Small Pond Video Games

"Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game."

– Michael Jordan

Sad news...

Since the legendary video game company Atari filed for bankruptcy last year, with its future in the USA still uncertain, one of our most exciting plans for the launch of our Fifth Season at Small Pond Arts (starting at the end of May 2014) was cancelled mid-stride, our project unfortunately not falling within their intent to "conduct its normal business operations" during the bankruptcy proceedings.

In the summer of 2012 we had two freelance game developers stay with us as part of our artist residency program. Ron and Eric were here with us for just over a month to hammer out some bugs on a sports game they were working on, and they immediately became so taken with Small Pond that, unbeknownst to us, they started coming up with ideas for some video games inspired by life at the Pond. They secretly brainstormed, but about a week into their stay, they enthusiastically presented us with five games to launch Season Five (which seemed ages away at the time). We were speechless and amazed and excited, to say the least.

They felt the easiest to produce –and most fun– would be 8-bit style games harkening back to the glory days of the Atari 2600 console but which would be playable on mobile media like phones and iPads as well as desktop computers.    

The Atari 2600 game console.

The cancellation of the games is heartbreaking, but the saddest part is, since Ron and Eric were in the midst of negotiating with the folks at Atari just before the bankruptcy happened, the rights are tied up with the rest of Atari's assets and none of us are able to continue working on these games or shop them around to other companies until the whole mess is cleared up who knows when. On top of that, as part of the deal, we almost had limited edition cartridges for actual use in the actual 2600 consoles! Imagine that! I'm not much of a gamer these days, but for a few years in the 80s I played the hell outta my 2600 (I still have it! And it works!); this whole thing would have been a dream come true.

We can, however, share what we do have, which are some rough concepts for the games and some really rough concepts for the artwork, including a couple of game screens.

Here, now, the games:

Inspired by our deluxe double outhouse, this game was a two-parter: first you had to race Player 2 (or the computer) to the outhouse through a series of mazes and obstacles, and then, after spending some time inside, the outhouse turned itself onto its side, split in half, and became two dragsters, ready for the second race which was a course dead straight down to the end of Clarke Road.

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Inspired by my fondness for pickling some of what we grow in our garden, this one was the most complex –and potentially confusing– game. It started off as a treasure hunt, meandering all over Small Pond's 87 acres in search of items to help you make some preserves (jars, lids, fruits, vegetables, vinegar, pectin, etc.). The added challenge is that you could only carry so many items in your basket, so you had to have the right combination for whatever it was you were assigned to pickle. Once you had the correct combo of items, you were now in the kitchen, ready to pickle, and your new challenges were making sure the equipment was sterilized, cooking your veggies/fruits properly, and ensuring you had a good seal on the canning lids.

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The most identifiable feature at Small Pond Arts is our Silo (hence the name of our blog), and every year, we dress it up in a huge banner, lest it go naked. Many visitors have suggested turning it into a climbing wall (but we feel that kind of liability would work better in the virtual world).

The goal for this game was to approach the silo, swing your line high and hook it to the top, and then start climbing up. Eric kept pushing to make things more challenging, so weather was introduced to hinder your approach, swing, and climb: when it was icy, you and your line would slip around a lot; when it was windy, you'd get blown around; when it rained, everything would be soaked and sluggish; when it was sunny, you'd have to race up and into the silo as fast as possible or you'd get sunburned (your character slowly turning from black to bright red as the sun gets higher in the sky).

Here's the main screen (the figure climbs up in a repeated animation cycle until you start the game):

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Inspired by Krista's menagerie of puppets, this one had a sort of Space Invaders / Galaga type of game play in which hordes of evil puppets (scary skeletons, scary clowns, scary bunnies, etc.) marched up from the bottom of the screen to get you. You could move around the screen freely and ward them off with a weapon of your choice: a gun (six shots only; you had wait some time to reload), a baseball bat...or a whip!

Here's the artwork for the instruction booklet:

And here's a demo screen of the game in action:

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Like in real life, the challenge in this game was to cut down all the tall grass with a scythe during daylight hours –but watch out! Coyotes are stalking nearby...and they're hungry! Luckily, you can use the scythe as a weapon to protect yourself...but don't take too long with the beasties because the clock is ticking and that grass won't cut itself!

We'll let you know when Atari's legal issues are settled and we can all play a little virtual Small Pond. Until then, you'll just have to come and visit us for a real taste of Pond life!

Droughtfruit

This summer was tough on our vegetable garden, a casualty of the drought that affected much of North America. Because we don't actually have vaporators, only about 60% of our garden came to fruition.

Undaunted, we turned to our most prolific produce to see what we could make of peppers, tomatoes and (believe it or not!) watermelon*.

Last year we were (happily!) overrun with cucumbers so I quickly learned how to make preserves and, with the help of Krista and various visitors to Small Pond, made jar after jar of relish, bread & butter pickles, and garlic dill pickles. With nary a cucumber in sight this year, we decided to try our hand at salsa, and last night Krista and I preserved eight jars of it, using a recipe provided by our friend Elizabeth D'Anjou. 

Salsa!

Perfect peppers.

Tomatoes, scored for easy peeling.

Tomatoes taking an ice bath.

Then it was on to a depression-era recipe that a recent visitor mentioned to us...pickled watermelon rinds!

Prepping the watermelon.

Pickling the part you normally discard.

Watermelons in the sun.

Only two jars, but lovely.

And finally, a refreshing and sweet treat...

Fresh watermelon sorbet (secret ingredient: vodka)

If there is a lesson to be learned from all of this, which is dubious, it is this: if you can't pickle the one you love, pickle the one you're with! 

*UPDATE, 06 September 2012:

Our very first watermelon harvest.

That speck near the top is the moon.

Gorgeous and delicious!

Relish

Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition - in having put forth the best within you.   
   - Henry J. Kaiser

None so little enjoy themselves, and are such burdens to themselves, as those who have nothing to do. Only the active have the true relish of life.

   - William Jennings Bryan 

You may ask yourself,
"How did I get here?"

Krista and I just finished canning (in jars, actually) our first batch of "Pappy Relish," a Dalby family recipe I fell in love with while visiting her grandparents years ago. I'm happy to carry on this tradition, but happier to have learned how to successfully make preserves on my first attempt, confidently setting the scene for future canning projects.

But how did we end up with these jars of sweet relish?
Strap yourself in and set the Wayback Machine to December 2010...

Tiny miracles.

Just before Christmas, we attended the Busy Hands Craft Sale to visit a bunch of friends who had great homemade wares on offer, but specifically to get some seeds from another friend, Vicki Emlaw of Vickis Veggies. She had dozens of varieties of vegetable seeds, most of them heirloom varieties, and we scooped up a number of goodies...including cucumbers.

Freshly tilled.

Krista spent weeks out in the cold of March restructuring the garden to be roughly twice the size it was last year. I helped put up the chicken wire and then roto-tilled the soil to prep it for planting when it got warmer (see an action-packed photo in this post).

More tiny miracles.

Meanwhile, many of the seeds we bought were sprouting in our gardening shed, craning towards the faint light of early spring. Like last year we're using only water from our rain barrels (or from the well using indoor taps if we run a little dry like last summer) to water the plants, and we put used coffee grounds from Chesterfield's Homegrown Café and horse manure in the soil to fertilize it before planting (we'll eventually use compost from our bins once it's ready). We're not "certified organic," but we don't use any pesticides or herbicides, opting to grow our food as naturally (i.e. organically) as possible.

Socrates vigilant.

Under the protective watch of our scarecrow, Socrates, the transplanted veggies took hold and flourished, giving us mini-harvest after mini-harvest for weeks...

Sample bounty: July 16.

Clockwise from far left: scapes from the garlic we planted given to me by the Garlic Man; the zucchini that keeps on giving; perfect spinach; the red and green leaf lettuces are a daily harvest; cilantro; basil; beans; and shelling peas.

Sample bounty: August 6.

Heirloom carrots and tomatoes, and...cucumbers. Most of the food  we're eating by now comes from our garden. We even managed to feed lots of hungry artists during Cornography with lots of fresh homegrown veggies.

Brookie picks a cucumber.

We're bound to be overrun by something: last year it was lettuce that we were giving away to anyone who visited; this year it's been zucchini, spinach, lettuce again, and recently, it's cucumbers, cucumbers, cucumbers. Delicious, healthy, hearty, gorgeous, crisp, but abundant cucumbers.

How do you solve a problem like cucumbers?

Like, seriously, we get this amount every four or five days.

"We should preserve them: pickle them or something," I said to myself.
"Shut up," I replied.
"No, really, how hard could it be? People have been preserving food for millennia."
"Shut up," I said again, hoping I would leave myself alone (I had paintings to finish!).
"Look, what about that great relish that Krista's grandfather makes? You love it! You could try making it yourself!"
"Hmm, relish..."
"Yes: relish."
"YES. RELISH."

The Pappy Trinity.

His recipe calls for onions, celery, and cucumbers as the main vegetable ingredients. The celery (and, of course, using only natural ingredients) helps to significantly distinguish this relish from, and elevate it above the store-bought stuff.

Here they are, chopped by hand (unfamiliar with our food processor, I was afraid I might end up chopping the veggies too finely with it; I wanted to better control the size of the chunks --and keep the learning-of-many-new-things-all-at-once to a minimum).

Bathtub of vegetables.
(measuring cup included for scale) 

Add lots of salt and water for the brine, then refrigerate for 24 hours (or overnight, at least). This keeps the veggies crisp and gives you a whole day to realize and accept what you've just committed yourself to.

Rinse cycle.

Rinse the veggies thoroughly with cold water to get as much of the salty brine off them as you can. Make sure you don't knock over that dish soap into the veg mixture.

Division of overload.

There was too much for the pot, so I split it up to cook better (and make stirring easier). I didn't want the relish to be neon green (via food colouring), so I added turmeric for a yellowish colour (and extra flavour). Meanwhile, the jars were being sterilized in boiling water just out of frame.

Stand by for action.

Krista joined me during the cooking phase and our teamwork made the task of jarring the relish smoother. Plus, we like dancing in the kitchen.

Combien?

We sterilized six jars thinking that would be enough, but we put in two more at the last minute. The initial recipe said it would yield 16 half pint jars, but I increased the quantity of ingredients to use up as many cucumbers as possible (believe it or not, I managed to use up only six of them!).

Seven jars a-boiling.

We filled eight 500mL jars in the end (4L total), but only vacuum-preserved seven (the last one will have been eaten by us by the time you've finished reading this).

Yum.

As the jars cooled, they gave a distinctive and satisfying "pop" as each lid announced the seal was formed well and that that jar of relish would last for a year (or more!) in a cool, dark place.

So there it is. I wish you could taste it. In fact, I haven't tasted it myself just yet, since it's still hot; I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning.

The Small Pond Arts Canning Adventure (to use up all them damned cucumbers) will continue with Bread & Butter Pickles this weekend...

UPDATES:

21 August 2011:

Seven 500mL jars of Bread & Butter Pickles

(pearl onions: yes; cauliflower: no)

26 August 2011:
Seven 1L jars of Garlic Dill Pickles

04 September 2011:
(Twelve of) Thirteen 500mL jars
of Bread & Butter Pickles
(pearl onions: yes; cauliflower: no)

12 September 2011:
(bottom right) Six 1L jars
of Bread & Butter Pickles
(pearl onions: yes; cauliflower: no)
Location: The Pickle Cave