During the past year I’ve been programming my own videogames using the tool called Unity. It is a free engine, and very compatible with the opensource 3d modeling tool wings. I never had used 3D before and it was easy to just start working on it after a workshop organized by ETB and the envision center at Purdue. Besides that, I have been using other game engines for 2D “modding”. Modding means making modifications or ‘mods’ of preexisting games changing the original assets of the game. An example of this is the M.U.G.E.N software that contains the program of a 2-player fight game similar to Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II. I experienced modding it with an engine called Fighter Factory ultimate. I obviously had to get a machine with windows XP (service pack 3) in it. Anyhow it’s a lot of fun to remove the original graphics and replace them with my own drawings. One example of modding in FFU and M.U.G.E.N. is my Cortez character:

My next modding project consists of moding the historic first-person shooter DOOM. For this I am using a .Wad file called freedoom, a free version of the doom software. A WAD is the extension file of the game files. WAD stands for “Where is All the Data” and it is part of the doom software. You can edit this files using doombuilder and Xtendable WAD editor… both PC shareware/freeware.

I like to use preexisting game plots to raise awareness of historic events. In the case of my Doom WAD, I am creating BANANA DOOM, a game that retells the “masacre de las bananeras” or Banana Massacre in Colombia (1928). You are one of the soldiers that were order to kill 1000+ unionized farmers and their families. The unionized workers pressured the american corporation “United Fruit Company” to get better job conditions. The goverment officials threatened workers to kill them if they didn’t resume their banana collection. A threat that became true and has become one of the landmarks in the history of violence in Colombia.

Here is a video of my WAD replacing the tree sprites with Banana plants:

And one of the sprite ideas for the farmer character will be coming soon. It looks like this:

I am using archival images to make the sprite art. But one of my friends will be the Farmer actor.