2020 Gumbo Final - Book - Page 83
A Win for the Girls
a
LSU all-female game design team wins
“Best Art” award
majority female LGBT game design team
composed of three University students competed
in a world renowned game design competition
and won the “Best Art” category.
The “Ghost Garden” team was formed in 2015
when the five original members were in high
school. The team was created by information
systems and decision sciences junior Kathryn
Nastasi and computer science junior Leslyanne
Warrington because of their passion for making
video games. Eventually digital arts sophomore
Asher Lejeune, civil and environmental
engineering and computer science sophomore
Raquel Hodgeson and computer science senior
Julia Grammes joined their ranks.
“For me, my favorite part is the environment,”
Nastasi said. “I’m surrounded by friends that I’m
comfortable with and like-minded individuals
that I enjoy bouncing creative ideas off to create
something we’re all proud of.”
Story: Joanna Clark
Photo: LSU Media Center
Design: Chloe Bryars
Ghost Garden competed in Chillenium 2019 on
Oct. 5, a game design competition at Texas A&M
with 408 registered participants from 23 different
schools. Over 100 games were submitted for
judging. Each team was given 48 hours to create
a game to the theme “all for one and one for all.”
This was Grammes’ first competition on the team.
Grammes first heard about Ghost Garden when
she joined the University’s Chillennium Game
Jam group. She did not have a team and was
worried about finding a good fit. Ghost Garden
had an open spot on their team for a programmer,
and she fit the bill.
“I’m very thankful I found them because we just
worked really well together and all had similar
ideas for game design,” Grammes said. “My
favorite part about being on the team is how
we’re just a bunch of friends making games
together.”
Lejeune heard about the group and competition
through friends. This was her first time competing
at Chillenium but her second game as a part of
Ghost Garden. Lejeune said her experience at
the first competition, as well as the desire to try
working with pixel art, prompted her to attend
Chillenium.
“I love being able to brainstorm with my friends,
and I love producing the art,” Lejeune said. “The
creative process under pressure is sort of tough,
but it can lead to some really fun projects.”
For the competition, Ghost Garden created a
game called Headspace. According to their
website, Headspace is a game about uniting
different internal organs of the body, each
representing different factors of depression and
anxiety. You, the rational brain, perform a fetch
quest for each of the organs, helping them cope
with their symptom (one for all) which, in turn,
helps your sleeping human cope as well (all for
one).
Each of the three members had an important
part in creating the game, Lejeune created
and animated the player character, as well as
drew all of the visual aspects and animations in
the game as you see them. Grammes handled
the programming aspects and the seamless
movements between rooms, inventory systems,
and items.
Nastasi handled all the quests and dialogue
trees, ensuring that characters would change
accordingly as the player progressed. She also
made small color tweaks as she built the gaming
engine.
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