Post #3: Book 1 Project

Imagine waking up with no memory of the past summer. Three moths of your life is gone and everything is different. What happened? Will the memories come back? How long until you find out what changed?

This one of a kind board game, LIARS, is based off of E. Lockhart's book We Were Liars. For those who enjoyed following Cadence's story and attempting to find out what happened during the infamous Summer 15 at Beechwood Island, this game lets them have their own Cadence experience. Each player will be assigned a character from the book and become part of the Sinclair family. For those who haven't read the book or those who need a refresher, there will be background stories for each player to read about their character. As they go around the game board, modeled to look like Beechwood Island, they will play to collect forgotten memories and current experiences to try to find out what happened to the liars. There will be three different levels that come with the game, each with their own mystery, and separate memory and experience cards. Expansion packs will be available for those who need a bigger challenge and more mystery. To win the game, a player has to correctly guess what happened to the liars on Beechwood Island in Summer 15, but if they guess wrong then they are out of the game. The ending to the game are unpredictable, and include destruction, loss and regret much like the book. The hope is that, by the end, the players will feel like Cadence: "the perpetrator of a foolish, deluded crime that became a tragedy."

Map of Beechwood Island given in the book. The paths will be modified to look more like spaces for players to land on.

Creating a game for this book gives non-readers an opportunity to experience the style of the book and empathize with the characters, sparking their interest in finding out what really happened on Beechwood Island during summer 15. The point of this game is to get the players more involved in the plot of the book, and the mystery that it captures.  It also helps to demonstrate how Cadence had to piece together clues about her own life to find out what happened two years ago when she lost her memory of summer 15. She tries to keep track of everything: "I tack [the memories] to the wall above my bed. I add sticky notes with questions." The players will be able to do the same on their own "walls", collect the memories and experiences and try to connect them all. The best description given by Cadence was "my memory is hacked." She knew that things changed, that something big went on, and no one will tell her. The doctors said the family should let her remember it on her own. Getting random memories back as she lives on island were some of the only clues she got while solving the puzzle, and the players will be able to experience this in their own way of collecting clue cards. With each player acting as their own character, they will also understand the point of view that encompasses the book.

This is an example of what a player's "wall" will look like with various clues organized in whatever way suits them. There is no trick to it, just for them to live a little more like Cadence and find a way to work out the mystery. 

For those who have already read the book, this is a great way for them to continue a relationship with the story it told. They have already read one mystery but this game offers many different and unique endings. This will be especially popular for those who didn't like the original ending and would like to experience alternate plots that were created, or those who just wanted to re-live the book and Cadences experiences.

Post #2: What is a book?

A book is a memory. It could be a place, a time, a person, but it's all a memory. The memory doesn't just lie in the words and the actual story, but within the pages. When I read a book, I feel like I'm part of it, turning the pages as I follow the characters and live their life. Pressing a button or swiping the screen doesn't quite feel the same, and isn't as memorable. While my generation seems to be the most tech-savvy yet, I was not born into electronics. I grew up reading physical books, moving from hard, thick, cardboard pages to Dr. Seuss to The Magic Tree House to Harry Potter. When I fell in love with reading I was too small to hold a book open with one hand. But I grew up and adjusted and stayed in love. I remember reading Junie B. Jones books when I was sick, finishing three or four in one day, and borrowing Charlie Boone from the Intermediate School library. I would read about him upside down in the chairs at my old house around October when everything was spookier and my house smelled like pumpkin candles. All these vivid memories I have of reading come from physically holding those books and interacting with them.

The only types of stories I had came in the form of a book. A physical book. When the e-reader came out, I thought I would love it. I could get more books because they were cheaper, and I could keep them all because they didn't take up space. Similar to Tom Piazza's idea that size does matter, there's a sense of pride that comes with seeing all of your books on a bookshelf, the different series and pocket-sized paperbacks. The tattered books you've read and re-read, spilled on and cried on, and those passed down for generations. Not to mention the feel and smell of the paper as you turn the pages. You can't see an e-book. You can't see the series lined up. You can't see the worn pages and covers of your favorites. You can't share an e-book.

Victor LaValle would think that I'm "treating a book like a pair of stone tablets," but is there anything so wrong with that? It's the way I was brought up. Moses would have kept those stones even after they were written on paper, and eventually turned into an e-book. Just because there is a new technology doesn't mean that everyone has to succumb to using it. 

Although towards the end of Piazza's interviewing himself, he says that there's no future without physical books. Which isn't true. Just like I was raised on books, kids nowadays are raised on iPads. And they'll stick with them until they die, just as I will with my books. The human race is evolving still, and right now we're evolving to use technology more and more. It can't be helped, and its not bad, just different. The stories will live forever, but the medium will change, just as it has since the beginning of mankind.