Edgar Castro

Howl is a musical iPad game slice, whereby the player controls a wolf during a snowstorm and tries to gather native wolf spirits back to its den. The game focuses on exploring the wolf’s sense of home within a community.Made as my senior thesis project, I wanted to focus on achieving narrative mechanics in order to contribute to the few solutions there are to handling a narrative in a game without text, dialogue, or long cut scenes. I also wanted to do something interesting and special with sound and music. After being inspired by games such as “Another World,” “Journey” and “Limbo” for their narrative mechanics, as well as “Sound Shapes” and “Proteus” for their musical interactions, Howl became more of an art game with musical interactions. The use of sound to spatially figure out where the other wolf spirits are makes sense with the wolf theme and further enhances the narrative and overall experience. The visuals work together with the sound to let the player know what they have to do next without any text or cut scenes. The iPad touch input allows players to easily figure out how to play the game without getting bogged down by the possible functions of multiple buttons on a keyboard or controller. www.edgarcastrodesign.com .