Final render time: 21 minutes on my computer, 6 minutes on his.

I had intended to recreate the opening scene from the book, however, as this is very much a spare time project, I have no clue if that will ever happen.

Attentive observers might note that I’ve deviated from the description given in the book by adding a few weeds here and there, even though the book mentions that there aren’t any plants.

The brown color on the doors is a placeholder. Bonus points for anyone who knows what color the doors are supposed to be. Extra bonus points if you know without looking it up. Super extra bonus points for Aubrey if she can remember without looking it up.

Most of the effects I created were for a fight scene near the end involving high-voltage stun rods, so here’s a few of those for your enjoyment:

Wait, you don’t know what Hypercard is?

Hypercard was an amazing tool that put the power to create awesome computer programs into the hands of the average person. With an easy-to-learn coding system, and some simple drawing tools, Hypercard provided hours of creative fun to my childhood days.

Unfortunately this masterpiece no longer runs on modern computers. There have been several attempts to create programs like Hypercard, but none of them have ever been able to match the simple, intuitive interface that was Hypercard.

And now, I’d like to present to you some of the things I created with Hypercard.

My first creation was a collaboration with all my siblings called Exploration Earth. It was a huge game, the goal of which was to explore every nook, cranny, and secret passage.

Exploration Earth, or EE, as we usually called it had everything from talking mice…

To space travel.

Later, I created a popcorn stand simulation game.

It went through several version, and eventually ended up actually being in color! An ability that only appeared in later versions of Hypercard.

On opening the game, you were asked to select a difficulty and name your popcorn stand. Choosing the “Certain Debt” difficulty would result in an instant lose.

I also created a game where you ran a tourist company that specialized in trips to other planets. Scheduling flights to other planets, and managing your staff were key parts of this game. And for anyone who’s wondering, the Useless Guy just sits around and throws paper airplanes all day.

I even planned to allow you to visit other planets yourself, but I never finished making the game.

Many of my games were simulations, like this fish tank simulation that quickly expanded to let you to name the fish and dress them up in fancy costumes.

From fish, this moved on to other animals… Like this lizard.

The lizard had a temperature control, which, if turned too low, would turn him into an ice cube.

This next one was tons of fun. It was really great for experimenting with what facial expressions gave particular feelings.

Of course, weird faces were fun to make too…

And that strange face is as good a place to end this as anywhere else.

The rest of the video was made by the cool people over at Phantom Moose Films.