The final unit of my and my students’ 3-week class on short fiction focused on perspective, both in terms of how individual characters experience and engage with the world and how that perspective is compromised or intensified when they are put in situations or spaces that limit their options. A couple of our key readings from this unit were “The Ledge” (from the 1978 Night Shift collection) and “The Raft” (from the 1985 Skeleton Crew collection).

The significance of literary geography, place, and navigation has been a frequent touchstone throughout our conversations over the course of our 3-week class, from the nature of the inherently “bad place” (like Jerusalem’s Lot) to the opportunities and restrictions imposed by specific places, like the Dolphin Hotel’s Room 1408. One of the ways we got some interactive experience with the importance of place and spatial navigation is through a horror board gaming day, where I brought in a wide range of different horror-themed board games. Some of these were King-inspired, like IT: Evil Below (2019) and The Shining (2020), but others drew from broader horror traditions, from the old-school Gothic of The Masque of the Red Death (2018) and Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein (2019) to more contemporary monsters with Horrified (2019), Horrified: American Monsters (2021), and Float From the Deep (2022), and the slasher tradition of Mixtape Massacre (2016; Director’s Cut 2022) and Escape from Tall Oaks (2020). This is only scratching the surface of the horror gaming world, but this selection did provide students with a range of options to choose from, depending on their interests and favorite horror narrative styles. Despite each game’s different approaches—cooperative vs. collaborative, levels of difficulty, individual game mechanics, and so on—each of these games required that students familiarize themselves with these fictional horror worlds, the characters within them, and the spatial navigation they need to master if they hope to survive. 

As we turned our attention to “The Ledge” and “The Raft,” we had to adjust our concept of space, as the action in both stories is limited: Stan Norris, the narrator of “The Ledge,” is forced to make his way around the five-inch ledge of a high-rise apartment building to gain his freedom and the hand of the woman he loves, while in “The Raft,” college students Randy, Deke, LaVerne, and Rachel find themselves trapped on a swimming raft in the middle of a chilly autumn lake while an amorphous monster in the water preys upon them. In both stories, the action zeros down to these very limited locations: the ledge and the raft become sites of life and death, where the characters are severed from the outside world, put to the test, and find out who they really are and what they’re capable of. There are several interesting differences and comparisons to be made between these two stories—the first-person perspective of “The Ledge” versus third-person in “The Raft,” Stan Norris’s solo ordeal versus the contentious group dynamics of the characters in “The Raft,” the open-ended but seemingly foregone conclusions of both—but the limited space and setting of each story is foundational to all of these other conflicts. 

After our reading and discussion of “The Ledge” and “The Raft,” the students worked in teams to choose one of these stories and develop a board game version. I provided them with a range of basic materials, including oversize paper for boards, blank cards, a range of dice and tokens, and a pile of art supplies. The only limitation or direction I gave them was that it should be a board game for two to four players, adapting one of these two stories. 

Surprisingly, most of the teams chose “The Raft” for their game adaptation. Many of the teams focused the majority of their action on the raft itself, highlighting the dual threat of the voracious blob-like being in the water and their fellow players, who might be willing to sacrifice them for a chance to save themselves. For one of these teams, position on the raft was of the utmost importance, since the player who was closest to the edge of the raft when the blob attacks is killed; for the other team, the focus was more on strength and endurance, challenging players to survive in the hope of eventual rescue (drawing on some of game design and mechanics of Float From the Deep). In both cases, players could work together or actively try to sabotage and sacrifice one another to save themselves. 

Another team that tackled “The Raft” took a more proactive approach, with a focus on attempting to escape the raft and make it back to shore. The water proved to be a more contentious space to navigate than the raft itself, as the team built in “perk” spots and blocked squares, which either gave the characters an advantage or forced them to take a less straightforward path to safety, respectively, all while the hungry creature is in hot pursuit. This team really effectively highlighted the abilities of the blob itself, designing a piece representing the monster that would unfold to grow and expand as it eats. 

Multiple groups had some fun playing with characterization as they reimagined the story’s main characters, giving them individual special abilities, which included faster swimming, increased strength and stamina (which is helpful for players who might want to try to shift the raft itself, rather than risking the water), or a scream so annoying that it temporarily slows down the blob (obviously LaVerne). 

The group that chose “The Ledge” for their game design focused on the spatial navigation of the ledge, including tricky corners and temporary safe spaces (mirroring the penthouse balconies Norris encounters as he makes his way around the building). As players making their way around the ledge land on a red square, they encounter a challenge, which could come from the wind, a pigeon, or another threat, and the group made cards varying the intensity of these threats: a low wind or a single pigeon is survivable but a large gust or a disturbed pigeon family is guaranteed death. This group also added a player-versus-player component to their navigation of the ledge. There can be as many as four players and one of the possible challenges they encounter is a duel, with two players fighting for that same valuable five inches of ledge space, with the winner determined by drawing numbered cards. 

In each of these approaches, the students took one of these short stories as their foundation and inspiration, then reworked space, narrative, and characterization within their own unique, creative vision. As they worked, planned the layout of their board, and talked through the most effective mechanics for the type of game they wanted to create, the students took these stories and made them their own, actively negotiating the options provided by the stories themselves, and thinking outside the box to position themselves within these narratives in a play-able way. Creating their own games was an even more high-impact learning experience than playing the existing games had been, though their experiences with those games definitely provided students with a range of options and approaches, including which rules and mechanics were enjoyable and easy to understand versus those that were challenging, overly complicated, or ineffective. 

In both “The Ledge” and “The Raft,” the limited settings of these stories are foundational to the action, demanding navigation and endurance while refusing to yield much of anything to the characters who find themselves there. Through their game designs, my students complicated both these spaces and their characters, creating options and narratives that extend beyond the stories themselves. 

[I absolutely share all the credit here and give a BIG thank you to the students in my Culver-Stockton College  3-week class, ENG130: The Short Fiction of Stephen King, including Arrow Andrews, Kaitlyn Beth, Alaina Brown, Brandi Compton, Megan Eaton, Mikayla Gioia, Sara Gruenewald, Sameeksha Guptha, Hannah Matrisch, Danarria Thomas, and Haley Webb. The students jumped into this challenge with enthusiasm and created some really engaging games!]