"I always loved that," said Zollner, who is Garage Sale's lead writer and director. "It's super fun to have your driveway turned into a little store. You meet people through that.
" The incoming UW-Madison senior is double-majoring in journalism and communication arts, but also minoring in game design. In Garage Sale, which at the end of June became available for download on Steam for $6.99, main character Juniper in her forest-y hometown of Lettuce Village embarks on various adventures during the town's community-wide garage sale day.
Zollner described the achievement hunting game as cozy and explorative, as inspired by video games with similar vibes that she played as a high school student. It was also important to her to include characters in Garage Sale that are representative of people from all walks of life. Garage Sale, compatible both with PC and Mac operating systems, has received several positive reviews on Steam since its release.
"A lot of people have been streaming the game on Twitch," Zollner said, adding that there have also been a good few of reviews about the game on YouTube. Think you're bad at art? This Oregon business wants you to give it a try anyway What happens in the game? On her way across Lettuce Village from her father's home to her mother's, Juniper befriends various community members with "weird" problems to solve, Zollner said. Without interruptions, it takes a few hours to complete the game, she said.
"One of the community members is a little kid named Clove whose parents own the town's little farm," she said. "They made him wear a carrot suit. He wants to be freed from his carrot suit and enjoy the rest of his day.
" There's also Nadia, who is trying to sell a newspaper about an ant hill, as well as Charlie, who is stressed out about the local school being closed for the day and wants Juniper's help breaking into the school. Zollner just had to include her love of journalism in Garage Sale, she said. "I can see myself in Juniper a lot," Zollner said, describing Juniper as shy, anxious and lonely, but who is pushed by her parents to go out on her own for the first time.
"A lot of my friends have played this game these last few weeks and they told me that it reminds them of me." Garage Sale’s genesis Zollner started creating Garage Sale in spring 2021 when she was about to graduate high school using a free game development software called Bitsy. "I have always been pretty into games," she said.
"I grew up playing a lot of Nintendo stuff. When COVID started in 2020, I was super lonely and bored playing Animal Crossing." "The catalyst for Garage Sale was Undertale.
I played it the winter after COVID. It made me feel this beautiful sense of community. I was just thinking about it for weeks.
The creator made it himself. I had always been a writer and I had always loved telling little stories. It made me want to try, even though I didn't have any programming experience.
" Undertale, available on Steam for $9.99, involves controlling a human who falls underground into a world of monsters and must find their way out, or stay trapped forever. After Zollner graduated from high school, life got in the way of Garage Sale's creation, as did college classes.
In the fall of 2021, Zollner, realizing she wanted to bring her project to fruition, decided to consult UW-Madison's Game Design and Development Club. For the next few years, she and a team of programmers, an artist and writers, would work on Garage Sale whenever possible. "It's pretty terrifying honestly," she said when asked about how it feels to have finally released Garage Sale.
"I'm pretty proud of it.".
