Papercut
Allison Moore
Papercut is a Blender-based video game in the style of traditional side-scroller roleplaying games. There is a central character and a landscape to traverse. You are a lumberjack. You must cut down trees with a chainsaw. The game world is designed combining hand drawn illustrations with cut-out scanned textures.
There are two characters to choose from: a Lumber Man and a Lumber Lady. The main character must deforest the landscape. Your only tool is a chainsaw. As you cut down trees you collect points. There is a time limit to each level, and if you meet your tally, you advance to the next level.
Papercut creates a main character with a questionable morality. In traditional gameplay, the main character is definitively good whilst any character blocking the path is definitively bad. Geographical obstacles, woodland creatures and hippies block your path.
The virtual world combines exaggerated representations of the existing world with elements interpreted from my imagination.
I played a lot of games in the 80s and early 90s, so I like vintage/retro games and this is the aesthetic that influences me most. It was hard to wrap my mind around a 3d world, so I decided to make it 2 ½d. I use 2D references of vintage games incorporated in the 3d landscape. The final result is like a paper puppet set, my 2D characters like puppets navigating through a diorama-style set built in 3d. Trees fall like leaves of paper.
