The ArtSpark Festival is a game design/theatre production competition taking place in Austin, Texas. For more information, please see The ArtSpark Chronicles - Part I.
Previously in the ArtSpark Chronicles
Our team, a group of strangers brought together at the last minute under the name Team Impromptu, had just received an envelope containing our “spark.” The spark was meant to serve as creative inspiration for our team’s project; therefore, it would help define the boundaries of our creative efforts for the next three months.
Part II: The Game
When we opened the envelope, we were surprised to find three separate file folders. Each one contained several pages of information around a specific theme; each folder was, in essence, a different “spark.” Rather than being a single item—as in the “practice challenge” we undertook during our Orientation meeting—each spark consisted of a collection of different things. One folder contained items related to music, such as guitar tablatures and song lyrics. A second folder contained a printout of an online matchmaker service profile, as well as a news article about a man who dated a woman he met over the Internet—only to discover later that it was his own long-lost mother!
As unexpected and interesting as these sparks were, our team didn’t immediately recognize the potential to create a marketable, story-driven game concept from either of them. It was not until we opened the third folder—labeled “To Infinity and Beyond”—that we felt our own creative sparks ignite. The folder contained a satellite image of Mars, several cartoons themed around Martians, and a URL that led to an online academic paper detailing a plan to colonize Mars. Though we did not rule out the other sparks completely, this one captured our imagination and easily set the stage for a number of marketable, story-driven concepts.
Team Impromptu members hard at work.
Now we just had to come up with a specific concept on which to concentrate our efforts. We thought up several different ideas, any of which would have probably resulted in a pretty neat game; they ranged from a multiplayer vehicle-based “race for colonization” to a single-player survival horror experience set in an isolated Martian research station. The idea we ultimately chose started with a simple premise: What if Earth really had been invaded by Martians in 1900, much as it had in H. G. Wells’ classic novel War of the Worlds? And how would that event have shaped human history? The resulting concept is set in an alternate 1920; instead of fighting each other, humans have banded together to protect each other against another Martian onslaught. When the Martians fail to return, the global military organization known as the United Earth Alliance—in an effort to preserve its own purpose, as well as to maintain continued peace between nations—decides to launch an assault against the Martians on their home planet. The game, titled Empires of Mars, would be a first-person action adventure with the player assuming the role of an eager grunt soldier named Nat Henderson.
