Yiheng

Project4: Express – Google Docs

I’m so excited that I put the idea that I had before I came into college into this game!

When the first time I started to play cooperation game, I enjoyed it. I really loved how people did the teamwork and finally won. Even until now, the cooperation game I play is like purely cooperation. For example, Human Fall Flat and Minecraft. In these games, people can assign works for each other and survive in an easy way. However, when I start to read the novels and movies, I know that we can’t easily understand what the other people think in the end of the world. I see so many people betray their friends even families for a chance to be alive. They even kill the others to make sure that they have enough food. That’s the real cooperation situation under the end of the world.

Thus, I create my game like this. The background is in the end of the world that people live in the shelters. The 4 players are the refugees going from the original shelters to the next. They are a team, however, they get the informed that only 1 survivor who finally arrives at then next shelter will be accepted. If there are more than one survivor, the one who has got most money will be accepted. They need 10 days to go to the next shelter. They will meet dangers or treasures in the day and do somethings secretly at night — find food, money or assassinate (1 damage to any player). It’s a game of cooperation and competition.

In the first version of my game, it was a little bit mess. Assassinate didn’t have got CD and they have enough food so that everyone was just trying to kill each other. The robbers they met at day only take 1 money from them which was not excited. However, the treasure works well. There are two kinds of treasures — money and food. There’s a box named “4” or “5”. The 4 players should decide the sequence by themselves, and they could take any quantity they want from the box. It made the conflict in the team! It was a tragic that one played got assassinated in three nights by all teammates. That’s why I added the CD for assassinate.

In the second version, I changed something. “Robbers” need every player to pay 4 golds in total. However, every player secretly chooses how much money they want to pay. If there’s not enough money, every player loses 1 health! It works very nice! Additionally, since the CD of assassinate, no one tries to kill the target only by assassinate. Here’s some pictures from the second play test. I record what happened every day.

After the second play test, I had a new thought immediately! The idea is from Yoko Ono’s work “Cut Piece”. Ono sit on the stage with her best suit. There are scissors in front of her and the audiences were asked to use it and cut the suit into piece. I do the same thing. When the game ends, I add a new step. Firstly, if the final player doesn’t arrive the next shelter, all other three players sit together to see if the final player can survive by him/herself in the next days. Then, I take all records of the game (like the 4 pictures up there) one by one and read them aloud about what everyone did every night. It’s like I’m using the scissors to remove the disguise on their face. I’m also interesting to see what will happen when they see the true face of the other players.

In my intervention, I chose the game League of Legends to be the base and add my rule into it. It’s called zero-damage plan.

Details for what I do and the data:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/187eSSJCVMeX1Il2NOfoEyRbutEyVF16PmJ1oeM3U86U/edit?usp=sharing

Art statement:

When the first time I started to play League of Legends, I was taught to kill enemies as more as I can. Back to the begin, League of Legends is a MOBA game and the target is to destroy the enemies’ base. However, when I asked my brother why everyone’s just killing each other, he told me, everyone’s doing that. “You get killed if you don’t kill them”. That’s why I’m trying to find a way to win without dealing damage to the enemies. I played the game with my friends. I went to the top lane since the top lane players have got a tradition — split push. They stay in top lane trying to destroy the towers while the other four teammates group together for dragons and baron. It gives me the chance to win by dealing no damage.

The idea is actually from the Chinese history story that the country “Qi” assigned their army to attack “Wei”‘s capital so that they can rescue the country named “Zhao” who was attacked by “Wei”. I really admire how they can win the war without any fight. That’s what I want to do in my plan. Nowadays, people overtrust the power itself, but ignore the people who command the war. Even though I won’t hurt the enemies, I can limit the enemies’ action. They can’t ignore me when I’m destroying the towers. That’s why I want to try this plan to see if I can win without a fight.

So the basic idea is like, in the lane, I take as much damage as I can and ask my jungle to help me limit the enemy top to farm. (It will be better if we kill him). During the mid game, I keep split pushing, if someone comes to catch me, I escape. When this person goes back to the front lane, I go for push again. Like this, there will always be an enemy on his way to the front or to me. If the enemies don’t care about me, I can push and destroy the towers very fast. under this condition, we’ll easily win since the lane I do split push is really far from the baron or dragon the enemies want. At this time, my teammates are really important since they must win the 4v4 team fight or play for time in a 4v5 fight. The winning condition is for everyone doing their job without any wrong! I was like a military counsellor, sitting in the back and command everything in its correct way.

There’s a better solution that I asked the enemy top to be peace in the lane. If he/she agrees with me (I tried this before), we can easily farm and I can build items for push very fast. However, I was always refused or ignored so that I can only ask my jungle to Gank him/her.

More details are in my Google doc. I really love the idea. Although it’s hard to win, but really gives me feeling of achievement!

Preset:

1. A basic version of Parcheesi.
2. Some coins.
3. 6 written alliances symbol.

First part: Rule of normal Parcheesi.

1.     Roll 2 dice each turn, if there’s a five (the sum of 2 dice equals 5 is also ok), put one piece to the start position and move.
2.     The 2 dice can be used to move 2 pieces. If you roll a double, you can have another chance to roll the dice.
3.     When you pass a piece of another color, you can send them back to the home unless they are in a safety place.
4.     One grid can only stand 2 pieces. If there’s 2, it’s a wall and pieces can’t go across it.
5.     You should have exactly the same steps to go to the end point.

Second part: Rule of appropriation （Coins）

1. How to get coins:

•  If you pass through someone’s piece and don’t send it back, you can get one coin. It seems as you build an alliance with this person and both of you take one coin. One move can only get at most 1 coin from 1 person.
• One player can only build an alliance with one player. When he builds an alliance with another player or makes an offensive action (send the piece back, use 5 coins …), it seems as a betrayal. This player can get one coin. Also, players can’t build an alliance and betray the same player in one same turn.

2. Usage of coin:

• 1 coin can build a safety place for a grid once/one turn for yourself only.
• 5 coins can send a piece back to the start
• 10 coins can send a piece to the end directly.
• Every effect can be denied by the same number of coins.

(Yellow is about to win but green pays 5 coins to send the final piece back).

3. Some other things:

• Oral alliance and coin transactions are allowed in the game.
• Important!!! This is a personal game. The only method to win is to send all of your pieces to the end point. Alliance is not considered as winning together.

(Playing with the coins and alliances).

Art Statement:

Like what I said in my self-introduction, I’m an enthusiast in PvP games — especially the games that make conflict both tactically and technically between players. I really love the players thinking a bunch of things before they make a choice in the game. So, that’s how my game is born with the central concept — “trust” and “betrayal”. 

Like the Dada artist made their works to show their anti-war attitude, my game satires the war itself — your alliance can betray you at any time for their own benefits. Like the wisdom said, “Neither friends nor rivals are everlasting, but only profits.” Raising war only means to put yourself in a dangerous condition since there’s always no winner. Additionally, it’s like turning a game from our childhood to the deep dark meaning in the adults’ world!

Back to the game itself, based on the basic Parcheesi, I add a new thing into it — coins. When I play the Parcheesi, I found that players want to beg another player not to send their piece back but the rule forces. Also, players always form alliances to oppose the strongest player. Thus, I change the rule to allow the players to do what they want — they can form alliances to earn the coin which can save their pieces, however, they can only build alliances with one player and can get betrayed at any time. Also, since the target of the game has not been changed, alliances are not considered in winning. Only one player can win, a teammate is just a tool for the winner. In the first iteration of my game, the coin can only make the safety space and the player has 1 way to earn a coin — not to send enemy pieces back. I allow the players to do coin transactions as they want — “I give you one coin and you send his piece back” like this. Then, Jackson told me players should have more ways to earn and use the coins, the coin transaction is too free. I really love his idea, so in my final iteration, I make a large improvement in the coin mechanics. I encourage the players to build alliances and betray each other — they can earn more coins. Also, 5 and 10 coins can have a large power in the game but can be canceled by using the same amount of coins. This is how I make the coins important and promote the interaction between players. The alliances sign is for the players to remember the alliances more easily.

I did the play test with my roommates and they really love this game. One of my roommates loves to betray teammates and then say some words to satirize the other players — this is what I want in the game. (Although that caused another roommate don’t want to play this game with him any more).(This is what happened from his anger).

Score Final Iteration: “Infinite Refraction”

Score:

One object, a transparent bottle with water, a camera

Take the picture of the object and put it into the water.

Observe what changes through refraction.

Try to make a new object look like the refracted one.

Put it into the water again and repeat the steps.

Take pictures for everything you made.

See what changes from the beginning to the end.

Art Statement:

The refraction through the water is kinds of interesting experience. When I was small, I try to look at this world through a bottle of water so that I got a totally different scene. Water is one thing that has magic. When I put the spoon into the water, it seems to be bigger. Additionally, when I move the spoon to the front and back, it changes with the distance to me in the water. I took a group of pictures for this.

At this time, I watched the video from Zach King, a You tuber who focus on the visual magic. In the newest video, he makes water magic which is to create visual error by water. There’s a part that he put a pencil into the water, it looks like the pencil is bended by the refraction. However, when he takes out the pencil from the water, it was really bended. By the video, I think that I can record one thing get refracted again and again and start my preparation.

For my preparation, I firstly start to find a transparent bottle. A normal plastic bottle without any patterns is easier to observe. Then, I need an object that can be easy to transformed or make a new one after refracted. I tried to put my wire into the bottle but there’s no big change. At last, I choose to us the wire to create a shape and observe its refraction. It’s really hard to use normal objects like spoon to play since I cannot make its form after refracted. That’s why I choose the wire.

The central idea of this score is that — when people pass the information to each other, something in detail will be changed since the information is conveyed through people’s memory. Thus, after some times of information get conveyed, it’s different to what it was before. My score is to stimulation this progress and compare the final object to the original one. For example, in the pictures I uploaded, the wire is much fatter than the origin one. In our real life, especially when we try to tell our friends something happens, this thing is “refracted” again and again. At last, it becomes a Rumor which is totally different than before.

It’s my first time combine the homework to the word “experimental”. I did many steps to achieve these pictures especially the choice of objects. I enjoyed the progress of doing experiments!

P.S. I’m trying to make a video like that through this method.

Here’s the final one I made:

The action is inspired from Ono’s Grapefruit, “Painting to Hammer a Nail”, about doing one thing again and again everyday in the morning. From my point of view, the water refraction is transitory and changing ever time when you change the angle of observing. Thus, I choose not to do it everyday but repeat in one time until I can’t. I really love how Ono shows her final piece out but I only have the pictures and videos — water refraction is a fleet thing. So I try to edit a video at the end of my works.