The Golem & The Greg

The puppet was the core kernel of the project, and I think even if that’s all we’d had, the concepts would’ve still worked.  But we also put together a large public installation to showcase the piece, and although several ideas had to be left out of the final setup, I’m just glad that it all came together.

I suppose it’d be easy to assume that, since I was spending a lot of the time animating, the final video was the most important goal. But the point was really to emphasize the process of stop-motion, not the result, so we were more concerned with the physical presence of the puppet. The animation, while a great artifact of the event, doesn’t capture all of the interactions that happened during the show.

It did come out looking a lot smoother than I was expecting, though. I hadn’t programmed any way for me to compare previous frames, so I just had to guess how much to move the puppet. I thought this’d result in extremely jerky movement, but once I got into a rhythm it flowed easily.

I used Max/MSP again to run everything, and although the program actually wasn’t as complex as the one for Movement Is Life, it still looks like a mess:

Click to enlarge

This is what my brain looks like.

Combiform provides a new and unique tangible gaming interface that stresses the importance of co-located, co-attentive social interactions among players. Combiform emphasizes social interaction through controller-to-controller contact transforming typical co-located social play experiences into a multisensory physical activity. http://combiformgame.com/

Combiform was created by a team of talented students from the Interactive Media Division of the School of Cinematic Arts. Project Lead, Inventor: Edmond Yee, Producer: Josh Joiner, Lead Software Engineer: Tai An, Software Engineers: Jeff Ye, Mu-Fan Wu, Shuang Wu, Rajan Bapodra, Andy Uehara, Network Engineers: Rasik Srinath, Sunil Venkatraman, Lead Artist: Andrew Dang, Artists: Mu-Fan Wu, Melinda Yep, Emory Irpan, Composer/Sound Effects Artists: Nathan Matthew David, Issac Tetenbaum, Harrison Lee, Chris Yanson, Cinematographer: Michael Newman

This week at CHI 2012, in Austin, TX:   iMAP PhD candidate, Josh McVeigh-Schultz, presented a paper  on “Vehicular Lifelogging: New Contexts and Methodologies for Human-Car Interaction” that describes a research project by USC’s Mobile and Environmental Media Lab . The paper presents a novel design for automotive lifelogging that engages drivers in ongoing discoveries about their vehicle through an approach that uses innovative storytelling and theatrical strategies focusing on character and larger social context surrounding driving.  Co-authors and MEML lab researchers are Jennifer Stein, Jacob Boyle, Emily Duff, Jeff Watson, Avimaan Syam, Amanda Tasse, Simon Wiscombe, and lab Director Scott Fisher.

The ride up to GDC was pretty long and arduous as one might expect driving from LA to San Francisco of the ride… the most unique obstacle being a particularly large zone of pungent bovine smell. However, I did end up discovering that the drawbacks of the ride are easily mitigated by good company, portable gaming devices,nd numerous rounds of singing along to Disney songs.

Or by simply sleeping (assuming you aren’t driving).

I was quite impressed by the sheer number of conference attendees. I knew vaguely that the gaming industry was growing and probably larger than I thought it was, but just seeing all the people flowing in and out of the conference centers hammered the point home for me.

With so many people at the conference, it was definitely comforting to catch familiar faces.

The overview session of nearly all the GDC talks that would be given was a very nice overview and a much better way of finding out about those talks than just reading their descriptions in the pamphlets.

Italian food was a surprisingly big theme during my time at GDC. Beginning with my first dinner with IMD folks at Buca Di Beppo, nearly half of all my meals while there were at Italian restaurants… I don’t know if that says more about me or the area…

I found it disheartening that for all of our advances in designing spaces and constructing complex architecture, we still fail to realize sometimes that these environments are usually for people. And people NEED TO SIT…

… as these conference attendees having lunch near a Whole Foods clearly are demonstrating.

Definitely never expected such extensive use of cat memes at a conference with industry talks…

…especially in the same presentation as the one with this insightful Einstein quote (used in reference to playtesting).

One lesson learned early on at GDC was that it was more beneficial to attend talks on topics where I had no background knowledge in the subject, as opposed to ones on topics I was already fairly familiar with. Specifically the game design talks often felt like they went over material already covered in the classes I’d taken, as opposed to the more technical or business oriented ones.

One exception to the previous comment on game design talks was the Post-Mortem talk I attended on Hoard, designed by Tyler Sigman. It was particularly exciting to hear about a specific game’s design process, from inception of the idea, to prototyping, to pitch and final designs, all from the perspective of the game’s developer now looking back a year or so after its release. The development of the digital game from a board game prototype I also found compelling after having taken Tracy’s game design course last semester.

Another lesson I learned was to come to GDC better prepared with a physical portfolio next time. I did check out the industry booths, but felt sorely unprepared without any organized reference material to show.

This expression accurately describes how I felt towards the end of GDC. Walking around and listening to talks did end up becoming quite tiring after a while…

… which explains why there aren’t any photos of “awesome GDC parties” here. I was more or less exhausted at the end of each day, most assuredly too tired to hunt down/seek these mysterious and notorious social gatherings that apparently required you to be a part of some exclusive email list… I can only assume those GDC parties were at least as raucous and entertaining as the card game parties I attended after GDC with my bay area colleagues (pictured above).

Evan Suma and Mark Bolas are taking part in the GESTURES IN 3D SPACE as part of the 3rd Dimension of CHI (3DCHI): Touching and Designing 3D User Interface with the paper: FAAST-R: Defining a Core Mechanic for Designing Gestural InterfacesEvan Suma, Belinda Lange, Albert Rizzo, David Krum, Mark Bolas.

Mark Bolas also worked on a paper being presented by Nili Metuki of Primesense, Inc. looking at information discovery: Infinite Content Within Reach: Using 3D Body-Based Interaction to Enhance Content Discovery (Long) Nili Metuki, Orlee Tal, Ran Shani, Mark Bolas

As part of the CHI FOOD AND INTERACTION DESIGN WORKSHOP. http://di.ncl.ac.uk/foodixd/ MxR and Interactive Media Division, USC alumni Diane Tucker is presenting her paper, Chains of Food, describing the concept of the gesturally-controlled game that promises to transform some of the human-computer interactions that have been harmful to people’s health into engagements that improve it. The game was a finalist for the Future of Health Award given by Games for Health Europe.

Ed Yee from the IMD program and Josh Joiner are presenting their physically collaborative game, Combiform http://combiformgame.com/showcases.html in the INTERACTIVITY DEMO SESSION AND STUDENT GAME CONTEST.

Trainyard gave an interesting definition of level design, that it’s actually teaching. iPhone game players are mostly casual players, different from hardcore console or PC game players, the target audience grow and accustom to the system and rule slowly and are easy to get frustrated. So the first couple of levels should be tutorial ones and the tutorial should be simple and clear, teaching key point one at a time.

Each level should have a purpose, said the designer of Trainyard, there should be no difficult level just for the sake of difficult. Elements in a level should always serve a purpose such as an obstacle or an achievement. Especially with limited screen size and touchpoint on iPhone, effective interface design is one big part of level design. The same goes with Cut the Rope, who also emphasize on the point that level design should make player comfortable while hard to solve rather than uncover weaknesses of game/engine.

As of level progression, both Trainyard and Cut the Rope have separate sections that would unlock once you finish the previous one. The difficulty in each section should be generally higher than the previous one, and should have a growing curve of its own. As explained by Trainyard’s designer, the first level of a new section is normally easier than the last level of the previous one because it will probably be new tutorial or simply for player satisfaction. Casual players are not good at dealing with constant tensions, so buffer of easy levels are very important.

Another good note on level design for a puzzle game is that, puzzles should always require players to plan ahead and should clearly has a logical, elegant and reproducible solution. This is probably the biggest difference between these games and Angry Birds, whose success in one level relies heavily on chances. But Angry Birds wisely handled player’s internal joy of breaking things and earning points from what you break. Managing players’ internal joy could also be seen in the two puzzle games above.

That leads us to how to entertain, satisfy and attract your players. Cut the Rope indicated that, use positive reinforcement. Which means in stead of punishing the player for not doing something, reward them when they do, that would effectively encourage them to follow the tutorial and obey the rules of the game as well as giving them a sense of achievement when they gain 3 stars.

I positioned myself as a designer with some programming ability but as a first year IMD foreign graduate student, I’m limited with what I can present to the game company. Few companies look at the resumes carefully due to the amount of people trying to apply, and fewer would listen to designers’ stories. At the same time, designer is a relatively harder position to get as intern because with the short period of working time, designers can contribute much less than programmers or artists.

I also went to a panel discussion on how to get a job in game industry, where managers from game companies confirmed that they hold a more strict selection rule towards designers and portfolio is the most important factor. The managers suggest applicants to design and make games to show their strength, but the point is, if the games you’ve made does not have a fame, or without attracting arts, there’s no time for them to review each one. Several managers also mentioned they hired people out of blue after a nice and ambitious conversation, this matched my information as getting a job from an insider referral would be much more possible than sending out your resume with large group of applicants.

Another problem with the game industry is that, with more and more companies rolling into large and procedure-standard ones, it’s harder to transfer from one department to another, which means getting your foot in the industry by accepting a Q&A position and gather your experience until able to jump towards a designer is less applicable. And if you come as a programmer, you might have to be leading programmer instead of designer in the future even if you prefer the latter.

If we come back to preparing your portfolio as a designer, there raise the question of ‘if you are already a solid designer/developer with a couple of games that sold, why don’t you go and be a indie game start-up?’

Start-up game companies are not too hard to survive now with a diverse platform that can be worked on and more and more audiences playing games. A good game will sell itself without a really good business or marketing people. One start-up company especially talked about how Steam had helped them in another talk. The numbers he showed was very impressive, sales on Steam took up more than 80% of total. Steam would also constantly contact games for promotion or indie bundles that they could participate. Good platforms as such also includes apple store and social networks.

But the problem with indie developers is budget and human resource, which limits indie start-ups to small scale of games. If you are a designer with epic and historical idea in mind, you might still have to go for big game companies and defeat all other companions to be the leading designer, that is a long way in the future.

An Experiment in Narrative Play

Storyteller is intended to be a study in how stories change over time when communicated orally between person to person. Intended to be played with a medium (~30 or so, although the prototype was tested with a group of 6 fellow students in the class) person group, this prototype was simple, allowing the creativity of the experience to be fueled mainly by those participating in it.

Each player was to be given two cards at the beginning of the play experience: one card contained the name of another player, while the other contained a random story element or trope. At random, one person was assigned a card which read “I am the storyteller.” It was their responsibility to start the story, finding the person on their card, and incorporating their random element. This would continue until the story arrived back at the original storyteller, and the play would end, with new cards being distributed. There was one major rule to the experience: No one was allowed to document or record the story in any way, and it had to be transmitted orally between players. Aside from this, players were allowed to communicate it in any way they like. It was not a requirement that they attempt to tell the same story, word-for-word. Players’ own opinions, poor memory, embellishments, medium changes — any and all of these were intended to be very much a part of the experience and experiment.

The game experience was estimated to last approximately a week, but this was not the case. As a prototype, I started the story. I still have not heard the final version. It has become lost somewhere in the minds of the 6 participants. Further iteration is grounded heavily in shifting the pressure of engagement to the storytellee. By distinctly marking the storyteller with some sort of pin or flag or bracelet, others would be allowed to approach and specifically request to be told the story. This way, the storyteller would be able to choose when he/she is available to tell the story, and the recipients would be able to engage when they are also ready.

This illustrates a major issue with how stories are passed on and, in a lot of ways, illuminates how people interact with each other in the public realm. Whether there be a social stigma associated with approaching someone and declaring that you have a story to tell, or a fear of invading personal space and time, the players, while initially excited about the project, became reluctant to continue play. I believe this hesitancy stemmed from the onus of engagement being on the orator, and this is something which I feel may be apparent in many pervasive games: the lack of a clear distinction between reality and game makes it harder for people to feel comfortable performing these game actions. While the prospect of the “magic circle” being broken is an exciting one, it is also destroying a lot of its own sense of immersion and willingness to play.

On May 9th and 10th, UCLA is having a game festival. (It’s organized by Eddo Stern at the Design Media Arts department).
Here are the IMD games that made it into the show. Congratulations!

TALES FROM THE MINUS LAB by Alex Beachum, Sarah Scialli, Steve Wenzke, David Young
THE HOLD by Adam Liszkiewicz and Alex Silberman
THE CHARLATAN by David Mershon
SONGLINES by Samantha Vick
NEVERMIND by Erin Reynolds

Festival Here