Through their engagement with (and selection from) the visual resources of Toontalk
the students create a strong visual game narrative that is emergent in the design on
paper. A ‘stranger/outsider’ (the little dog) visits a planet where the (native) alien
defends his territory. The outsider status and the vulnerability of the little dog are
visually marked by its need to wear sunglasses (against the heat of the warm planet -
indicated through the modes of colour), the external power of the rocket to enable it
to fly, and its small size. This narrative is expressed in Emily’s spoken narrative at
this stage of the design.
I want there to be little bars where if you hit it, it [the ball] goes another
way and another way and another way and I want there to be another
little creature that he tries to kill.
The students designed the visual frame of the game (and through it defined the game
narrative) and moved on to consider the movement of the elements. Interestingly, the
move from the page to screen changes the fate of the little figure who, instead of
being caught, will now be killed, reflecting a change in game genre from the genre of
board game to the genre of adventure∕action game on the screen.
The programming function and affordance of Toontalk demand that the students
specify (select) the action and movement of each game element. The students select
the ‘shoot in four directions’ anima-gadget for the behaviour of the green alien; the
initial movement of the alien in the written narrative of the game-design is
transformed in Toontalk into “fires bullets”. The vague movement of the “little
doggy.. .around the place” is now specified as moving left to right in a straight line by
the students’ choice of the anima-gadget ‘move left and right with shift and control’.
In order for an object to have functionality in Toontalk the user needs to put a
‘behaviour’ (a ready-made piece of programming code) on the back of the object.
This demands that the user decide what game element is going to ‘have’ the
behaviour, raising the issue of agency.
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