On the first day of class we were told about the board game being our final project. After reading “You can’t get there from here” I knew that’s the book I wanted to make my board game over it. After reading the book the game Life came to my mind right away. It is all about life choices, building a family and dealing with finances. It fit perfect with the book, but I wanted to do something outside the box. Something that was unique. I thought about games I used to play when I was younger. I also looked online. This is how I made the decision to recreate the game Guess who.
To make my board game I took a long flat piece of wood and cut it in half. I then took two long, skinny, flat pieces of wood cut them in two inch pieces. I painted 18 of them blue and 18 of them red. I then took pictures who matched each character and glued them on to the two inch wood pieces. I nailed the hinges into to the board and to each small piece of wood to allow it to move up and down. I then made character cards so you can pick the character the other person is trying to guess. I then made a character information sheet and instructions.
This is how I made guess who and connected it to “can’t get there from here. ” Throughout the semester I read a lot of books I enjoyed. There was one book that stuck with me “can’t get there from here. ” I chose to create a board game related to this book because I liked the book. I think young adolescents should read novels like “can’t get there from here” because there’s a message to the story and examples of how choices can change your life. One aspect of the narrative that inspired me was the struggles and abuse the kids received from their parents and family.
Most of the kids leave because they are being raped and molested. The book “can’t get there from here” connects to “Speak” because it both books someone is getting raped and taken advantage of. I think it is sad because most kids are scared to speak up and tell someone what happened. The kids living on the street chose to run away from it where Melinda suffers from not telling anyone. Living on the streets with no food, water and shelter was better than going home. The hurt a child has to feel when their mother says “you’re too old and I can’t afford you anymore. Out of the 8 kids from their street family 1 went back home to her grandparents, 1 went back with his parents, and 1 went on to find something better in life. Only three out of the eight kids realized you can’t live on the street you can only die there. Maybe found someone she could trust and who showed her there’s better things in life if you look on the other side. She didn’t trust a lot of people so she didn’t open up to many people. A lot of books I read this semester had to do with trust. In the book “The Adoration of Jenna Fox” she had a hard time trusting her parents.
She didn’t understand why she didn’t have any friends and she could only remember small things. She didn’t understand why her grandma acted so weird around her. In these books it shows the important of trust in relationships with other people. I enjoyed “can’t get there from here” because there are people out there willing to help others even when someone didn’t know they wanted to be saved. The purpose of this board game is to go along with the book. You could play this game without reading the book but it will be better understood if you’ve read the book. The board game is intended to be fun for the people playing it.
At first I wanted to do a game like Life but I decided I wanted to do something outside the box. This game is related to this book because you get to choose your path and who want to be. You get to choose to be a good guys or a bad guy. You get chose if you want to be one of the kids on the street, one of the mean adults not willing to help or one of the adults who have a positive impact on someone’s life. In this game you are constantly guessing, trying to figure things out and move one step closer to guessing your opponent. In the book the kids are constantly guessing their choices and decisions.
They’re guessing when they’re going to get food, water, warmth or shelter again. They’re guessing when you’re going to see your friends again. They’re guessing if someone’s their friend or an enemy. They’re guessing if they will make it to see the sun rise again. Another aspect that connects this game to the book “can’t get there from here” is you never know whose going to fall down or whose going to keep standing by your side. An example of this in the book was Maybe never knew if Rainbow was still alive. Maybe was always worried she wouldn’t come back and felt she had to protect her.
Rainbow ended up committing suicide and now Maybe has one less friend to stand by her side. While playing the board game Guess who you never know whose going to be standing at the end and you don’t know when someone’s going to get knocked down. You don’t know whose going to be that person standing with you at the end. This connect to the book “Mockingbird” because Maybe has to overcome the emotional struggle after losing her Rainbow. Caitlin has to overcome the emotion struggle of losing her brother. Her brother was always there for her and now she has to learn to survive without him.
Losing a family member or a friend is always hard and it both of these situations they didn’t see it coming. “You can’t get there from here” and Guess who are constantly a guessing game. I created my game to connect with the characters from the book. In the book “can’t get there from here” the characters age from pre-teens to grandparents. Anyone from age 8 years and up could play the board game I created. There are a lot of characters with different race in this book. There are boys, girls, men, women and cross dressers throughout the story. There are people from all over the United States who ended up in the same town in New York.
Tears was from Hundred West Virginia, Country Club was from Shaker Heights Ohio and Maggot was from Denver Colorado. The street family didn’t care where each other came from. There were a variety of people that had different class with different views on society. You had the homeless children. You had to upper class rich folks. Some of the men would try and sleep with the young girls. You had the middle class folks like Anthony the gentlemen from the library and officer Ryan. My board game can be played by any race, gender and class. My game can be played by anyone in the United States or who can speak English.
My game can be played multiple times in a row because there’s many characters to choose from and each round doesn’t take a long time. This board game really builds and reflects on the characters. In the character sheet it talks about their home life, their street life and their present life. This game doesn’t add or delete any of the elements to the plot. The storyline and narration stays the same in the board game and in the book. This project made me have to deep dig into the details of the characters. I thought the process of picking my book was easy.
I narrowed down the books but I knew I wanted to pick “can’t get there from here. ” Deciding how I wanted to create my board game was a little more difficult. I got all my supplies at menard’s. It was difficult finding everything I needed there because the store is so big. With this project I had to build a relationship between the board game and the book. I had to choose what demographics and the audience I wanted to connect to. I had to show the purpose of the board game. I’ve learned a lot while doing this project and I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed connecting a game I used to love playing with a book I really enjoyed reading.
