Horticulture Hero

Thanks for Playing!

Some Gameplay Notes:

• Be soft on the buttons. Pressing an E or T interaction multiple times will prompt multiple instances of the text to play, or worse, cause you to skip important dialogues all together. Pressing the button once is enough.
• Construct 3's jump-through platforms are very finicky,  you might get pushed off or fall through moving platforms when they overlap other objects. This also applies when climbing diagonally, the more you jump the better. 
• Lastly, pressing SPACE will reset the layout without losing your progress (it's a last resort if you ever get physically stuck)
  Goodluck!

Some Backstory:
Horticulture Hero was made as a final project for my Video Games as Literature class at Concordia University. I wanted to make something that reflected the lack of diversity in the video game industry, without making something too political. Essentially, I wanted to create a game that I could be proud of, outside the classroom. This is how our Hero was born. In our class we learned how toxic the cycle of AAA games, made by white cis men, for white cis men, can be on the entire industry (Anthropy). The success of a single title will be used as a template for multiple titles to follow, attracting the same audience. This narrow audience, inspired by these games, enter the industry only to produce similar titles, continuing the pattern. The more generations that are raised with this viewpoint, the harder it becomes to change it. In my narrative metaphor, the AAA games are represented by the White Flowers, while the ants are the individuals who are raised consuming them, and who go on to plant their own white flowers, perpetuating their idolization of the status quo. Therefore the greenhouse represents both the gaming industry and community, which has been made exclusive by the ants’ dominance. This issue has necessitated the rise of many indie developers, who create their own representation. The protagonist, along with the friends he meets, represent both players outside the “gamer” community as well as aspiring creators. Snail’s role is to pave the way by convincing the ants that other, Colourful Flowers can be just as interesting and successful as the White Flowers they have been raised on. Unfortunately his seed, his game idea, cannot grow nearly as tall as the flowers already in the greenhouse because he doesn’t have access to as much water. Water in this case stands in for game-making resources which are frequently denied to diverse games, including larger development teams and financial support. Snail represents the underdog archetype, and decides to climb the greenhouse anyways to prove his point, and along the way he opens doors for others’ ideas to be represented as well.  

"Artist Statement":
Being new to game development, I was excited to explore this new medium, with an enthusiastic near-expert-level number of ideas. Of course, due to time and scope and my own knowledge, I cut a lot of corners off my project and rounded it down to a more simple one-off concept. On paper, the idea was simple: A couple of bugs help a snail plant a new garden. But once I opened Construct 3 and got to work, I saw how many possibilities there were. Fades, timers, speech bubbles, global variables! Suddenly I was adding cutscenes, dozens and dozens of unique sprites, and throwing myself head-first into making everything I could within the time limit. The end product isn’t perfect, but I’m happy to say it’s done and I’m very proud. Now, with a better understanding of how games are made and the possibilities at my disposal, I can see myself making many more projects in the future :)

~Salem

Anthropy, Anna. “The Problem With Videogames.” Rise of the Videogame Zinesters How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Dropouts, Queers, Housewives, and People like You Are Taking Back an Art Form, Seven Stories Press, 2012.

Fron, Janine, et al. “Hegemony of Play.” DiGRA 2007: Situated Play, 2007.