So why did I end up starting a game about a figure from Literature making a contemporary Thanksgiving dish?
Good question. So for the St. Jude Creative season, I decided that I was going to make a quick game using Pico 8. Okay. Simple enough. But I needed a bit of a push. A theme to kick me in gear. And I'm not sure if I was just hungry that day or thinking generaly about the Thanksgiving season, I ended up with a food theme.
Now it's not enough to have a food theme. You got to be specific.
- Is it about making food?
- Is it about eating food?
- Is it about delivering food?
And what kind of food are we talking about? And how are we going to draw this food with a limited color pallette? I'm not sure how I settled on Green Bean Casserole. In retrospect, it's probably because of how ridiculous sounding Green Bean Casserole would be in a video game.
Cool Story. But why notorious Captain Ahab from acclaimed Novel Moby Dick who probably have no idea what a Green Bean Casserole would be in the first place?
Well, when I settled on Green Bean Casserole, I needed the why. And what. First idea was a ridiculous green bean casserole making sim with many mini games. Turns out if I go too far, I can see the scope going out of control. But one idea stuck. The idea of opening cans with a blunt force object. So other I explored the idea of ways to open aluminum cans. Whips. Mallets. Giant battle axes. It was when the idea of using a spear to poke at aluminum cans became something that 1. I could do and 2. sounded hilarious enough to go with it. But who's using the spear? Robots? A vampire hunter? The guy from Moby Dick?
you know what? Captain Ahab Makes green bean casserole sounds like a hilarious name for a game. I'm going for it.
And thus the Theme, setting, goal, and characters have been set. Plus a title that both describes the game and gives it a bit that look you give to a hamster holding a wooden mallet. Also bonus, Moby Dick is to my knowledge public domain. There's nothing stopping me from making a fictional character known for hunting whales make a dish that most definitely didn't exist in this form in that time period.
Next time, I'll give a bit of code, some in progress shots, and general insight.