Score:
- Draw circles (which start and end at the same point) on a paper
- Don’t touch the lines
- Start imaging a world with shapes and add icons (modifiable)
Artistic Statement:
The idea was inspired by the process to create game art in Pearce’s “Game as Art”, which was to make the viewers enroll in the game. However, I think about it reversely: what if a player becomes an art viewer? Paper and pen are common tools used by the player to document the process of the game. The recorded information represents the whole adventure of a player. I recalled the memory with my friends when I saw the notes of the game. From then on, I realized that I viewed the notes from a player to a viewer aspect.
I usually search about how programmers achieve the visual effect with only code and basic assets. The logic sometimes is really simple, but nobody has this idea before. It is fun to see how the code runs violently, but everything looks fine on the screen. A map in a game is important but sophisticated to generate. Different developers use many kinds of methods. However, an interesting fact is that most video games with a generated world would like to generate the landscape first, then other content. The whole process is run by the computer with the rules, but I think it can be interesting if I figure out a way to generate a map physically.
In programming logic, everything related to graphs is about points and lines. So, a map is the result of patterned points and lines that seem like a “map” defined by people. Then, the problem is obvious, what kind of patterns make people think the graph is a map? From my research, contour lines are widely used in professional maps. Then, I find the common traits that all lines are circles and they don’t touch each other. With the lines, it is easy to imagine the world and stories. Finally, adding icons on the map for hints. This part can be modified with other rules.
The playtested result shows more than I expected. Different numbers of players can affect the process of the stories (players make their own storylines, and sometimes interact with others). I modified the third part of the score with guidance to help players imagine the contents of the world. The more players to playtest, the less guidance they need.
1 player / lots of guidance
2 players / no guidance
3 players / little guidance