James Earl Cox III is both a graduate student in the IMGD MFA program at USC and a digital wizard. He holds BA degrees in Creative Writing, Mass Communication, and Interactive Media from Miami University of Ohio. James has created over 60 freeware games, exhibiting at numerous venues including IndieCade, DIGRA, EGX, and the Smithsonian. He is ½ of Seemingly Pointless, a nightmare media studio. His games can be found on the Seemingly Pointless website. Currently, he is completing a challenge of making 100 games in 5 years. His Twitter is @Just404it and yes, he would love to watch The Room with you.
Some Framing
Before diving in, I’d like to provide some framing for this game and a lens for interpreting this postmortem. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a 10-minutes freeware game. It was designed with art-game and critical-game audiences in mind and is an adaptation of a Civil War short story. Which adds up nicely with my background in intermedia storytelling. All of this is to say that An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (the game, not the story) is very much high concept. It can be polarizing as it sometimes challenges an audience’s concept of a game.
Even so, the lessons about meaningful design and limited code can carry over into almost any other game. The tricks I learned from making early games like An Occurrence still pertain to the work I do today.
Dreaming with Limits
It was a hot and rainy summer in Oxford, Ohio when I began An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. One of my favorite memories was sitting in front of a second story window, drinking coffee and observing tutorials while the dark rain splattered on the pavement outside. I was devoting that summer specifically to learning GameMaker. Watching drag & drop tutorials put out by YoYo Games as well as hobbyists on YouTube; seeing how you could make the same platformer in different ways, discovering more and more how game making is an art.
On the surface, adapting a short story into a narrative game is a fantastic way to learn code. The plot is already laid out, so while there remains the challenge of adding visuals to the text, the exercise is more reliant on other aspects. I specifically chose An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge as the text felt within my scope. The story didn’t demand multiplayer, any network integration, complex AI; it was a very linear experience. I had the game thought out before the first key was pressed.
I knew this game would be an art game and a critical game from the get-go. The story is taught in various schools and it plays with expectations. This allowed me to jump in with an understanding of the audience I would design for; I knew the story elements that I’d need to reinforce. Because An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (the story) involves very little dialogue, I was able to make the adaptation textless.
Lastly, the story’s setting and narrative harkened back to Atari games; games like Pitfall and Adventure. With art a bit more colorful than those two examples, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge isn’t about collecting, it’s about interpreting and understanding. It’s a game where pixel art works and reinforces the play. A GameMaker challenge that fit my skill level, a solid story that could be communicated solely through visuals and interaction, and manageable art that fit the play. A solid foundation.
Fake It As you Make It
All games are smoke and mirrors. Digital sealant over cracks and billboarded sprites, holding up just long enough for players to pass by. Creating a game is hard enough when you have the knowledge to do it. More so, creating a game just on your own is daunting, and even if you have the courage and drive to make a game, it may turn out bad. Even as a fledgling to digital media, I could still heed the warnings of past developers. The three adages that kept my game afloat were: playtest at every step, understand feedback, and keep your original goal in mind.
The Unspoken Feedback
Playtesting saved An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge several times. But playtesting isn’t enough, you also need to understand the feedback. Don’t look for the feedback you want; this leads to missing the feedback you need.
During an early playtest of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, I was watching closely for issues during a tense section. In a specific portion of the game, the main character sneaks through a forest, avoiding soldiers. Something unexpected was happening: the players were not stopping to hide behind trees and logs. After a few sessions, I discovered that the players needed more prompting. They didn’t understand that they needed to hide.
I added some hints. Now, when soldiers approach, the character crouches down, and when no key is pressed, he ducks. Players got it. The feedback I needed to understand wasn’t what the players were vocalizing, but how they were playing. It was the unspoken feedback that mattered the most here.
Working with Little
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge does a lot with very little. Only WASD (or Arrow Keys) to play, simple code, basic gameplay. Yet, it still offers a hefty experience. As 30PlusGamer wrote, “[An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge] embodies … a very strong and compelling message that demonstrates how game design can be an art and how video games can be used to tell a story.” It all has to do with framing.
Two years ago, I gave a guest lecture at Miami of Ohio about how anyone can make games. In the talk, I discussed An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge: specifically the code. I had the class make a game with me: Dog Bone. Using GameMaker drag & drop, I asked the class for a character (they said a dog) and a goal (they said a bone). In about 2 minutes, we had a working game. Press the right arrow, our dog speeds over to the bone, and the game changes to a “you win” screen. Easy. Everyone in the class had participated in making a game.
Then we looked back at An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the very first screen. This may be the tensest screen in the game. “Never have I ever wanted to travel left so much before in a game” wrote Chris Priestman, formally of IndieStatik. “Sidescrolling is so often done to the right, and some games take advantage of this engrained understanding in players by rewarding them should they decide to head left from the start.”
What he wrote about is that first section, where the main character is on a plank. The soldiers behind you slowly encroach from the left. Yet, you don’t want to drop to your death on the right. Here is what the scene looks like:
Now let’s strip away the background art:
As you can see, the forest, plank, railroad bridge, rocks and grass are just a single background layer. All smoke and mirrors. The river doesn’t flow; it only has a few ripple sprites sitting on top. There’s still a hidden element here. I’ll turn up the opacity.
Looks familiar? This opening scene is no different mechanically from Dog Bone. Press right, touch a goal, scene changes. It’s the narrative context that lends this opening scene its power. Chris continues, “Sidescrolling is so often done to the right, and some games take advantage of this engrained understanding in players by rewarding them should they decide to head left from the start. An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge changes it all – you have to travel right, but it seems that would be to your detriment, to say the least.”
We can do a lot with very little if we frame it right. We just have to have the right mindset and build to our abilities. An Occurrence has a lot of millage for how simple of a game it is; same mechanics as Dog Bone, a game made in 4 minutes, but with more smoke and mirrors. Nothing remotely complex is happening under the hood. Here’s the drag & drop code to prove it.
Let Them Discover
To wrap up, here are a few final notes. Hopefully they aren’t your typical game dev advice, or at least I don’t think they are.
Reasonable Goals: This is to say, don’t overscope on your design. Don’t overscope on your goals too. Don’t’ expect your first games to be big (in size or reception), and don’t quit your day job to make them. Do be happy with what you learn, and keep moving forward.
Downscope to Refine: Sticking to your original goal is great when it helps prevent rampant overscoping. But please don’t be afraid to downscope either. Many times you’ll set out to make a game, and it turns out that a planned mechanic, art asset, plot point, or whatever doesn’t fit the game. Knowing this, and downscoping is good. Games need to be refined, and the player won’t know you removed anything… if you don’t tell them.
Don’t Tell the Player They’re Wrong: Most often you won’t be there to watch players interact with your game. You may be tempted to oversaturate your artifact with warnings, instructions, demonstrations of how to play correctly. You want them to see every nook, every beautiful vista, every awe-inspiring explosion. Try to avoid directing them. Let them explore; don’t force the magic on them.
If they find your cinematic moment on their own, it’ll be that much more powerful. A shared secret between the two of you. If you force it, they’ll feel trapped. Even when I added visual cues in the forest hinting that the player should hide, I never forced it. If they don’t want to hide, they don’t have to. As long as you don’t tell the player they’re wrong, they think they’re playing right.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge hasn’t racked up hundreds of thousands of plays. It might be pushing 10 000 max, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a success. When I set out to make this game, I had almost no idea how to code. It’s had a good run and is still going strong. I had no idea where this game would lead and am happy with what it has achieved.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is available for PC download on both GameJolt and Itch.io. James Earl Cox III can be reached through his Twitter and studio’s website. Seemingly Pointless is now working on their first commercial game and always have some new freeware in the works.
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