ariraar

Rules:

-WASD movement keys

-Spacebar jump

-Mouse to click Restart and Quit(buttons are buggy on player death)

Artist Statement:

I struggled coming up with an idea at first for an underrepresented topic within games. I then saw my friend playing the Call of Duty Black Ops 2 campaign, and saw how his decisions throughout the game, had no effect on the end. So my game is an abstract way of representing how the decisions we make throughout a game, and the path we take, mean nothing in the end. They are just trial and tribulations, and can be seen throughout all games in a bigger sense as just events.

My biggest inspirations came from class, where I saw the video on the Jejune Institute. In the commentary, people were saying how afterwards they looked at the city they lived in for years differently. The other inspiration came from the game, The Graveyard, where an elderly lady walks across a pathway in a morgue, and sits on a bench. The elderly lady’s life was randomized so, she could pass away while walking down the path. Also, I liked the style of how the game was always the same setting, and same action, so the end is always constant. So my goal, taking away from these games, was to open the players eyes towards my objective about choices and effects of decisions within games.

So I created a little character within a platformer, and a repetitive environment to show represent games as a whole. I then used spikes, to represent the events that players, and the choices they make each time. I randomized whether the spike made the player lose a life or not if they touched it. I then randomized the player’s life on each round played, so that the character might reach the end sooner. Originally, my first playtest was a different game: a 3D survival style, where the player was in a boxed environment, and could just walk around, while their health dwindled over time. After playtesting I felt that game wasn’t fitting towards my goal. That’s why I thought a platformer would work better. The level was designed for the player to keep trekking down, while their health could be lost by hitting spikes, of varying sizes and quantities. The end of the level is just empty so the player falls to oblivion. The player always has the option to restart or quit the game whenever.

After looking back at this semester, I can say I learned a lot of ways expressing myself through art, integrated into games. My favorite game that I made in the class, had to be our very first one: a score, the person must communicate with a stranger using only their phone. The objective was to make the player uncomfortable.

The Game:

arora_art4

In order to receive the knife skin, a player must complete all 7 challenges in order. I am the only judge on whether a challenger passes or fails a task. A task may be repeated only once. Forfeiting after accepting a challenge will result in dire consequences. As the Oracle, I am granted full immunity. Do you accept?

The Objectives:
1. Get a knife kill.
2. Have a spray art competition.
3. Have a chat with a comrade about the US election.
4. Get 2 kills with an AWP in one round.
5. Get first blood with a glock/usp
6. Spend all your money, then throw all of it on the ground. Survive the round with just your knife, while constantly moving around the map.
7. Successfully plant and blow up the bomb, without you having fired a shot/Ninja Defuse without you killing anybody.

Artist Statement:

After seeing many examples of Interventions, I wanted to work within a digital space. The perfect environment for this, to me, was Counter Strike Global Offensive. Since the community is infamous for being inexplicably toxic, I wanted to be able to subvert their focus from the usual goal of defending/attacking bomb sites. While playing Counter Strike, there are many small objectives and strategies employed, usually subconsciously, in order to win the round : knowing the other teams economy, will they force buy, what site to stack, where each player is positioned on the map, who was killed, where, how to attack, etc. So I decided to create a series of objectives/challenges, where the end goal was a knife. This way it followed the CSGO design of reaching a certain number of rounds to win. My setup was similar in that in order to progress each challenge/task must be completed in order to move on to the next, while the objective of the task differed from main CSGO priority. My inspiration for creating this intervention, came from watching The Jejune Institute video in class. The Jejune Institute led many people on mini adventures, exploring places they lived and worked at, by creating little quests for the players. This in turn opened up a new perspective or outlook on how they began to see life, and the joy they felt. I saw how it played with people’s emotions, lifting people spirits up at some points; but later on when they found out that the main boss was actually supposed to be bad, many became conflicted and angry. The whole point of the intervention was to try and recreate a new from of socializing. My purpose for creating quests and implementing it within Counter Strike Global Offensive was that it could channel that toxicity into a more narrowed focus. By giving the players initiative to take on the tasks, they seem to overlook the loss of traditional objectives in CSGO.

Documentation:

Objective: To get the most points by scoring balls of used paper in the recycle bin.

Rules:

Scoring from the first floor stairs is 1 point. 2 points from the second floor, and 3 points from the 3rd floor. If a shot goes in the trash, its -1 point.

Each player gets 5 shots.

The players alternate turns between shots. The player with the most points by the end wins.

Artist Statement:

I had trouble coming up with ideas for a game using appropriated material. I wasn’t sure what to make, and what to transform. The idea came about when I was leaving class. I walked by and saw the trash cans, and the way they were set up reminded me of basketball hoops. This made me think of transforming people’s views on trash and recycling through a game. Learning about the Fluxus movement, and how they wanted to separate boundaries between life and art, my game is my attempt.
Inspiration for using the staircase came from 3 semesters ago. I got to witness Celia Pearce’s class drop mini beanie bags from the 2nd story rails while people with boxes on their heads ran along the first floor randomly trying to catch them. The use of heights, a staircase, used for connecting different levels of structure would be symbolic of my scoring system. I think my piece embodies more Fluxus than Dada since it available to the masses. Everyday people recycle paper and plastics, and throw away trash. Yet, people still remain ignorant to the fact that they have a part in hurting the environment whenever they throw recyclables in the trash. This way, by attempting to break the barrier of art and everyday life, people can educate themselves while having fun. This will give the player, the control of shaping the piece. That being what they choose to shoot in the recycling bin, or the trash can. This pulls more from Fluxus, since it is a process which is for creating rather having an end product, which is influenced by the ideologies of John Cage. The end product would be the outcome of the environment.

My first iteration of this, I hadn’t thought of the recycling bin. I had just seen the trash cans, and they looked perfect for the game I was going to make. After a  few playtests, I realized it had no meaning to me other than basketball with paper. I then saw the recycling bin, and thought that I could address the differences between the two of them, using my game. Since its more common for people throw away anything into the trash, I would make that a consequence. This way people would become more aware of recycling and their focus would adjust accordingly.

The Goals

3rd floor

Winner