Summary

In “Influences”, Sadie and Sam begin working on their first game together, Ichigo. Sam was elated to rekindle their friendship. In the years since they had spoken, he had struggled to find “someone [else] who [he] wanted to talk to for 609 hours” (64). Ichigo was about a young child who was swept out to sea and had to find their way back to their parents. The friends planned to complete the project during the summer between their junior and senior years. Marx offered his apartment as their office as he would be away during the holidays and Sadie moved into his room. As Sadie worked on the game, she modeled the graphics on the Hokusai wood black, The Great Wave of Kanagawa which “pushed everything in a Japanese direction” (77). There choice would not be questioned as appropriation until years later.

When Sam and his mother...