‘It’s a kaleidoscope of our childhood experiences’
Chase Soucy ’26 and Summit Smoker ’28 are looking back in time. Their project “I Dream of Saturday” transports viewers back two decades to the simplicity of watching Saturday morning cartoons.
“I Dream of Saturday” is made in the Unity game design program and includes mock commercials, advertisements, and mini games all played with a cable remote on a cathode ray tube (CRT) TV. The project was born when Soucy took the Serious Games course in Clark’s Becker School of Design & Technology and it has since evolved. Soucy, who leads the project, has teamed up with 13 other Clarkies to experiment with multimedia level design, skit scripting, and the art of recreating the media world of the early 2000s.
“We wanted to bring interactive experiences to art spaces. Along the way, we came up with the idea to fully emulate the act of flipping through TV channels 20 years ago,” says Soucy. “We’re currently working on a watercolor level, one of our artists is creating sock puppets, and we’re 3D modeling characters so we can do a mascot race.”
Smoker is the team writer. “I’ve helped plot out the symbolism and characterization throughout the story, but the most fun bit was the comedy writing. We filmed a parody of ‘Hot Ones,’ complete with Chase in a bald cap, emulated Geico commercials and even a MythBusters skit,” says Smoker. “There are characters across multiple sketches, as well. You can loosely follow their story as it goes along.”
This style of television is finding renewed life through gamers seeking an authentic feel for retro play. The team wanted to create something that stood out in the video game industry, which Soucy said often focuses on commercial success rather than creativity.
Finding and securing a CRT TV was a challenge. Soucy scoured the internet and found one for sale on Facebook marketplace.
“The first CRT I found was unwieldy. The seller told me to bring at least two people, but even with four of us, it took an hour and a half to move the 300-pound TV from the guy’s basement. There were some casualties,” Soucy recalls. “We ripped a tarp and I fell on his stairs. It reminded me of my friends’ houses growing up, going over to play games or watch TV.”
When a player turns on the “I Dream of Saturday” TV, the media is initially catered to an elementary school age group, but as the player continues to click through, the activities age with them all the way into adulthood. Soucy notes that nostalgia is popular on social media, and he and his group wanted to bring that romanticization of the past into the present.
“It was weird to create the media designed for the high school age group. I’m only a few years out from that experience, but even the oldest of us are only four years removed. I created a college advertisement for the latter half of the game. That period in someone’s life can be so stressful. You’ve got so many different things flying at you, and yet for many people, you still look back on it with nostalgia,” says Smoker.
He described an orthodontics advertisement directed toward middle school-aged children, noting that middle school can be such an awkward time for kids’ development.
“It’s such a formative time, and we’re trying to balance the impact of these mundane snippets with the more intensive minigames throughout. We want to recreate the way people felt when they were growing up – one minute carefree, the next tense, or embarrassed,” Smoker adds. “We spend a lot of time considering the arrangement of the games, the videos, and so on.”
Soucy says making the game reconnected him with his childhood.
“When looking for inspiration, I went through my old family’s camcorders. I saw my grandparents for the first time in years and watched my sister’s third birthday party,” says Soucy. “It was crazy to see things I didn’t remember and notice how I’ve changed.”
Soucy says that gaming brought him closer to friends and family, particularly during the pandemic, and he hopes that he can one day recreate this joy for future gamers. He was pleasantly surprised to find that leading a team has allowed him to help his peers fulfill their goals.
“I’ve seen firsthand the impact of my work on players and team members. Leading a team is a huge task,” he says. “It’s important to me that every person’s opinions are valued, and watching people play-test and enjoy the games is awesome.”
One of the most enjoyable parts of the experience, he said, was getting to learn about everyone else’s childhood memories.
“In the beginning, we all made mood boards about what nostalgia meant to us,” Smoker says. “There were so many times we’d say, ‘Oh, I forgot about that!’ reconnecting with things from our childhoods. It’s a very personal project to all of us.”
The way each individual processes nostalgia will impact what users take away from the experience: reflection, reminiscence, possibly reconnection with one’s younger self. Soucy says making this project has been everything he envisioned when enrolling in Clark’s game design program.
“It’s a kaleidoscope of our childhood experiences,” Smoker says. “It allows players to reflect but also to step back in time, to melt back into childhood and escape for a while.”
“I Dream of Saturday” will be on display during this spring’s ClarkFEST.
