Walden, a Game

image from the screenshot gallery at the WaldenGame website

I don't have a competitive bone in my body, so games and organized group activities have always been an interesting experience for me. They so often seem to have winners and losers. People have even turned children's Halloween parties into events where costumes are judged and winners announced. I've been surprised to see that the art/craft challenges on the internet sometimes have prizes for judged winners. Video games are usually no different, with most of the games I see being heavy on the competition components.

I stay on the look-out for video games that don't have contests, races, timed puzzles to solve, and ranked participants -more exploration-based and cooperative games. That's how I found Walden, a Game. From their website:

Walden, a game is an exploratory narrative and open world simulation of the life of American philosopher Henry David Thoreau during his experiment in self-reliant living at Walden Pond. The game begins in the summer of 1845 when Thoreau moved to the Pond and built his cabin there.

Players follow in his footsteps, surviving in the woods by finding food and fuel and maintaining their shelter and clothing. At the same time, players are surrounded by the beauty of the woods and the Pond, which hold a promise of a sublime life beyond these basic needs. The game follows the loose narrative of Thoreau’s first year in the woods, with each season holding its own challenges for survival and possibilities for inspiration.

The audience for the game is broad: from experimental game players to lovers of Thoreau and Transcendental literature. As such, the game offers more opportunities for reflective play than strategic challenge. The piece has a subtle narrative arc, in homage to the original text, which is not an adventure of the body pitted against nature, but of the mind and soul living in nature over the course of a New England year.

Wikipedia has an article which describes the praise the game has received.

Here's the trailer:

Smithsonian Magazine has an article, as does NPR.

I keep forgetting to play, being out of the habit of video games, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. To be honest, I wish it were even less structured and had fewer timed activities, but nothing's perfect.

I never play a video game (or any game, for that matter), watch a movie or TV show, or read a book without having a cuppa close at hand. Today mine is coffee:

and I share it to join in the T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth. The pansy mug is one I only use during the winter when pansies are everywhere, especially in commercial and professionally landscaped residential beds.

I even made a pecan pie, and if I cut pieces small enough I think there'll be plenty for everybody:

That's one-eighth of a pie, and I could do fine with half that much. Join me?

*******

I have a few ATCs to share today. The first few were inspired by both the Geometric Shapes challenge and the Squares theme.

For this one I used a crossword puzzle for the background -lots of squares there. I filled in one word and added a definition from a dictionary that isn't complete enough to use for its intended purpose. Then I made a ribbon crossing, where the crossing is a square.

No matter how much I played with GIMP I couldn't get the horizontal ribbon's pattern/texture to show up at all. At this point I've uninstalled GIMP and am looking into some other free and easy options. The next image was scanned but not edited.

In it, I cut out a part of a window from a magazine and tried to make an interior scene using only squares:

The picture on the wall was cut from a Christmas card. The vase was cut from a piece of newsprint and then dabbed with square-shaped watercolor touches. The flower stems were pieces of metallic edging and the flower was cut from ribbon.

Having installed Paint.net. I'll try it and see if I like it well enough or if I want to try Fotor or Photoscape. Those get good reviews, too. This next ATC is made of squares. I watercolored a base card and let it dry. Then I painted lines to make squares to cover the card. At the top left of the card I layered square pieces in diminishing sizes of  (bottom to top) a Christmas card, an index card, felt, a one-inch square of card divided into four squares with watercolors, and a square button hand-sewn on. I marked off a two-inch square with silver edging.

The button kept the card from being in focus, and I sharpened the focus in the Paint.net program. This was easy to use. So far so good.

Another "Squares" card:

is a throw-back to many a fond game of Four Square I enjoyed as an elementary school-aged child. The background was cut from a magazine, and the gray squares from another ATC background. I hadn't realized how much the wrinkles in the gray pieces would show up, but you live and learn, right? The playground ball is made from tissue paper glued to card and then to an accordion-folded piece meant to give the ball some lift.

Because it had been such a long time since I last did any coloring, I decided the Squares theme would be a good place to see if I could still color inside the lines:

I made a background with graph paper and colored squares on it with Prismacolor colored pencils. I like these pencils, but I think there may be some other tools out there that might also be fun to try. I could've gotten better coverage, I'm sure, but somehow I was done with this one.

The next ATC:

is in response to a landscape/cityscape idea I saw here. The card base is cut from a magazine. I added ribbons and elastic on the left and then added hand-sewn "windows" in white thread to the top ribbon to turn them into skyscrapers. The moon and star were in a bag of bits I have in a cabinet. The word "BLUES" came from some Memphis promotional material. I sharpened the focus in the new Paint.net program.

I did two landscapes, the first with one of those old school supply watercolor sets:

I wish I could do more with watercolors, and I'll be looking for some short Youtube tutorials sometime.

and another by cutting flowing shapes and layering them:

and then I added some "trees" to the foreground using sticks from the patio. I do not actually enter any of these challenges but just use them for inspiration. I don't like contests or competitions or awards or any of that, but who can complain that I use the challenges as personal inspiration.

I am thoroughly enjoying making these ATCs and am already thinking about how to do more. I'm saving the card images in a folder on my computer and the originals are in a notebook in trading card storage pages. Happy T Tuesday, and thank you for introducing me to this doable little art form.