Description:
A downloadable game
• Explore the incredibly detailed world of Bell Bowl Prairie from the miniature perspective of a bumblebee.
• Reveal poems cached within certain plants when you trigger the release of pollen.
• Journey between different species of plants, browsing amongst their flowers.
• Relax while playing this game and immerse yourself in a world of marvels as if you are the size of a bumblebee. Our science+art project aims to enable people to connect with the world differently and to realize that beauty can be accessible no matter what size you are.
• Emotional reaction motivates action: raised awareness can elevate environmental protection to the level of real concern.
Credits:
Mak Hepler-Gonzalez: Lead UI/UX Director, Level Designer, VFX/3D/Foliage Artist, Asset Optimization & Workflow Instructor, Concept Development
Charlotte Guan: Lead Character Artist (creature design & rigging), Project Manager
Diana Jiang: Project Intern, 3D Artist
Kayla Kim: UX Designer, Quest Technician, Asset Optimization
Zoë Morgan: 3D Artist, 3D Rigger, Lead Game Rigger & Animator, Interaction Programmer, UX Designer, Lead Quest Technician, Concept Development
Brigid O’Neil: 3D Artist, 3D Rigging, Asset Optimization, Concept Development
Michael Swierz: Poetry, Ecological Informant
Jane Tao: 3D Artist
Kayla Taylor: Assistant Producer, Lead 3D Artist, Asset Optimization, Concept Development
Joslyn Willauer: Lead Environment Artist, Foliage Artist, Level Designer, 3D Artist
Marlena Novak: Producer, Creative Director, Conceptual Director, 3D Artist, Voiceover
Jay Alan Yim: Co-Producer, Sound Design, Original Score Composition, Concept Development, Entomology Advisor
Backstory:
Eight thousand years ago, a little prairie was born near the confluence of what would be two rivers—the Rock River and the Kishwaukee—as an enormous glacier retreated at the end of the last Ice Age. Full of gravel and sand, situated on a slope, it became a dry gravel prairie as intrepid plants moved in to make their homes where the ice had been.
Its name is Bell Bowl Prairie.
The kinds of plants, insects and other animals that could thrive here were exceptional because the conditions were different from most of the surrounding prairie. A harmonious ecosystem evolved over millennia, and one of the special inhabitants that lives here is the Rusty Patched Bumblebee.
For a long time, people didn’t try to build much or turn this prairie into farmland because of the slope and soil type.
Unfortunately, that’s changing now.
Eventually, some people decided that this was a good place to build a small airport, and for years the airport listened to the scientists who valued the biodiversity of this prairie, and together they protected it. Now the airport wants to expand because its business is growing, and conservation-minded citizens as well as scientists have advocated for expansion plans that would still protect this prairie. But the airport has resisted persuasion to adopt a creative solution to designing its new facilities.
As they seem to dismiss a more ecological perspective, the only thing that has slowed down their construction plans has been the discovery of the Rusty Patched Bumblebee, which is on the federal list of endangered species. Even though the matter has not been conclusively settled, in March 2023 airport management gave the green light to bulldozing the path for a new roadway through one third of the remaining prairie.
This project—Dreaming The Prairie—digitally recreates a topologically accurate version of Bell Bowl Prairie. The virtual version allows anybody—from local citizens to scientists on the other side of the world—to visit this location, since the airport considers it to be their private property and has forbidden access to the public.
Our hope is that building up a greater degree of appreciation and care for Bell Bowl Prairie in solidarity with the committed efforts of conservation-minded citizens and members of the scientific community can help shift the airport’s certainty in their calculus that simply making more money in the most expedient manner outweighs more holistic concerns: preserving the environment is also of economic and social value. Stewardship and economic growth can and should be partners, not adversaries.
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We acknowledge and honor the many indigenous nations with historical ties to the Rockford Region including the Anishinnabe, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe Nations, as well as the Ho-Chunk, Sac and Fox.