Monday night in North Austin, a zombie ran and double-jumped across a landscape of purple hills, fought homeless people and rednecks and eventually killed a butcher. To be fair, the butcher was trying to kill him too.
The zombie's name is Bone Apart, and he is the main character in a video game of the same name. A group of seven Austin Community College students known as Team 1Up created "Bone Apart," both the game and the character, as part of the HBMG Foundation's 2008 ArtSpark Festival.
The premise of the ArtSpark Festival is deceptively simple: HBMG Foundation staff assembles seven "creative teams," which then have 12 weeks to produce either an original video game or theatrical piece. The catch is that teams have to start their projects from scratch, drawing their inspiration from creative "sparks" the foundation provides. The sparks for this year's festival included paintings, sculptures and music - all created beforehand by Austin-area artists - as well as a trip to the Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas.
On Monday, the ACC Highland Business Center played host to the ArtSpark Video Game Showcase. The showcase featured a reception followed by a presentation from each of three creative teams - Team 1Up, Alchemic Studio and Team Chimera. The event provided friends, family members and video game enthusiasts a chance to see what a group of talented programmers and artists can accomplish with a development period of only three months.
All of the games at the ArtSpark Showcase were works in progress. During their presentations, each team mentioned that 12 weeks is not enough time to create a finished piece of software. The aptly named Team Chimera was charged with creating not only an original video game, but also an original theater piece that somehow tied in with the game.
"Essentially we were tasked with being what's called the hybrid team," said Aaron Eastburn, a designer and programmer for Team Chimera. "Ultimately, we came up with something that I think fits it very well - of the game essentially being a prologue for the play and that, to me, rolls in very essentially with what the hybrid team is."
Combining the interactivity of a video game with the more traditional medium of theater was not an easy task.
"There was a point where the theater people went over here to start rehearsing the play and [the video game team] were already hard at work making the game and there was two weeks where we just didn't see each other at all," said Bethany Perkins, director of Team Chimera's theatrical production. "Two weeks later, we realized, 'Wait a minute, we have no idea what the other half has been doing, I hope we're all still doing the same thing!'"
Team Chimera's play, "Sublimation," will run as part of the ArtSpark Theatre Showcase on Aug. 16 at 2 p.m.
The ArtSpark competition provided valuable experience in teamwork and technical know-how, both for aspiring video game designers and for participants who were dabbling in game design for the first time. Joey Harding, an English and mathematics junior at UT, was the leader of the Alchemic Studio team. Harding is also the president of the Electronic Game Developers Society at UT and hopes to go into game design and production upon graduation. His team plans to continue working on their game, "Eyrus," in hopes of eventually uploading their completed product to the Xbox Live Network.
For Maria Salazar of Team 1Up, ArtSpark was her first foray into designing an interactive game world.
"Before, I was like, 'I want to do film,' but now, after this experience, I've really enjoyed working with the team and working towards making a video game."
For more information about the HBMG Foundation and ArtSpark, visit their Web site at www.hbmgfoundation.org.
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