(Sorry for the late post, I couldn’t figure out how to host the game and then the commons server went down.)
My project was to create an interactive selection of poems from Leaves of Grass. I have a bit of a soft spot for Whitman. Over the years, I’ve come to disagree with how Whitman is taught in schools. While Song of the Self is a fine piece, often that is all that’s taught. Whitman can be long-winded, but he can also be concise and poignant. He condenses natural imagery and extrapolates outward into philosophical musings. Part of the reason I enjoy Whitman so much is because of this habit; it’s how I was first trained to write metaphor and think philosophically. But in the longer musings, some of this keen eye is lost. In selecting shorter poems I felt able to showcase this as part of the rhetoric of the game.
As I stated in my presentation, I believe that any selection of works that isn’t arranged by the author themselves is inherently argumentative. The order in which I arranged the poems allows for some freedom based on the preference of the player, but there is still a loosely ordered progression through the game. Though it might not immediately come across, I chose the order of the game based on what I believe to be foundational aspects of Whitman’s style and philosophy. The game was also designed with a narrative pace and flow in mind, moving through a series of themes that are representative of Whitman’s body of work in an order which summarizes my interpretation of the themes and their relationship to one another.
The limitations of Bitsy as a development tool demanded brevity and simplicity. However it also allowed for stark design and a certain amount of imaginative freedom. The goal of design was to create an atmosphere appropriate to each poem respectively, to allow the background to set a mood without distracting from the words. In the future, I might update the game to include some sound design, but to an extent, I think the atmosphere is sufficient as-is.
I hope you enjoy the game! Feel free to leave a comment on the itch.io page if you have any thoughts.
