ABSTRACT
Walden Pond and its surrounding woods may be one of the most documented natural environments in the world, largely because of the depth of data collected from Thoreau himself and from those following in his footsteps. Known as a writer, a hermit, and a sometime activist, Thoreau was also a surveyor, a naturalist, an inventor, and an erstwhile poet. His attention to the details of this place, where he was born and spent most of his life, took the form of the scientific and the aesthetic, the mundane and the metaphysical.
In Walden, a game (2017), we have created an interactive landscape, crafted from years of research into the writings of Thoreau, his life and times, relationships, and beliefs. The topography itself is drawn from Thoreau’s own surveys of the pond and from studies of period maps showing the trails and landmarks, where his cabin stood, where he farmed his beans. But beyond mere topography, the world of Walden has been imagined as a ludic collage of both natural and philosophical simulation. The game world is designed as a space for discovery of and reflection on Thoreau’s ideas, his experiment in living, and the events that led him to make his quintessential sojourn at Walden Pond.
In this essay, game designer Tracy Fullerton discusses the design of this unique game world and the process of building an environmental translation of Thoreau’s classic text.
