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sfaioffical · 5 years

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Shauna Rosenblum was born and raised in Alameda, CA, which is a small island off the coast of Oakland.

She finished her BFA degree in Ceramics from CCAC in 2006. In 2008 she earned her MFA from SFAI in Sculpture. Now, she is a professional Winemaker, making 12,000 cases of wine annually in the Bay Area at Rock Wall Wine Company, located in Alameda, CA. She considers grapes to be her artistic medium and her wine is her art. Shauna was recently named one of the 10 Top Female Winemakers in California by Haute Living, so we decided to catch up with her and see what she’s up to. Here’s what Shauna had to say!

Hi I’m Shauna, (MFA Sculpture, 2008).

Conceptual art, performance art, ephemeral art, fermentation art, whatever you want to call it, making wine is an art. Making wine is the perfect synthesis of science and art.

Every move I make with the grapes requires a decision. That process of decision making is one of the most powerful parts of this art form. Just like working with clay, I can shape it this way, or I can shape it that way. My underlying philosophy in ceramics has always been that the “clay is going to be whatever it is meant to be. I am the catalyst to help manifest what it should be.” I apply that same philosophy to winemaking and really let the chemistry and the flavors of the fruit guide my decisions to make the best wine possible. And…Who doesn’t love a lil’ scientific data to inform ones art-making processes?!

My Master’s thesis at SFAI explored the concept of women bodies as containers. I made functional ceramic vessels that incorporated women bodies. One piece was titled, “You’re too fat, you’re too thin, cookie jar.” It was a very curvy woman’s body that had her mouth being sewn shut. The opening for the cookie jar was tiny, so one could only grab a cookie if their hands were very thin/small. I also created a two-foot tall functional vase that showed a woman turning from a mermaid to a woman as her tail disappeared, she gained the rest of her female body parts. Her facial expression showed jubilation, but she also donned a fully grown Pinocchio nose indicating that the metamorphosis she was supposed to be thrilled about undergoing was not her true feelings.

I brought the concept of the female as a container into my wine cellar, and I’ve named all of my tanks after women I admire: Oprah, Martha, Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling and, of course, Beyoncé. I also have a row of tanks bearing the names of my fave fictional heroines; Arya and Sansa, Katniss and Primrose and of course, Gem. I know, “it’s truly, truly, truly outrageous.”

SFAI: What projects have you been working on recently? Is there anything you’re particularly excited about or inspired by at the moment?

Shauna Rosenblum: YES. My art has become far more about observing the world around me and engaging with that observation. This concept really informs the wines I decide to make, and the label copy I create for the back label of each one of my wines. My earlier art was far more about making objects, which came from my craft based undergraduate training.

I love making sparkling wine. Sparkling wine is Champagne, but we call it sparkling wine because it is made outside of Champagne, France. Only sparkling wine made in Champagne France can be called Champagne. I pick these grapes much earlier than the rest of my grapes, to keep the bright acidity intact. The acid in wine is what makes your mouth water when you taste it.

I have also started doing a deep dive into mastering Italian varietals such as Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Montepulciano, Fiano, and Teroldego. I study the varietals, the vineyards, the soil, the weather, the growing cycle and the outcome of the fruit as I make it into wine.

Studying the vineyard sites at this level inspired me to write a paper about climate change and the effect on agriculture and the economy. I decided to focus on three different micro-climates: Castro Valley, (in the Bay Area) Lodi and Oakville (a small section of Napa that grows world-class Cabernet Sauvignon) and explore the temperatures and degree days each micro-climate experienced in 1990, 2000, and 2017. What I found is that the climate is definitely shifting. Shocker! Somebody alert the President.

The findings were slightly different than I anticipated, though. Thirty years ago, experts would have said that someone was nuts to grow grapes in the Bay Area, because our climate was too cold.

The ideal climate for Cabernet is hot days and then a diurnal swing to very cool temperatures at night. That creates the best flavors and acidity in wine.

In 2017, Oakville experienced temperatures similar to Lodi in 1990, as in hot days, and nights that didn’t cool off as much. In 2017, Lodi experienced weather patterns similar to Oakville in 1990, which was hot days and very cool nights.

The largest diurnal swing occurred in Castro Valley. In 1990, the weather did not get hot enough during the day for enough days in a row, to grow quality Cabernet Sauvignon. In 2017, Castro Valley had the most ideal climate of the three areas, bearing the most hot days that dropped to very cold nights. I plan to reexamine these criteria for a 2020 data set as well.

One thing I always loved about making ceramic sculptures was at the end, I had created an object. Something to hold, something tangible. When I create a wine, I feel the same sense of enthusiasm which is activated and furthered when I pour the wine for someone and they love it.

SFAI: Where do you find inspiration for your work?

SR: I find inspiration in everything around me. My 4-year old daughter and her observations about the world are definitely a source of inspiration for me. The way she sees the world is so refreshing. We will see an ant crawling on the ground and follow it for as long as we can, observing its movement and trajectory. Nature is a big source of inspiration for me as well. The way the sunlight spills through windows in the ethereal way it does. The way that cloud formations interact in fluidity.

I love being inspired by the mundane. The way my hair collects on the shower wall and reminds me of cubism. The art of fermentation is absolutely fascinating for me.

Being alive is an art. The way the living mourn the dead is an art. We are art. Art is everywhere and art is everything.

SFAI: What is your process for creating your work?

SR: When I am creating a wine, it all starts in the vineyard. I will usually pick the fruit in September, but the process for making that wine starts in March. In March the vines start to come out of dormancy from the winter months. The vines flower and bloom and we start obsessively monitoring the weather for wind and rain which can disrupt the grape vines process by knocking flowers off the vine. We monitor the growth of the grapevine all season long and by July I need to be in all 40+ of the vineyards I work with measuring sugar content. Once I taste the fruit, and run labs on it checking for pH, total acidity and Nitrogen content, I decide when to pick the fruit, if it is physiologically ripe. We pick the fruit at midnight and bring it to the winery in Alameda.

When I add yeast to the grapes or juice, that is the beginning of the transformation. The yeast is alive, and its only desire in life is to eat sugar. The yeast will eat the sugar in the grapes and produce alcohol and CO2. I punch the grapes down multiple times per day. The grapes will change within a single day. At 8 am, they are in a different phase of fermentation than at 8pm.

A complete alcoholic fermentation takes about 14 days.

Depending on the wine, I either put the grapes through the crusher, or I foot stomp them. On a Pinot noir, if I want to make sure the finished wine has spice notes, I will footstep the grapes with the stems still in the bins and begin the fermentation. I taste the fermentation every day and once I have the mouthfeel and flavor profile I want, I will press the wine off of the skins and the stems. Too much stem contact can create a vegetal flavor. Just the right amount of stem intact can create a lovely spice component that can only come from the aforementioned process.

If I am making a Chardonnay, I will put the grapes directly into the press and press the juice out of them. Then I rack the juice down to French and American oak barrels and I inoculate (add yeast) to each single barrel. I put those barrels in a cold space and ferment them “low and slow” at 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Keeping the temperature low, slows down the yeast and on a white wine fermentation that pace keeps the fruit qualities and the acid intact. If I fermented them at room temperature, the yeast would get too excited and eat through the sugar like it was is last meal. The result would be a Chardonnay that lacks fruit depth and intricate flavors. It is all art.

SFAI: Are there any opportunities to come and see your space?

SR: I would love for you to come to the winery and come check out the space, the wine and our stunning view of SF.

On June 29th, we are having an event called Urban Sip. We will be pouring 30+ wines from our portfolio paired with some of our fave Bay Area restaurants. Click the link to see deets: http://www.rockwallwines.com/events

Our Tasting Room is open 7 days a week and so is our restaurant partner Scolari’s. Click the link to check out the website: http://www.rockwallwines.com/Tasting

#SFAI ALUMNI #sfaialumni

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epchapman89 · 6 years

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The Rise Of Consumer-Focused Coffee At Stielman In Rotterdam

Among the dozen local enterprises filling Rotterdam’s Fenix Food Factory, the most nominally fitting these days is Stielman. Though the consumer-focused specialty coffee roaster has been around since May 2014, last year marked the beginning of its phoenix-like rise. Things had begun kindling when entrepreneur Marco Pfaff took over ownership, but it was Aukje van Rossum, who’s been with the company from incipiency and is currently its communication and marketing manager, who brought in the fire-starter when she recruited her brother, Jelle van Rossum.

Sprudge readers may recall Jelle van Rossum as the roasting wunderkind at Rotterdam’s Man met Bril, featured in an article from 2015. Nowadays, the—still hardly hoary—24 year old is something of a Dutch coffee industry sage, largely self-taught and unflaggingly, albeit gently, communicative. At Stielman, where he has been since March 2017 and is now manager and head roaster, the plan, he says, is “to just once again get people excited about flavor in coffee and about diversity in flavor.”

Aukje and Jelle van Rossum

It is working. Several commercial venues around Rotterdam are serving Stielman, but, more remarkably, the bulk of clients are individual subscribers (this author included).

“It’s mainly word of mouth. And with all the talks I’m having nowadays with different companies, we’re growing,” says Jelle van Rossum. “We don’t need to grow any faster.”

Like its immediate Fenix neighbors—purveyors of, respectively, Moroccan tapas, farm-made cheese, and jacked stroopwafels—Stielman appears to be a gigantic market stand. Approaching it head-on, visitors encounter a Kalita Wave-kitted filter bar; the espresso bar lies perpendicular, supporting a two-group La Marzocco Linea PB, twin Mazzer Kony grinders, and a Mahlkönig Guatemala grinder. Yet, behind all that is, essentially, a factory within a factory. Weekly, a Giesen W6A roasts 200 kilos of coffee, much of it then packaged and sent to homes nationwide. A high table and stools provide a spot for sitting and sipping, but the surface seems truly intended for cupping.

The Stielman subscription’s appeal is as practical—customizable delivery frequencies and quantities; eco-friendly shipping via intra-city e-bike network Fietskoeriers; packaging that fits average Dutch mail slots—as it is sensorial. Comprehensive and consistent, the collection comprises six roasts for espresso and six for filter. Named after colors, the coffees are bagged and tagged with hue-corresponding labels. A few adjectives and the occasional noun position each on the flavor spectrum, but they omit all provenance details.

Aukje van Rossum explains: “We always had the origins listed on the packaging, but recently Jelle convinced us to start leaving that information off because it biases people. A lot of customers would think, for example, ‘Oh this is an Ethiopian, so we should buy it.’”

“And we really want people to get engaged with specialty coffee through flavor,” Jelle van Rossum emphasizes.

Origin information is given on the Stielman website and, Aukje van Rossum assures, “our baristas know everything about the coffee.” At the time of writing, six part-timers rotate bar shifts and due to soon join the team is an assistant roaster—the first and only candidate Jelle van Rossum interviewed because “she just had the right mindset.”

A new Stielman product is the Shokunin tasting box. Conceptualized by Jelle van Rossum, the series debuted with an heirloom coffee from Ethiopia’s Kochere district; to highlight the multiple flavors the single coffee could yield depending on how it was processed at the Reko Koba mill, three packages are included showcasing natural, washed, and honey-processed beans. The second Shokunin release demonstrates the effects of different fermentation times and drying surfaces on a Caturra-Castillo combo from Argote farm in Colombia’s Nariño region. Each box comes with an 18-page booklet containing background stories, photos, and roast profiles.

“That’s something that people are usually very secretive about,” Jelle van Rossum acknowledges of the roast profiles. Yet, he believes that for this project, publicizing them creates a feedback loop benefitting consumers, producers, and partners, such as Stielman’s two green bean importers, The Coffee Quest and This Side Up. The Van Rossums themselves stay in direct contact with the coffee farmers via Skype, Facebook, and occasional visits to or from them. “Making it a two-way street,” as the roaster puts it, stabilizes both supply and demand—and helps flesh out his fantasies about future experiments. Today, he also has his own premium coffee label and service (called Shokunin, too).

Although nowadays she does more front-of-the-house work, Aukje van Rossum, older by two years, was the first of the pair to discover specialty coffee. Her foray was nearly a decade ago, when alongside attending design school in Rotterdam, she worked at a nearby branch of Coffeecompany. A particular Yirgacheffe impressed her so much that she wanted her brother to try cupping and beckoned him from Leeuwarden, where he was contemplating food and wine as part of hotel management studies.

“He was blown away,” Aukje van Rossum remembers of his early experience. “He was like, ‘Oh, this is so much fun,’ and then he got into the coffee.”

In fact, back then, when gathered on weekends at their family home in Vorden, the siblings not only got their parents drinking specialty coffee, but also so profoundly diffused their enthusiasm that mom and pop eventually quit decades-long office jobs and opened a specialty cafe. Lo and behold: Van Rossum’s Koffie, established in 2014 in the small city of Zutphen, and run by Frans and Dagmar van Rossum, with support from their big-city children. That, surely, is another story, though one sharing thematic similarities to the regeneration happening at Stielman.

Later this year, the brand expects to launch a second coffee bar and a roastery in Zoeterwoude, the South Holland municipality famously hosting a Heineken brewery. Additionally on the to-do list are a third tasting box, a line of coffee capsules, and a tea collection. So continues Stielman’s spectacular rise, at Fenix Food Factory and beyond.

Stielman is located at Veerlaan 19, Rotterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

The post The Rise Of Consumer-Focused Coffee At Stielman In Rotterdam appeared first on Sprudge.

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mrwilliamcharley · 6 years

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The Rise Of Consumer-Focused Coffee At Stielman In Rotterdam

Aukje and Jelle van Rossum

It is working. Several commercial venues around Rotterdam are serving Stielman, but, more remarkably, the bulk of clients are individual subscribers (this author included).

“It’s mainly word of mouth. And with all the talks I’m having nowadays with different companies, we’re growing,” says Jelle van Rossum. “We don’t need to grow any faster.”

“And we really want people to get engaged with specialty coffee through flavor,” Jelle van Rossum emphasizes.

“He was blown away,” Aukje van Rossum remembers of his early experience. “He was like, ‘Oh, this is so much fun,’ and then he got into the coffee.”

Stielman is located at Veerlaan 19, Rotterdam. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

The post The Rise Of Consumer-Focused Coffee At Stielman In Rotterdam appeared first on Sprudge.

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Over the course of my senior year in college, I've been hard at work on a visual novel dubbed Streams of Nurture (hence the conspicuous gap between published articles since August 2016). As both a passion project and academic piece, Streams of Nurture represents an interesting case study for transforming one of my most ancient interests, food production, into an interactive affair that combines the dramatic qualities of an entertainment title with a real-world topic characteristic of serious games. In other words, I wanted to leverage the concept of "learning through play" to create a title that felt both purposeful and engrossing.

With my project officially submitted to the Worcester Polytechnic Institute database, I can now share with you the report detailing the development cycle for the visual novel. Throughout the coming weeks, I shall be publishing a subsection of the report penned for Streams of Nurture. Each part will focus on a particular design and production aspect of the game, from the way the narrative was conceived to the iterative art process that governed the title's presentation.

This first post in a series of game development articles explains the conceptual and research phases that preceded the actual development of Streams of Nurture.

NOTE: I didn't single-handedly develop the game myself. Although I handled the narrative design, coding and writing for Streams of Nurture, my partners Liam Miller and Dave Allen were wholly responsible for the art and audio respectively. As such, the pronoun "we" will be used to acknowledge their invaluable contribution to this project.

Streams of Nurture is a kinetic visual novel that tackles the topic of salmon aquaculture (fish farming), as well as the socioeconomics and cultural factors surrounding the species and the communities who depend on it as both a food source and a symbol of their historical roots.

The game relates the fictional tale of a New Englander who relocates to Washington State to attend Labrador Institute and continue the work of their father, who mysteriously vanished when the protagonist was a toddler. One day, a salmon crisis breaks out, and the plucky Northeasterner and their new friends set out to make things right by adopting sustainable rearing practices that will preserve the wild fish stocks. Along the way, they encounter the quandaries associated with pursuing innovative but potentially beneficial ventures.

At a certain point in the game, players must choose between three different branches that correspond to the farming methods proposed by their in-game allies. Following that decision, the player proceeds through the various stages of the salmon’s life cycle in a controlled environment, learning how to take proper care of the fish with regards to feeding them and monitoring the conditions in which they are being kept.

The goal of this project was to present an important topic seldom explored by the video game medium, while weaving a dramatic and personal narrative that touches on the flaws and relationships of the game’s characters.

Conceptual origins

The idea of creating this project came about when we were contacted by Professors Brian Moriarty and Ralph Sutter in early August 2016 about designing a visual novel for our Major Qualifying Project (MQP), the possibility of which they had pitched the previous academic year (2015-16).

Around that time, we were pondering the idea of creating an educational entertainment (“edutainment”) title that covered topics which had occupied our attention for several years: food production and nutrition. As children, we had developed an interest in pursuing a healthy and varied diet, leading us to visit the supermarket as well as food processing factories in our spare time (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Salmon curing plant (H. Forman & Son).

http://ift.tt/2p7SPcK

We had also become conscious of the wider cultural, economic, political and economic processes surrounding our dietary choices, and had begun practicing “green consumerism” by researching the food items we purchased on a daily basis, paying particular attention to the way their ingredients were harvested (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Farm-raised Norwegian salmon for sale.

http://ift.tt/2p7VtQ0

By the time we were invited by Moriarty and Sutter to partake in their proposed project, we felt confident in our ability to do justice to our chosen topic by building a game that would inform players of the methods and practices by which our sources of sustenance are obtained.

Brainstorming

Following conversations with our Professors, we proceeded to generate potential concepts for a visual novel based on our interests in the food industry and healthy eating.

Over the course of a week, we came up with several potential premises for the project. These ranged from a jet-set adventure that would see players learn more about the various food groups anthropomorphized as eclectic deities (akin to Sheogorath from the Elder Scrolls video game series, and his obsession with cheese), to an experience that would revolve around consumers pressuring companies to seek deforestation-free sources of palm oil.

After much deliberation, however, we settled on a topic that we felt would be unique enough to stand out from similar edutainment titles. That topic was aquaculture (fish farming), more specifically the type that deals with the year-round rearing of salmon (see Figure 3), especially given that the global production of seafood has more than doubled over the past few decades.

Figure 3. Norwegian aquaculturist holding an Atlantic salmon.

http://ift.tt/2p84Vmf

There were several reasons we chose this topic from the others we brainstormed. First, the team grew up eating all kinds of seafood, and salmon happened to be one of our favorites for its beneficial omega-3 content that provide potent antioxidation, and the broad range of species that span the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Second, the industry around that specific fish was the subject of much interest and criticism surrounding its practices and geographical reach, with main producing regions such as Norway, Scotland, Chile, Australia and Canada harboring farming operations dedicated solely to salmon.

Finally, salmon possess an extensive commercial and cultural history that can be traced back to numerous fishing communities around the globe. We particularly looked at native populations in the Arctic and North America, whose heavy consumption of seafood led to increased awareness of their health benefits, as well as their impact and influence on the cultures, intertribal interactions, fishing technologies, and very religions of the tribes.

Research

After deciding the topic for the project, we dedicated the latter half of August 2016 to researching the methods, socioeconomics, ethics and history of aquaculture. These ran the gamut of hatchery programs in coastal basins, salmon species, real-life fishing towns, and the various corporations that specialized in raising salmon such as Marine Harvest, Cermaq, and Greig.

For the setting, we gathered of information on coastal regions that emphasize the value of seafood to their communities such as New England, Alaska, and the Canadian Maritimes. Ultimately, though, we focused on the Pacific Northwest (see Figure 4) for its wide variety of fish stocks and farming sites, with countless rivers, creeks, and streams offering spawning beds to five salmon species.

Figure 4. Picturesque view of the Pacific Northwest.

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The Pacific Coast is also the homeland of Native American populaces whose history and culture are defined by their environment and the fauna that inhabit it. These include salmon, a species prized by tribes such as the Coast Salish peoples of Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia who once depended on the fish as a source of food, wealth, trade and identity (see Figure 5) and came to identify themselves as the ‘salmon people’. Their traditional fishing practices were deeply shaped by their reverence for salmon, which were seen as gift-bearing relatives, and were treated with great respect, since all living things were once people according to traditional Coast Salish beliefs.

Figure 5. Salmon on a stick, a time-honored Native American cooking method.

http://ift.tt/2p7Yvnl

In addition to collecting research notes, we frequented local grocery stores and restaurants, including Price Chopper and the Sole Proprietor, to purchase and assess the taste profiles of different kinds of commercially available salmon such as Atlantic and Pacific king salmon (see Figure 6). Given the impact different farming practices have on the juiciness and flavor of the fish, we believed this hands-on experience would allow us to better understand and communicate the multifaceted nature of salmon from both a commercial and gastronomical standpoint.

Figure 6. Ora King Salmon, as served by the Sole Proprietor, Worcester MA.

Original photo by Michel Sabbagh.

Design document

By the time we returned to campus to begin the 2016-17 academic year, we had completed our research on salmon aquaculture, presented our findings to Professors Sutter and Moriarty and began working on the project’s game design document (GDD). This served as an outline of the game’s storytelling aspects (synopsis, characters, themes, etc.) as well as the technical elements that would shape the project’s overall design and structure. Our experience goal, which distills the narrative and educational intent of the visual novel, was summarized as follows:

“Inform the player on the economic, environmental and sociocultural value of salmon so that they can experience, through virtual decision-making and option-weighing, the methods for harvesting the fish in a sustainable manner that will best benefit both the people that depend on it as well as nature in the long term. The emotional arc of the story will include feelings of shock/conscientiousness, perseverance/ingenuity, and pride/redemption. The player should feel as if they are on a moral and personal journey, coming to terms with both regional and personal crises in an attempt to replenish endangered salmon stocks. By the end of the experience, the player should have the knowledge needed to choose sustainable seafood, and also gain an appreciation for sustainability as an indispensable aspect of nature and the human/animal life it harbors.”

Reference items

Along with the documentation the team gathered in August 2016, we decided to get our hands on various items and publications pertaining to seafood sustainability, hoping to further educate ourselves on the details of salmon farming and sourcing.

Figure 7. Sustainably farmed and fished salmon.

Original photo by Michel Sabbagh

The first products we purchased were smoked Atlantic and canned Pacific salmon at Price Chopper (see Figure 7), with the former serving as a major inspiration for one of the routes the player may take in the final game. In fact, the Norwegian farms of Kvarøy and Selsøyvik from which Blue Circle salmon originate are at the forefront of sustainable aquaculture. Their innovative use of lumpfish allows them to keep their farming sites clean and remove deadly parasites such as sea lice without resorting to pesticides or chemicals. Their use of In the Blue fish feed, which reduces pressure on marine resources and minimizes environmental contaminants, inspired us to get our hands on a few samples of actual salmon farming equipment. We acquired a bag of feed pellets from Skretting (see Figure 8), a firm which specializes in the manufacture of high energy pelleted fish feed for commercial fish farms.

Figure 8. Fish feed pellets.

http://ift.tt/2p7XY4A

We also obtained other publications and objects pertaining to seafood to bolster the realism of our visual novel. Plush toys representing three of the most popular commercial salmon proved genuinely helpful (and cuddly) in assessing the general anatomy and physique of the different species (see Figure 9). A variety of books detailed the history, habitat and preparation of the fish, with the taste profiles and nutritional facts for each of the salmon species being explicitly described in one of the seafood handbooks. Information and inspiration from these reference items found their way into the story and dialog of our game, adding to the authenticity and “flavor” of the player experience.

Figure 9. Sockeye/Atlantic/King salmon plush toys

Original photo by Michel Sabbagh

Priority list

As our research notes became broader and more elaborate, we realized that we would have trouble fitting all of the aquacultural information we had scavenged into a single game. Both the potential scope of the project and various routes the player could take to learn more about the farming methods had to be taken into account to understand the implications of fitting all of our findings into the game. It became clear that we needed to prioritize some facts over others to get across the essential facts about salmon farming, or risk the story becoming obtuse or hollow.

As a result, the team decided to create a priority list with Excel to sort and color-code our research according to its relevance and importance in the game’s prologue and branching paths (see Figure 10).

Figure 10. Priority list with color-coded facts.

Original image by Michel Sabbagh

Many facts were general enough to be applied to the story regardless of which route the player took in their play-through (e.g. handling and management of Atlantic salmon brood stocks). Other details were either restricted to particular branches, or deemed too esoteric (e.g. average water temperature maintained at 15-16°C).

We eventually divided our research into primary, secondary and tertiary categories. All primary and (when possible) secondary elements were prioritized for incorporation into the story to ensure that players would understand the basic processes of raising salmon. Tertiary information was assigned to optional dialog trees or in-game reference sources. This priority list helped us manage the scope of the project, which might otherwise have become bloated with unnecessary detail that would hamper both the development and pacing of the story.

Ren’Py

Of all the design choices made before development of the project began in earnest, the choice of game engine was the most straightforward. Because we wanted Streams of Nurture to be a simple-to-navigate title that would lucidly depict its subject matter, we agreed that the Ren’Py visual novel engine would effectively suit the technical and narrative needs of the project (see Figure 11).

Figure 11. Sample Ren’Py tutorial screen.

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There are two reasons Ren’Py was selected as the engine for our project. Based on prior classroom experience, we knew it was one of the most forgiving and malleable game engines available for the development of visual novels. Its screenplay-like scripting syntax, combined with ample documentation and tutorials available both online and in the engine itself, would greatly ease the creation and editing of content.

The other reason we chose Ren’Py was that one of our team members, Michel Sabbagh, had gained substantial familiarity with the engine by using it to single-handedly develop an original visual novel, Make Love, Not Politics (see Figure 12) during the summer of 2015.

Figure 12. Screen shot from Make Love, Not Politics (2015).

Original image by Michel Sabbagh

Preparation

From the outset, we knew that our project was ambitious. Its complex, wide-ranging subject matter, combined with a dramatic, multi-branching storyline exploring the intimate traits and relationships of several characters, would be impossible to implement without careful planning.

Our decision to begin the brainstorming, research and documentation processes before the start of the 2016-17 academic year proved essential in solidifying a manageable structure for the project. Without this preparatory period, the project would have suffered from a lack of visionary focus that would undoubtedly have compromised the efficiency of the production phase and quality of the final delivery.

And that's all she wrote (for Part I, at least)! As I mentioned before, more parts will be posted on a weekly basis.

Let me know what you think of my article in the comments section, and feel free to ask me questions! I’ll do my best to get back to you as promptly as possible.

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