TEMBUSU BEMUSED: THE TREE CHAPTER, 2012.

COLLABORATION | GAME (FLASH)

Independent Games Festival Entrant 2013
Tembusu College National University of Singapore Artist-in-Residence

Tembusu Bemused: The Tree Chapter

YANYUN CHEN / SARA CHONG / AIMEE / JASON POH / JACHIN POUSSON / ARUL PRASAD

Tembusu Bemused: The Tree Chapter is inspired by old-school point and click adventure games, supported by and in collaboration with National University of Singapore's Tembusu College, created by Stick and Balloon's Yanyun Chen and Sara Chong, animated by Aimee, original music and sound effects by Jachin Pousson, and developed by Arul Prasad and Jason Poh.

Our protagonist Stig goes in search of Greg, the Master of the tree, for his beloved Tembusu Tree needs watering. In his tiny adventure, he meets the other characters who live in the tree, with their problems, puzzles and quests to solve. All characters and dialogues are caricatures of real-life professionals and professors working at Tembusu College and the research that they do.

Yanyun Chen and Sara Chong participated in the inaugural 3 month artist residency at Tembusu College, National University of Singapore to develop an old school point and click adventure game. In this project, all the staff and professors are in-game characters, and a player walks around, talks to them, and figures the puzzles out.

Tembusu College

“As part of our inaugural artist-in-residence programme, as well as our first successful year of the new college, we experimented with the idea of featuring the college’s quirks and adventure spirit by designing the staff and faculty of Tembusu College as in-game characters, designing our academic study and personal interests into the story as well. Students were involved in naming the characters, debugging the game, and open to the possibility of engaging with their professors in a totally different light.”

Game Background

This would be Yanyun Chen and Sara Chong’s 3rd attempt at creating a playable game. The first game is a battle trading card game called Too-ka. The only release available is a 20-card deck, sold separately in gummy packs at 7-11 store. The 2nd game is Jimmyfish. It's a 3 minute time-based flash game challenge. Jimmy our lead character is stuck in a fish costume, and he doesn't really like it. So the player has to earn eco-dollars by finding new ways to save energy, water, resources in Jimmy's house within 3 minutes, to use the dollars to exchange for a better costume. This is the 3rd attempt. This time: a 20 characters, 18 backgrounds, 1 hour game play plan. In less than 6 months!