February 02, 2006
Game Team 3 Interviews
Hi All -
I'll be maintaining the schedule for the interviews here. Times are available on a first-come first-serve basis.
As I recieve emails, I'll fill in names here. I'm planning on holding the interviews in the GIL testing lab. (We may move to the viewing lab if someone else needs the lab.)
Friday Feb 3:
4 pm:
5 pm:
6 pm:
7 pm:
8 pm:
9 pm: Brad Newman
10 pm:
Saturday Feb 4:
1 pm:
2 pm:
3 pm:
4 pm: Mike Stein
5 pm:
6 pm: Ken Leung
7 pm:
8 pm: RJ Layton
9 pm: Vince Diamante
Sunday Feb 5:
1 pm: Nick Clark
2 pm:
3 pm:
4 pm:
5 pm: Justin Hall
6 pm:
7 pm:
8 pm:
9 pm: Jenova Chen
Monday Feb 6:
5 pm: Andrew Tio
6 pm: Scott Gilles
7 pm: Gavin Jenkins
8 pm: James Miao
9 pm: Matt Korba
10 pm: Josh Green
If you have questions, email uscgameteam3@gmail.com
Good luck to everyone!
Posted by efn at 06:12 PM | Comments (1)
January 26, 2006
Thesis Prep - 6 Questions
Posted below is my first (drafty) response to the 6 questions assignment in 548.
As I answered this, I felt like I may have focused too strongly on an existing idea. I know that recently I've been learning a lot about myself, and I'm finding that what I'm learning relates to this project idea, but it also potentially implies other projects - and at this point I'm having a hard time prioritizing my various personality traits and interests.
anyhow, without further Ado -
1) Area of interest Identified
Music & Sound Design for Interactive Systems
This seems a little vague to me, it's hard to get all of my curiosity about this out in a single phrase
2) Couple of questions and opportunities suggested by area of interest
- what do we want or need to know about this area
How can we more effectively utilize sound in the design of interactive systems?
Can we design a game for "Grooving?"
How far can music go in the creation of "implicit narrative?" (Context)
* limit interactions to musically sensible (system-push)
* Limit music to interactively sensible (system-pull)
* Music Video Game?
* Could a game help people compose music?
* Are _all_ people synaesthetic to a degree?
3) Method or process that can be used to explore the question
Prototyping
(Syncronization)
* Demo where music plays and Actions are forced to coincide with the beats
+ Will this be frustrating? How much latency is acceptible between beats?
+ Will players even notice?
* Beat Demo Where all actions are melodic
+ How will player response be influenced by
- Pitch
- timbre
- Rhythmic elements
+ How will player response be influenced by
- Game mechanic?
- Visual Elements?
- color
- line qualty
4) One to three actual topics or subjects that address your interests/questions
Didn't I get these above?
5) Pair topics with Genre and Audience
I would like to try to focus explicitly on a Flow-oriented experience design.
I would like to try to prove that all people can achieve a flow experience without
narrative or photorealistic graphics, and to begin formalizing a design system
which helps others achieve similar results and continue exploration.
6) Commit to a term (participant, player, reader, user, audience) that you
will use throughout the project
"player"
This is admittedly hard. I think it's valuable to keep this definition
a little fuzzy. "Player" implies a "game" with a "goal" (to me). I know that
this means a lot to me because my final goal involves generating pleasant or
"fun" experiences for other humans. I'm sure that as I prototype my ideas
the terms "User" and "participant" will come up.
Posted by efn at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2006
Looking for a Game Team
I brought this up in Seminar last night, but here's the Blog post I promised everyone as a reminder...
I'm looking for a team to work on a game project for the Independent Game Festival 2007 and/or Slamdance 2007.
If you're interested in working on the project, please send an email to uscgameteam3@gmail.com .
Please include:
Experience
Skills
Interests
Disinterests (i.e. things you DON'T want to work on)
Obviously, the big things we need to fill in are C++ programming, 2D Art, 3D art, and 3D animation.
Right now there is no commitment or schedule, so replying to this doesn't sell your soul or anything. I'll be in touch.
Posted by efn at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2005
532 Open Mic Presentation
Available for download here.
Posted by efn at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2005
Evil Dead 2 Get Together at the NuArt theatre
Hey Everyone, Sorry for the short notice, but I'm gathering a bunch of people to go to the NuArt tonight and see Evil Dead 2. The show starts at Midnight, and we'll probably all meet around Zemeckis at around 10:00 - 10:30. Worst case, you can join us at the theatre directly.
Hope a bunch of you can make it!
Posted by efn at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2005
On retrofitting Pachisi
Admittedly, when we were assigned to modify Pachisi, I thought it wouldn't be too difficult to improve on what I considered to be a rather dull, chance-based game. I've known for quite some time that I'm drawn to games which allow for a large degree of player choice, and which exhibit a particular mathematical elegance. Pachisi, to me, seemed more about random chance than anything else. Admittedly, the opportunity to form a strategy from the chance did arise occassionally, so maybe I was too hard on the game....
At any rate, retrofitting the game proved more challenging than I had expected. Game experiences are obviously multidimensional, and at least from my experience, narrative theme and mathematical elegence just don't seem to go hand in hand...
Cops and Robbers:
I think this was a really good example of a strong narrative theme without a good hold on mechanic. The idea of cops chasing robbers is classic, powerful, and lends itself well to the idea of Pachisi, wherin players "chase" each other's pieces around the board. However, the entirely chance-based nature of Pachisi undermined the attempted narrative, at least in my attempt to play this game. Basically, the robbers completed destroyed the cops because they rolled grace rolls too early. Only a single robber needs to escape, so the odds of all the cops actuall managing to land on the robbers seems very slim. In the version we played, all of the robbers managed to escape, without even using the additional fire mechanic. Honestly, I think this game would have turned out much better if we had time to play several versions of it, hoping that the chance factor would balance out.
Coattails:
Now here was a game that appealed to my sense of mathematical elegance and choice. This game was immediately engaging to me because it was a lot more dynamic than primary Pachisi. The ability to choose to switch lanes immediately gave me a way of escaping the fickle finger of fate and of messing with my opponents, since changing lanes directly affected the outcome of their dice rolls. Strategies also started showing up early, such as waiting in front of someone's start gate, then running them over after taking advantage of the bonus for them being there. Mathematically, however, I would have had the players start on the outside track, because the bonus of having all the players start there would have been offset by having to take a longer path. As it stood, this game was primary about everyone trying to rush their way around the faster inner track, so it still largely fell down to chance until someone had the guts to move into a full slower track.
Despite the great play mechanic, however, I didn't really feel like the game lived up to it's narrative premise. I agree with Tracy and the rest of the classes comments last Thursday, where they stated that the act of blowing past someone was exhilirating because you bowled them over and sent them back to start. This was like a reward for ceasing to ride on someone's Coattails. I would have named the game "Fast Track", or "Rush Hour", honestly, since with everyone crowding around the inner track it felt more like a racecar race than like the original premise.
Life Tropical:
Unfortunately, I didn't really have an opportunity to play this game, but I'd at least like to say that I thought it had a good premise with the idea of ecosystems and predators and prey. Predators and Prey lend themselves to chases around an environment - but I wonder if the delicate balance of a living ecosystem is adequately represented by the chance-oriented nature of Pachisi? I noticed that the movement restriction and bonus could act as a sort of dampening factor on the chance element, so I wonder how this game would have played out.
Pachisi of Verona:
So, since this was the game I presented, I probably don't need to comment on it directly, but I felt that this would be a good place to give a few designer's diary-esque notes.
It's interesting how the actual act of designing this game illustrated a major difference of life perspective between the members of our group. Doox had the (rather brilliant, if I may compliment him here) idea of subverting the competitive, warlike idea of the original Pachisi into a game where couples search for love. In fact, the blockade (which I recall giving him nightmares with the first time we played) was turned into a symbol of happiness. The Castles would be "love hotels" where people could roll the dice to see if the pair fell in love and could become a couple, or maybe if they'd break up.
I, of course, am kind of a contrarian, and can tend to be pretty cynical, so I tried subverting his subversion, and the main concept for Pachisi of Verona was born. Imagine a game of Romeo and Juliet where you play as Lord Montague and Lord Capulet. You'd be feuding with the other player, and would probably find it quite frustrating if your children fell in love with each other! At first, I brought up the idea as kind of a joke, but the more time I spent thinking it through, the more it felt to me like the game mapped pretty well to the chance based nature of Pachisi. I personally believe that love is a very chance based thing, but even if I'm wrong to think so, I imagine it must seem somewhat that way to a disapproving parent. The rather cynical nature of the premise also lent itself well to being a unique narrative, and it could be implemented with minimal changes to the original rules of Pachisi. If you were losing to your opponent, you might want your loser children to pair up with his winners, so that you could move your pieces faster, kind of like marrying upwards in social class. Mathematically, for a couple to reach the center of the board, one of the two tokens would not have made a full lap. In this case, either we could count it as a win for the opponent's piece, who made it into the center without completing a full lap (kind of like marrying upwards for money), or that piece could be stolen from that player for a bonus point. (Kind of like getting a great person to marry downward in social class)
We ended up going back and forth for quite some time on the topic, with Doox actually rather appalled at the idea of such a cynical game. Finally, we reached sort of a compromise wherin the couples would try to run away, much to the annoyance of both famlies. This also completed the narrative cycle of Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, it felt like it became too complicated to have the couples run away, and the mechanics kind of showed this, as Yuechuan pointed out. This might have been a little better on a computer, where the computer would have moved for the couples, instead. This way people wouldn't have to worry about managing them, since it was rather confusing.
Posted by efn at 04:50 AM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2005
Aquariums and interactivity
Ok, so this is a combination of some Google-jumping and some brainstorming....
Here's a list of stuff that found it's way into my Notepad brainstorm -
-Aquariums and the Wonders of Sushi
-Electric Eels and Thomas Edison
-Grinding Nemo: The story of a clownfish in the water filtration system
-Dinoaurs and the Deep - underwater evolution
-Fluid Dynamics and ocean currents
-Algae
-Shipwrecks and ecosystems
-Seahorses
-Voices of the Sea, Whales
- Scuba and Jellyfish
- How fish move, underwater locomotion
I know that a couple of those are pretty terrible, but I'm trying to stay true to the brainstorm. Everything counts.
http://www.fisheriesmanagement.co.uk/Fish%20Studies/locomotion_study.htm
I know that there's a classic SigGraph paper which uses neural networks to control muscles in virtual fish.
(http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/art_life/fish.htm)
UPDATE: Over the weekend I picked up ElectroPlankton for the Nintendo DS. It's not so much a game as a piece of "Touchable media art." Personally, I think this thing is a brilliant example of interactive meda art. There are 10 different types of activities, each one characterized by a unique type of abstract but cute fish, or "plankton". Each one of the activities incorporates a type of music composition, almost as if each one were a type of musical instrument that you could learn to play. Fun stuff, but it has to be experienced to truly understand it. I'll be sure to bring it to class with me tomorrow. It seems like it's incredibly appropriate to our conversation. (It was even a museum piece before it was released on the DS! )
Posted by efn at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)