I went to a workshop on making games in GB Studio, a game making tool for homebrew GameBoy games.
After playing around in the system I decided to make this prototype, Invisible Maze Space Feline. This is just a test of collision detection, adding dialogue, and inserting pixel art (I made the instructions screen and title screen in GIMP) but I thought it was worth sharing the video because I found it funny. I’m not sure if I will keep using this tool but it is intriguing to say the least.
The dialogue does not show very well on the video (the tool is optimized for GameBoy screens) but it reads: “You Beat Invisible Maze Space Feline!” “Good Work!” “You should value your time more!!” “Also, I am your Mother!” “I did not miss you!”
I was very excited to give my first game making workshop at the University of Waterloo’s Critical Media Lab.
The Event Poster
I gave a talk as the first part of the workshop that was designed to give the students a brief background on me, my work and its theoretical underpinnings. I was pleasantly surprised with the number of insightful questions that I received during this part of the workshop. If I had let the students keep asking questions it seems like they would have taken up the entire workshop without getting to the critical making part!
A slide from my talk used to help describe how I turn historiography into video games.
After all the questions we did a group play-through of two of my games, Nagumo’s Ruin: The Battle of Midway and Nagasaki Kitty with audience members assigned as voice actors. I was also able to show off some of my work within RPG Maker MV. From here, I had the students download Twine onto their devices and provided an introduction to the tool that allowed them to start making their own games.
The title slide of Nagasaki Kitty. This was the first time that I used audience members as voice actors in a play-test but I think I will keep doing it in the future. It was great.
Overall, I had an excellent time giving my first workshop. In retrospect, I probably would have cut out the talk at the beginning and jumped right into introducing the tools. But I feel like I learned a lot about the time management of a workshop and what to expect from the students. I was very happy to hear that at least one or two of the students had started making something that they wanted to move forward with in the limited amount of time that they had to experiment with the tool. I hope they keep making games.
I would like to thank the students of the Critical Media Lab for being enthusiastic and making my first workshop such a great experience and Dr. Marcel O’Gorman for taking the time to drop in. Finally, a special shout-out to Dr. Lai-Tze Fan for the invitation, organization and support of the workshop. I appreciate you all!
I am excited to announce that I will be showing a reworked version of the first game that I ever made at an event next week!
The game, made with Twine, places the player in the role of Vice Admiral Nagumo during the Battle of Midway (4-7 June 1942). There is a full artist’s statement included for those that are curious about the influences and design choices of the game.
This is a short lecture that I had filmed after one of my classes was cancelled. It is a short examination of how video games interact with the past.
Special thanks to Marc, Courtney, Patricia and Dan for helping me with the equipment and the editing of the lecture. Also, a quick shout-out to Mia and her mLab for providing the space, equipment, and opportunity.
