vox in rama

A point-and-click game about cats, witchcraft, and the plague

[ 2023 ]

background :

Vox in Rama is a point-and-click interactive fiction game created by Bailey Foltz for her NYU Interactive Media Arts Capstone project.

In Vox in Rama, you play as a cat in 1650s London, trying to prevent the rat population from spreading a new wave of the plague while simultaneously trying to avoid the persecution of the witch hunt.

The game is based on real historical events regarding the treatment of supposed “familiars”, or supernatural animal companions, during the witch hunts in England, the corresponding decrease in the cat population, and the responding increase in the rat population. These factors were theorized to be significant in the emergence of the Great Plague of London in 1665.

Vox in Rama is an interactive story created for entertainment, the lighthearted narrative approach allowing the user to be present in the storyline while also engaging them in a retelling of historically based events and demonstrating how unexpected factors might lead to significant outcomes.

The game is available to play on itch.io.

process :

I began this game by developing the backstory and doing research on the historical aspects of my game in order to help determine the central plot. Although the game is not historically accurate, it draws inspiration from real life historical events, and many aspects of the game are references to fact.

I then began to develop game's visual style and assets as well as sketching out the user flow. Having the user control their own story through dialogue options was a core feature of the game and a guiding factor of the game's construction.

I built Vox in Rama using the game engine Adventure Game Studio, an open source development tool built specifically for creating graphical point-and-click games. The viewport dimensions for this game are 540 x 405 pixels, and so all the visuals within the game are created in a pixelated art style reminiscent of many classic adventure games. All assets were drawn in Procreate and imported into Adventure Game Studio.

I was then able to use Adventure Game Studio ’s scripting, a programming language based on C, to build the necessary functions of the game, incorporating action and dialogue into the gameplay.

•   The player must interact with their environment throughout the game, solving open-ended problems by clicking certain areas or objects within a “room”.

•   The player must also interact with other characters throughout the game, relying on dialogue as the central aspect of gameplay. When spoken to, the user will be presented with several possible responses, each choice branching off into different conversations. While different dialogue options do not progress into completely different storylines, They do elicit different responses during interactions resulting in differing dialogue paths.

Following initial development I did two short rounds of playtests. The initial playtest was a supervised playthrough of a single level just to determine if the game was playable, enjoyment of the game being a secondary concern. The second round of playtests was an unsupervised playthrough through itch.io followed by a survey that users had to fill out upon completion of the game. Evaluation was based on user's enjoyment of the game.

Based on user feedback and my own experience creating Vox in Rama, there are a few changes I would like to implement in a future version of the game. Specifically, I would like to make adjustments to the script to allow for more varied storylines, and I would like to add sound in the form of background music and sound effects. I hope to keep working on these additions to be re-uploaded as game updates.

This game is available for free on itch.io, and you can play it here:

link to game

My full capstone paper, which goes more into depth on my process, is available here:

link to paper

vox in rama

A point-and-click game about cats, witchcraft, and the plague

[ 2023 ]

background :

Vox in Rama is a point-and-click interactive fiction game created by Bailey Foltz for her NYU Interactive Media Arts Capstone project.

In Vox in Rama, you play as a cat in 1650s London, trying to prevent the rat population from spreading a new wave of the plague while simultaneously trying to avoid the persecution of the witch hunt.

The game is based on real historical events regarding the treatment of supposed “familiars”, or supernatural animal companions, during the witch hunts in England, the corresponding decrease in the cat population, and the responding increase in the rat population. These factors were theorized to be significant in the emergence of the Great Plague of London in 1665.

Vox in Rama is an interactive story created for entertainment, the lighthearted narrative approach allowing the user to be present in the storyline while also engaging them in a retelling of historically based events and demonstrating how unexpected factors might lead to significant outcomes.

The game is available to play on itch.io.

process :

I began this game by developing the backstory and doing research on the historical aspects of my game in order to help determine the central plot. Although the game is not historically accurate, it draws inspiration from real life historical events, and many aspects of the game are references to fact.

I then began to develop game's visual style and assets as well as sketching out the user flow. Having the user control their own story through dialogue options was a core feature of the game.

I built Vox in Rama using the game engine Adventure Game Studio, an open source development tool built specifically for creating graphical point-and-click games. The viewport dimensions for this game are 540 x 405 pixels, and so all the visuals within the game are created in a pixelated art style reminiscent of many classic adventure games. All assets were drawn in Procreate and imported into Adventure Game Studio.

I was then able to use Adventure Game Studio ’s scripting, a programming language based on C, to build the necessary functions of the game, incorporating action and dialogue into the gameplay.

•   The player must interact with their environment throughout the game, solving open-ended problems by clicking certain areas or objects within a “room”.

•   The player must also interact with other characters throughout the game, relying on dialogue as the central aspect of gameplay. When spoken to, the user will be presented with several possible responses, each choice branching off into different conversations. While different dialogue options do not progress into completely different storylines, They do elicit different responses during interactions resulting in differing dialogue paths.

Following initial development I did two short rounds of playtests. The initial playtest was a supervised playthrough of a single level just to determine if the game was playable, enjoyment of the game being a secondary concern. The second round of playtests was an unsupervised playthrough through itch.io followed by a survey that users had to fill out upon completion of the game. Evaluation was based on user's enjoyment of the game.

Based on user feedback and my own experience creating Vox in Rama, there are a few changes I would like to implement in a future version of the game. Specifically, I would like to make adjustments to the script to allow for more varied storylines, and I would like to add sound in the form of background music and sound effects. I hope to keep working on these additions to be re-uploaded as game updates.

This game is available for free on itch.io, and you can play it here:

link to game

My full capstone paper, which goes more into depth on my process, is available here:

link to paper