REMEMBRANCE
My undergraduate senior thesis game, about 15 years before its own time and a few years behind our own.
At UT Austin I had a dual major in two different honors colleges. I was part of the now-defunct but at the time highly competitive Intensive Production Sequence in the communication college’s film department and also the still active Plan II Honors Program through the college of liberal arts. In both cases thousands of students competed for just over a hundred openings. Plan II students are expected to complete a senior thesis project at the end of their time at the university; one which should be a culmination of their studies. This would often take the form of written publications but there were no specific rules about this. My goal was to combine my passion for gaming with my background in film studies, and create what I described at the time as “an interactive experience that you can play in your web browser.”
These days hidden object games and walking simulators are de rigueur, but this project took quite a bit of explaining to both my thesis advisor and the program director in order to gain approval (and even comprehension of what exactly this crazy about-to-graduate kid was trying to do).
The project was created through analog photography shot in and around Austin and the hill country between fall 2001 and spring 2002, which was then scanned and animated in Macromedia Shockwave Flash, featuring original music from two local Austin industrial music acts.
The archive linked below contains a .zip file with a lightweight standalone flash player from oldversion.com and the original game files in a separate directory. At the time players could load the .html file through their browser and the ubiquitous Flash plugin, but time keeps on slipping into the future. Unfortunately, Adobe (who purchased Macromedia in 2005) discontinued all support for Flash in April of 2019. I am still exploring ways to “remaster” the project in Twine or other modern formats, but for the time being this game can only be experienced by turning back the clock and using a legacy standalone Flash player.
The period in which this was made was a grim time, and the content and mood reflect that. The game is also slightly buggy and was designed for a 4:3 aspect ratio and may have bugs when running on modern systems. I absolutely understand any reluctance to download a .zip file with an installer and archaic .swf files; this is provided for the sake of completion and to give interested parties a more in-depth look at my creative journey.
