Walden: The Video Game

"To be awake is to be alive," wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden. Perhaps American literature's most contemplative text, Walden seems an unusual subject for a modern-day video game. How can the serene pond and quiet woods be translated to a virtual experience? And how can a video game evoke the experiment in living that Thoreau set out for himself in the woods at Walden Pond? These questions are why we eagerly anticipate Tracy Fullerton's latest project. An audience favorite from the 2011 festival, Fullerton is professor and chair of the Interactive Media Division at USC and director of its Game Innovation Lab. In Walden, a Game, Fullerton and her collaborators posit a new genre of play, where the players can walk in Thoreau's virtual footsteps, reflect on his writings, and cultivate their thoughts and responses to the deeper meaning behind events that transpire in the virtual-and, by extension, the real-world.