Check out this blog for an interesting — and funny — combination of the Purim story and The Princess Bride!

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Gen Katz is editor of Games4Girls.com, an online zine that focuses on games that appeal to girls. This is her first of many exclusive guest blogs on Your Studio.

In last Sunday’s New York Times, Jennifer Finney Boylan, bemoaning the endless primary battles along with the endless Maine Mud Season, wickedly suggests: “Instead of another round of debates, how about a ‘battle of wits’ like in The Princess Bride, in which one of two wine glasses is laced with deadly iocane powder by a neutral observer (say, Jim Lehrer) and then we find out ‘who is right and who is dead?’”

The Princess Bride, both the movie and the book, have made it into our shared cultural legends. Rob Reiner in his discussion about making the movie relates an episode about being in a New York café when the infamous John Gottti came in. They nodded and as Reiner was leaving, one of the body guards said, “I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die — I loved the book.” It’s that amazing shorthand that allows us to share and bond — even if it is only for a moment.

I had a somewhat similar experience, not with the bodyguard of a Mafia don, but by booksellers who searched through their inventory looking to find me copy so that I could join the club. Following them around while they were digging through their stock, I asked about the book. The most common answer was “I loved it.” Pressed further, I did get comments like, “I never knew what was going to happen next,” or that it “had everything: good, evil, disappointment, revenge, unjust accusations, and a lesson that life wasn’t always fair, but it was funny – very funny.”

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We have already shown you the completed game map, but here are a few early sketches of some of the elements in the map. It gives you some insight into how the whole thing comes together. Notice that not all the images made it into the final map!

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The following blog first appeared at projectleaf.blogspot.com, which is the personal blog of Jennifer Silverman, a second year MFA student at Savannah College of Art and Design. Jennifer will be contributing a blog on women in the gaming industry to Your Studio in the coming weeks.

While I was at GDC (the Game Development Conference) I toured many of the different booths in the job fair. One particular booth that I spent most of my time at was the Worldwide Biggies booth. Worldwide Biggies attracted me at first by the large cartoon pictures of familiar characters I grew up watching: the cast of The Princess Bride. When I came closer, I found eight beautiful 20-inch Cintiqs waiting to be used, and the promotion for the Princess Bride Game. Being a Princess Bride fan, and itching to touch the shiny new Cintiqs, I chatted and got to know the people at the booth very well.

I am very excited for the Princess Bride game for a few reasons. One reason is that I love the aesthetic. I have always been a fan of 2-d graphics, and the artist did a wonderful job of catching the personality of the characters from the movie. Another reason is that this game is a graphic adventure game. Having grown up with Monkey Island and Kings Quest, I have been starving for new graphic adventure game in 2-d. The new graphic adventures tend to be in 3-d, and I don’t feel that this is the best format for the genre. And finally, I love the Princess Bride, and I think that this company has the right idea of cashing in on the Princess Bride cult. I eagerly anticipate its release.

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Here are a some early sketches of Grandpa and Buttercup from our animation team. This is the beginning of the design and animation process as the characters come to life. Every frame is drawn by hand…that’s over 14,000 frames to make 10 minutes of animation for The Princess Bride Game.

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Your Studio blogger Jennifer McEntee is a causal gamer and stay-at-home mother of two daughters, ages five and eight. For this article, she writes about playing the Princess Bride Game with her kids at the first game testing session.

The day had finally arrived for my family’s big trip to New York City to test the Princess Bride Game! My family is very into board games, computer games and console games, so you can imagine our anticipation as we drove from our house in New Jersey.

I invited my friend, a high school chemistry teacher, and her two daughters (also ages five and eight) to come along. Their family plays mostly board games, their new Nintendo Wii, and the occasional computer games. Our group was a great mix to test out the game.

My friend’s daughters had never seen The Princess Bride movie. I just so happened to have a DVD player in my car, so we played the movie for our trip into the city. The girls were laughing at the movie and screaming when the unusually large rodents arrived. They really enjoyed it!

We arrived at the Worldwide Biggies studios and the girls couldn’t wait to see it. The 5-year-olds weren’t impressed by much until they saw the snacks and video game room. The older girls loved the office with all of the computers and posters of TV shows and movies they love. There was also a big poster of the Princess Bride Game map, which we later saw animated in the game!

The first episode of the game we played, As You Wish, is a time management game that takes place on Buttercup’s farm. As you complete a level of tasks, the next level gets more difficult. My 8-year-old liked the concept of this game; she liked feeding the chickens, collecting eggs and, of course, pleasing Buttercup. It was a real challenge for everyone to take care of all of the rabbits, foxes, and vegetables in the garden. My girlfriend, not being a computer savvy gamer, enjoyed this game because it was easy enough for her to figure out, but as the levels got harder, it was really challenging.

The Miracle Max episode involved two types of puzzles. The beginning had hidden objects you needed find. My 8-year-old is very good at these puzzles and felt it was too easy, but she did need a hint button for when she got stuck. There was one object, a dragonfly, that only two people could find without help. Go figure my 5-year-old was one of them.

Miracle Max had another section of mixing potions that was really hit with the kids – and the adults. To play the game you had to create potions by adding a list of ingredients in the correct order. The potions got more difficult as you progressed, and the solution to each level built on your knowledge of previous levels. My girlfriend and her 8-year-old daughter were the first to finish this section, but considering my girlfriend is a chemistry teacher, that was understandable! I never was able to finish the last potion without the help of a couple of the kids.

The final game we played was The Fire Swamp. This is considered a platformer game like Super Mario Brothers. I think everyone enjoyed playing this game. It was pretty easy because you couldn’t die by touching the fire or the large rodents, but I did find out later that may change. Everyone loved jumping and collecting gems. It was fun being able to play two characters at the same time. One is Wesley, who can use his sword, and the other was Buttercup, who can jump higher to get those hard-to-reach gems.

Everyone had a good time testing the game. It was great to see get a sense of the game play and to get a sneak-peek of the animated scenes between episodes. It was obvious from the players’ reactions that this game is going to appeal to a wide audience, especially fans of the movie. It’s great to see such a family-oriented game that still challenged and appealed to the gamer in me.

Jen

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