows for tiles to be placed on a rectangular grid.

We used basic square sprites to represent dirt roads, forests, beaches, and roads. A second Tilemap was layered on top of the first, and contained white tiles representing the boundary. This Tilemap was given a Collider component, preventing the player or enemies from moving through the white tiles.

Ultimately, we were able to create the levels of our storyboard, with new additions to make the game more challenging and fleshed-out.

Successes

Making a functioning game in Unity is no easy task; the interface is extremely complex at first glance. The side effect of such complete design freedom is a similarly complete lack of guidance. Programming and developing in Unity came with a fair share of bugs, including police being able to pass through walls, multiple levels loading at once, and the player falling off the screen. We worked through these bugs diligently and created a game which, while limited in its scope, is completely functional.

Failures

The visuals of the game are, admittedly, rough. Given more time, we would have created detailed sprites for E.T., the police, and the rocket ship. However, our priority was the game’s functionality, and we viewed visuals as a luxury if time permitted. Additionally, our team members are, by our own admission, not artists. Ultimately, we feel that our attention was focused in the right places, though we acknowledge that visuals were left behind in the creation process.

YouTube Video

Credits

Programming and Unity Development, Design Document – Jack Doyle

Storyboard and Design Document – Ashton Kroeger

Video, Scene Choice, Design Document – Joe Berger

Charon – Group 7

Our group struggled at first to determine what type of game we wanted to make. With minimal coding or game design experience, we started by experimenting with different design softwares to find one that was easy to learn. We settled on the software GameMaker which is specifically tailored to the creation of 2D games, a genre of game which we found rather appealing. From there we let the medium guide us in order decision making about what to remediate into the narrative of our game.

Ultimately we landed on the Greek mythological ferryman Charon to be the subject of our game. In Greek mythology, Charon is the ferryman who transports the souls of the dead across the river Styx, which separates the world of the living from the world of the dead. He has traditionally been depicted as an old man with a beard, holding an oar, and wearing a hooded cloak.

According to legend, when someone died, their soul would need to cross the river Styx to reach the afterlife. Charon would only ferry those souls who had been buried with a coin under their tongue, which was believed to be payment for the journey. Those who were not buried with a coin or had not received their funeral rites would be forced to wander the banks of the river for 100 years before they could cross.

While Charon is a minor figure in Greek mythology, he played an important role in the ancient Greek beliefs about death and the afterlife. Further, he is a figure that appears in similar capacities across cultures, including Egyptian, Norse, and Chinese. This broad cultural reach of a figure like Charon is what lead us to land on him as the basis for our game.

The early game design process involved a lot of art creation, both for the characters and the location of the game itself. We decided to use pixel art, created through the software Aseprite, for a number of reasons. First, and perhaps most critical, it was a medium we were comfortable with. Spending time developing skills in other forms of digital art was not realistic given the timeline of the project, and with some experience across the board in the pixel art medium we could get started on bring out vision to life and do so to a standard that we could be proud of. Additionally, we thought pixel art lends itself perfectly to a 2D game with a somewhat retro appeal. The simplicity of pixel art and 2D games is their beauty, allowing people viewing the art or playing the games to focus on the actual creativity behind the work rather than simply the proficiency of the creators digital art skills.

Animating the frames of the main player character was perhaps the most complicated part of this process after the early conceptualization, but it was an extremely rewarding process to see our characters come to life.

Trello was an extremely important tool for coordinating our activities across the artwork and the creation of the game mechanics. Being able to assign tasks and track progress among our group members made our work flow extremely well. With such a project, it was integral to divide and act based on our respective expertise, familiarity, and passion.

Developing the game mechanics was an interesting process to say the least. Learning how to code proper movement mechanics involved determining mechanics to use in the first place, a lengthy trial and error process.

We think that the best part of our game our depiction of the river Styx as a sea of souls. Hands rising out of the river, while not a historically common depiction, we believe gave a more haunting aura to the game that was necessary given the lack of dialogue in the game.

Ultimately, we think the game was incredibly successful at remediating Charon with an interesting 2D pixel art depiction. While simple, it made a topic grounded in Greek mythology, but known in many cultures, approachable to gamers of all ages and skill levels.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Choose Your own Adventure Game (Group 2)

Video Game Trailer

Percy Jackson: The Novels and Films

While both Millennials and Gen Z grew up reading book series like Narnia, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games, our generation had something that most Millennials did not: Percy Jackson and the Olympians. In 2005, Rick Riordan published the first book in the series, The Lightning Thief. The story follows a twelve year-old boy, Percy, who finds out that his father is Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. After journeying to the safety of Camp Half-Blood—a camp for children of the Greek gods and goddesses—Percy sets off on a journey to find Zeus’ stolen lightning bolt with the help of Grover, a satyr tasked with watching over Percy, and Annabeth, a daughter of Athena.

In 2010, Director Chris Columbus brought Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief to life on the big screen for children and young adults everywhere. The film was followed up by an adaptation of the second novel in the series, Sea of Monsters, three years later.

For our video game design, we decided to remediate the Percy Jackson universe. In our game, we took inspiration from the film’s visual aspects of the characters and settings and utilized them in both our in-game text and art. However, we used the novels as our main point of reference for plot and design. You can see this in the numerous details, events, and enemies players encounter in our game that are not present in the film adaptations of the books.

Game Description

Our game follows the decision of four characters differentiated by your choice of godly parent: Hermes, Tyche, Ares, and Aphrodite. The goal of the game is to get your character safely across the borders of Camp Half-Blood. We chose to remediate this particular storyline referring to one of the most iconic scenes in the books, as Percy makes his frantic journey to Camp Half-Blood in order to escape the monsters pursuing him due to his godly parentage. In-game, your character will face many challenges including monsters, high-speed car chases, and dynamic dialogue options alongside the aid of one of four protectors/guardians: Percy, Annabeth Grover, or Thalia.

One of the most important things in a text-based adventure is the feeling that the choices of the player matter. That’s why, in order to differentiate across the different characters, the better decision is usually correlated to whatever decision would best align with the abilities of your Olympian parent. For example, the Child of Hermes story rewards talking your way out of problems and roguish decision making, while the Child of Ares story rewards tactical decision making, especially in combat.

In order to win, you have to make it to Camp-Half Blood. The path that takes you there, however, is completely up to you. Each character path contains multiple ways to get to the ending. If you pick the wrong path, your story ends, but it is possible to rewind back to where you made the wrong decision and pick another path.

Our Game Design Process

For the game design process, we started by storyboarding all of our ideas and concepts down. We had initially hoped to create a game following some of the universe’s most popular characters, such as Percy, Annabeth, Clarisse, and Will. After sketching out some rough ideas and plans, we realized that we would mostly be telling stories that have already been told. A lot of games remediating novels or films tend to stay away from creating a main character that is already a main character in the already existing storyline of the universe in which they are remediating. This is because there is not always a lot of room for expansion or a sense of agency in game creation and exploration if one is trying to navigate in the confines of a story that has already been written. We ran into this issue very quickly.

So we decided to take a turn and scrap our original idea entirely. In its place, we decided to set up a game where you yourself are the main character and have the ability to choose your godly parent. Because there are four members in our group, we each picked a Greek god or goddess from which our character was born, resulting in the four storylines present in our game: Hermes, Tyche, Ares, and Aphrodite. This, we believed, would allow players to feel a new sense of freedom and excitement as they get to make their own decisions resulting in never before told stories in the Percy Jackson universe.

Throughout this project, the first thing we had to do was actually determine what we were going to create as well as what application to use for creation. Once we determined that we wanted to go with a text-based adventure game, we realized that Twine was the application for us. Twine essentially allows you to put bodies of text into screens and easily codes decisions that you can make to continue to progress your game.

This sounds super simple until each story has about 60 different pathways that each lead to a variety of outcomes as well as more connections between them. It was genuinely tedious work to ensure that every single pathway led to the correct subsequent body of text and decisions, but this technique was rewarding as we slowly built the game up pathway by pathway. By the end of simple game creation, we had over 200 pathways with a multitude of connections for each one, giving the player an immensely complicated and immersive experience that we feel did the Percy Jackson universe justice.
While this is just the overall tedious work, figuring out how to insert pictures was the hard part of the process. This is because we wanted to use DALL.E-2, which is an AI that can generate art based on prompts put in. This means that instead of being able to simply put a link after a line of code in Twine, we had to use the CSS code. To put how long CSS code is into perspective, this is the code for the picture you get for winning the game (in 1 point font, size font)

That is an awful lot of text, we know, and every single passage that has a picture in the game (which is most of them) has an equal amount of code within the passage. However, while this may seem wildly frustrating, once we figured out how to get everything copied in the format that we needed, we moved much more quickly.

This leads us to the final portion of game design: proofreading. This was the worst part because it consisted of us inspecting each and every single pathway to ensure that every quotation mark, comma, colon, etc. was in the correct place. This took hours, and we are almost positive that the first time someone other than us plays this game, they will likely find an error that we did not. With this being said, once we finished proofreading, the game was finally done and we were all left extremely satisfied. It is genuinely a fun game with funny quips and serious stories that we felt like people who knew the Percy Jackson universe would enjoy, and we hope that all of you will have the opportunity to play it. Seriously, download it now…

PLAY OUR GAME HERE

https://we.tl/t-wYNOUOMtE9

-Carter, Chris, Elliot, and Connor<3

Rusty’s Journey – Group 1

Our game is a remediation of the Warrior Cats series written by Erin Hunter. Erin Hunter is a pseudonym for a collection of writers who created the 6-book sagas. The Warrior Cats series are a collection of novels that tell the story of various cat clans. It is an adventurous and dramatic journey explored through the lens of the feline main character of each novel. We decided to focus on Rusty’s Journey from the novel, “Into the Wild,” the first in the series. This particular story tells the journey of Firestar, a once housecat who navigates the difficulties of becoming a warrior cat in the ThunderClan based on his background. He cannot do it alone and, along the way, learns the value of fellowship and that loyalty is something you choose, not something determined from the start.

The scene we decided to remediate is the beginning of Firestar’s journey. Firestar did not always go by such a cool name. In the beginning, he is known as Rusty. Rusty has a humble beginning as a pet cat living near the forest. Despite being refrained from the forest due to his housecat identity, Rusty dreams of hunting in the wilderness. The story shows us the underlying fierceness in Rusty’s desire to be a warrior when he sees a mouse and tries to attack it. Unfortunately, he is distracted by his prepackaged food hitting his food bowl, and the mouse utilizes this moment of weakness to escape. After this defeat, Rusty considers a different life for himself. A life where he fights to win the mouse for himself and taste the freshness of his meal instead of his current life of eating dried food pellets. He sits on the fence, which for him is the edge, the threshold, the farthest he can go from home, and dreams of living the life of a warrior cat. At this moment, he decides to do something he has never done before, cross that threshold. Rusty leaps down from the fence post ready to leave when he is faced with the reality of his decision and the dangers he may face. His neighbor Smudge hears him and questions Rusty pointing out that there are large wildcats in the forest and larger unknown enemies. Although nervous, Rusty decides to carry on and follow his dream. In the woods, he spots a mouse and goes to pounce when he catches a glimpse of a red fox and follows it with intrigue.

While following the fox, he is attacked from behind and forced to fight. Rusty manages to fend off the predator, proving to himself that he is more capable than he initially thought of being the wild cat he dreamed of. He learns that his attacker is a scrawny gray tom cat named Graypaw. Graypaw is the ThunderClan apprentice serving as Rusty’s first introduction to the ThunderClan and a different life of adventure. Two fellow members of the Clan join in the conversation: Bluestar and Lionheart. Bluestar is complimentary, while Lionheart judges Rusty on his background. However, complimentary Bluestar sees Rusty as a potential threat to the overall food supply for the Clan, despite Rusty’s claims that he would only take three mice.

Here we see the intensity of the Clan and the need for survival. We also see a distinction between classes: wildcats and house cats. Rusty is sent back home after apologizing and promising never to hunt in the wild again. While the interaction suggests that Rusty’s adventure may end there, Bluestar relaxes and offers Rusty to join the Clan. He meets the Bluestar, Lionheart, and a senior warrior of the Clan, White Storm, in the forest at sunhigh. He is then taken to ThunderClan camp, where Bluestar announces to the Clan that she plans to accept Rusty into the Clan causing chaos and fury amongst the group. A fight breaks out between Rusty and a member named Longtail, who claims he cannot join due to his background. Rusty tears his ear, and in return, Longtail tears off Rusty’s collar, destroying the physical tie to Rusty’s roots. With the broken collar lying on the ground, Bluestar views the incident as symbolic, and Rusty is renamed Firestar due to his flame-colored front fur. This is the vital scene at the beginning of the hero’s journey.

We decided to cover this scene in our game because, as described above, this scene depicts the creation of Firestar and the beginning of his journey. It explains his background that leads to some of his challenges and questions of identity. We wanted to re-create this sense of learning and growing into something new by allowing players to go through this scene themselves. It is the building block for the entire Into the Wild narrative and expresses key themes of self-discovery, curiosity, resilience, and fellowship early on in the plot. We started by deciding how much of this scene we wanted to portray. We decided to start at his human home and end the game with him finding his new cat family. We then created various backgrounds to transport the player into the scene visually. We did this through AI generation. We continued this idea when creating the cats. This was a challenge our group faced. We wanted to illustrate the game setting perfectly, but to do so from a novel with all of our visions differing slightly was challenging. We wanted to create the perfect background that merged these ideas and views. We decided to use AI technology to make the photos for our backdrops based on the prompts we created to articulate our exact vision for the video game’s background. In order to get the results we wanted, we had to be concise and imaginative with our word choice. Finding the statements that generated the images we desired for our backgrounds took a few trial-and-error prompts.

We then created our characters: the various cats from the scene. We then narrowed this down to just our main character Firestar. We decided to do so using sprites created with pixel art software. We made him fit the description of the character as given in the book. He is bright orange and his collar is visible. While working on this, we had difficulty resizing the sprites from the software to fit into the actual game. This was challenging because different games have different resolutions, so to create realistic and size-appropriate art, you have to keep these technological barriers in mind when creating art for the game. We found a way to make this easier and adapt. We decided to use the same base template for each cate sprite and only recolor the sprite based on the book’s descriptions in order to save time. This aided our difficulties; however, we still had challenges to face. The software we used and inserting these sprites was a challenge. We used the Stencyl software, which has been successful but challenging to get comfortable with. The Interface is a bit dated; however, there is a lot of power which is promising to ensure that we can accommodate all the features we want.

We then added in human and critter adversaries throughout the game for the player to avoid. This sets the competitive nature of the game and allows for challenges/levels to pass. We did so using Stencyl software.

The game itself was a bit difficult to create, however the software allowed for us to complete what we wanted without heavy coding necessary. The game is a platformer. There is a linear path that the cat must run in with keys to move up, down and forwards. Firestar must navigate the landscape including jumping on high grass platforms and avoiding pits in the ground while chasing the mouse that goes quickly across the screen. If while playing your main character Firestar falls into the pit, you have failed the game and must start over. We continued working on our levels to make sure one went seamlessly into the next. We wanted to make sure that our levels filled in spaces that the novel left out. This required coming up with details based on descriptive imagery and creating a true world around it. Downloading the game and getting it to load took some problem solving as well with all the various aspects of it requiring time to boost up. We found a way to make it work. Although it may take you a minute, it will load and provide the game with all the great features we added. What can I say? The best things come with time!

Once the game was designed we then worked on our video trailer. We faced some challenges uploading the various videos into the new format to demonstrate the game and how to play. That being said, with some patience we were able to create the final product. Please watch it below and we hope you enjoy it:

Rusty’s Journey Trailer

Throughout this process, we learned valuable lessons such as solving technical problems or adapting when we ran into challenges to keep our vision. We learned how to navigate sprites and reformat the sprites to fit our game design. We learned how to create an image based on narrative and utilize new tools such as AI to create the world we envisioned when reading the book. We also found that there are holes in story descriptions that are acceptable when reading, but not when playing a game because the player needs to fully immerse themselves into the world you have created. Overall, through this process we faced challenges, but learned how to pivot and work through them to create the game design you see currently! We hope it is as fun to play as it was to make!

Created by: Alex Wagner, Sophia Piper, Sophia Potter, and Madi Wilson