CHINNY RUN : RAISIN CHASE
THE MICROGAME



Designer : Leighann Astra
Instructor : Jenny Kowalski
Tyler School of Art, Graphic and Interactive Design Program

COMPONENTS

Game Design & Development


INTRODUCTION

Chinny Run : Raisin Chase is a video game about a chinchilla who has escaped from his cage and must find and eat as many raisins as possible before his owner realizes he’s missing. I have two pet chinchillas who I consider my ‘chinchildren’ and I wanted to create a game about them. They go absolutely bonkers for raisins so I wanted this quirky aspect of their personalities to be integrated into the game. 





PROCESS

This is the first game that I’ve coded myself. I developed the game using two Javascript libraries, p5.js and p5.play.  One of my goals was to make the animated chinchilla sprite move, run, and jump in a realistic way. To achieve this, I took slow motion videos of my chinchilla and used a rotoscoping technique by tracing over stills to create the sprites.













INSPIRATION & DESIGN DECISIONS

This game is largely inspired by video games I played as a child.  I took special inspiration from the game “Stuart Little : The Journey Home”  which was released in August, 2001. I remember playing this game for hours on end as a kid on my lime green gameboy color. I tried to use a very simple, pixel art aesthetic,  8-bit music and sound effects, and side-scrolling mechanics to give the game an overall retro, nostalgic feeling.







Stuart Little : The Journey Home

Super Mario Bros.

Hamtaro : Ham-Ham Heartbreak



play the game here (desktop only)
view the code here (desktop only)

if lagging, try opening the game in google chrome

Mark