Experimental Game Design

lalala

šŸŽ

by | Dec 6, 2024 |

šŸŽ is a live-action roleplay game made for children and adults. I cherish the unexpected things that people would not usually think or do in real life, so I wanted to provide a media (the game) as an excuse for them to experiment with different views of the world and to enjoy the simple joy of exploring their childish side.

The Larp starts with the perspective (narrative) of an apple that has been forgotten on the road by its owner on their way home. The player will be roleplaying as the poor apple in the process of trying to get back to the supermarket.

It was a typical day at the bustling supermarket, where shelves were stocked with the freshest produce, ready to make their way into the homes of eager customers. Among them sat a bright, shiny apple, nestled in the fruit section, waiting to be chosen. But when the last customer of the day hurried out of the store, in their rush, they forgot the apple.Ā 

Left behind, alone on the cold concrete outside, it sat for what felt like an eternity, its glossy skin slowly fading. As the hours passed, the apple felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. It had been so close to finding its place in someoneā€™s kitchen, but now, abandoned and forgotten, it faced a world it didnā€™t understand. Its once bright, cheerful hue began to dull with every passing minute, the emptiness inside it growing larger. The sounds of the city, once full of promise, now felt harsh and distant. With no one to turn to, the apple began its lonely journey back to the supermarket, hoping that somehow it could find its way homeā€”but deep down, it couldnā€™t shake the feeling that it might never be noticed again.Ā 

Determined to get back to the supermarket, the apple pushed forward, rolling as fast as it could. The street was cluttered with trash bags, blowing around in the wind, and the apple tried its best to push them out of the way. But in its hurry, it didnā€™t see a small pile of blueberries ahead. With a soft thud, it crashed into them, crushing the berries under its weight. The blueberries quickly bounced up, their tiny round bodies shaking with anger. “Hey, watch where you’re going!” one of them snapped. The others joined in, grumbling loudly. “You squashed us!” another blueberry complained.Ā 

action 1: The player should say sorry to each blueberry and of course you will count the number first.Ā 

The apple froze, feeling a deep wave of guilt. It hadnā€™t meant to hurt anyone, but now it realized how much damage it had caused. Slowly, it rolled forward, its heart heavy, and said softly, ā€œIā€™m so sorry. I didnā€™t see you there. Please forgive me.ā€ The blueberries stared at the apple for a moment. Finally, one of them spoke up. ā€œYou need to be more careful next time.ā€ The apple nodded, feeling embarrassed but relieved. The anger faded, and with that small act of kindness, the apple continued on its way, hoping its journey would lead it back home.

The apple continued its journey, determined to find the aisle it belonged in. As it rolled down the street, it spotted something familiarā€”a loaf of bread. It was an old friend, now its golden-brown, no longer the small doughy loaf it once was. Even though the bread had grown strong, the apple still felt protective. It gently rolled up to the loaf and covered it with a small cloth, like a blanket, to keep it warm and crispy. The bread smiled softly, touched by the appleā€™s care. “Thank you,” it said quietly. The apple felt a little less lonely, happy to have helped its old friend.

action2: Find a blanket-like material to warp the bread you find in the supermarket and gently pet it.Ā 

As the apple rolled on, it realized how much time had passed. Feeling brave, it decided to confess its feelings to the celery, the one it had admired from afar in the produce aisle. The apple rolled up to a bunch of celery and, with a hopeful heart, slipped a small ring onto one of the stalks. ā€œWill you be mine?ā€ it asked quietly. The celery didnā€™t answer, standing still and silent. But the apple didnā€™t mind. It had shared its feelings, and that was enough. The apple rolled away, content, knowing it had tried.

action 3: put your ring on a stalk-like vegetable and purpose to it

 

šŸ’§šŸŒ· Botany Manor Project

by | Dec 6, 2024 |

Botany Manor project

–aims to heal people by generating imaginary plants nurtured by tears (rain) and rage (heat) around campus.

Initially, I wanted to draw a botany manor with different species of plants that the species alters when one more person sheds a tear somewhere on campus (the humidity rises).
(concept & drawings)
As I kept receiving new responses, I decided to turn this into a long-term project that I might continue to work on outside of classes. I built an Instagram account to share my progress at @botany_manor_project.
Progress 1/5 :
I started by building a Google form to collect students’ answers about where they have cried or felt the most anger on campus. Then, I put up posters that made people feel connected. You can scan the QR code to respond to the questionnaire. (because of the composed quality in this blog, here is a link portal to the questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QfbcDt1-UpAkVhqyhcXMltU05ip1_-VyOQkLtycZb2I/prefill
Progress 2/5:
I have received many (over 80 so far) responses, and out of curiosity, I opened up an option for people to share their cry/ rage stories. The replies are interesting as they gathered the negative emotions that students my age would typically have.
The result shows that Snell/ Curry Student Center area has seen the most emotional expressions from students. The most anger/ rage scenarios happened in Snell and Ryder Hall.
Progress 3/4:
I realized that to accomplish this goal, I would have to program and do a lot of coding. Although I do not think I have the coding skills to do that, I found this website–https://pollinator.art/about/living-artworks— to implement the garden as a final result for the project.
I arranged the flowers according the overall layout of the buildings on Northeastern Campus. The website allows me to plant different plant and the flowers should be representing the environment created by the data from the questionnaire. Most of the Rain (tears) and Heat (rage) contributes to the Ryder/ Snell areas so the flowers on the according places are the highest on the lawn because of the nutrition and resources they got.
One day my friend told me that there is a post about my poster in Ell hall and people are discussing it on Reddit. It is nice to see my project got attention from my peers. The purpose of the project is to make people relate and helpfully be healed by the garden.

Chewy Game šŸ§ø

by | Oct 25, 2024 |

Chewy game is a single player physical game made for both children and adults. This is a game that takes appropriation of Gummy Bears. Originally, I wanted to take advantage of the bouncy physical feature of the candies. Then I realized that Gummy Bears are linked to childhood memories for a lot of people. My friends told me that their parents would give them gummy bears as a reward for accomplishing goals. And they always appear when it was festival season and were giving out as a presentā€¦ however, in my case, gummy bears are connected to the image of liquor and bar games. I used to love dipping the gummy bears in liquor bottles and took them out the next day. They will have a great taste and become 2 times bigger than before. I thought it would be interesting to take the form (of candy) and the mechanism of bar game (which are usually restricted to children) to make a game for children.

During playtesting, I got some playtester noted that this grab and throw mechanic is very similar to knucklebone game (jacks), a game that has multiple origins and is played worldwide. My cousin told me that my game remind him of Assyk, a traditional sport of Kazakh cultures, instead of gummy bears, they use real knucklebones of lambs.

Preparation:

a bag of gummy bears and take two of the same colorā€™s (usually there will be 5 colors in a bag) and a plushie.

How to play:

  1. Scatter these 10 gummy bears on table (shuffle?)
  2. Throw the plushie up high (the higher the more time you got for picking the gummy bears.)
  3. Speed Grab one gummy bear at a time and catch the falling plushie (with one hand).
  4. Throw again and grab a pile of gummy bears (that should be 5 of them)
  5. If failed to catch the plushie, discard all of the bears you have and start over.

Goal(s):

  1. Because this is a game that takes practice to be good at, as you play longer you should be less hesitated and require less time to pick the gummy bears in correct colors.
  2. Try not to fail catching the plushie

2nd iteration: (another version)

I thought I would be great to have the player eat the gummy bears at some point of the gameplay. Since it is edible and I gave the volunteer playtesters gummy bears as a reward anyways.

My professor suggested that this game is really about restriction. Both in time and physically. It is hard to catch and grab by only one hand. So I kind of wanted to push the limit of the restrictions (balance).

To make it easier, I replaced the plushie with a small beanbag.

  1. Wash your hands & make sure the gummy bears are edible
  2. Same as the old rules 1-5.
  3. But this time, once you succeed one attempt to grab and catch, pass the gummy bear to your other hand.
  4. Focus on this hand and throw up the gummy bear, quickly flip your hand and catch it by the back of your hand.
  5. Balance and let it lying safely on the back of your hand while throwing up the beanbag using the other hand.
  6. Grab & catch your next target
  7. Congrats! This counts as a round and you can finally consume the gummy bear.
  8. Repeat until you got (eat) all 5 of the gummy bears of different colors.

?

by | Sep 28, 2024 | ,

Inspired by Kaprow’s ā€˜happeningā€™.Ā “The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps as indistinct as possible. We learned most of the history by trusting the authorities. Humans are restricted to one single timeline and space. History is up to us what to believe. Think backward & find it fascinating that historical events are not by design.

instructions:

Take photos (use toy cameras) ā€“low resolutionĀ 

Use the photo to come up with a narrative of made-up history

Mix them up with real historical events (newspaper/narrative)Ā 

Tell an incredulous story convincingly (and with enthusiasm)

Examples: (gameplay)

Playtester 1:

PICT0677 (A photo of a man flying-kicking an iron ball)

怐 A man claiming to be a descendant of Newton donated this sculpture to the MFA Museum. He recounted a family story about a true experience involving Newton: one day, Newton was struck on the head by a large iron ball that came from an unknown direction. Furious, he decided to study why the iron ball fell and hit him. This anger fueled his research, leading to the formulation of Newton’s three laws of motion. Inspired by this story, the sculpture was created. 怑

Player 2:

**Pict0680 A Bunch of Statues**

 

怐This is a record found in a donated diary, supposedly by Leonardo da Vinci, at the MFA museum.

ā€œOn October 11, while walking in the forest, the fog suddenly thickened around me, and I couldnā€™t see the path ahead. I had to stumble forward blindly. When the fog finally cleared, I found myself in a place I had never seen before, filled with ancient Greek sculptures, all of them incomplete. The architectural style of this place was completely beyond my understanding, and the materials hinted at something that filled me with dreadā€”it didnā€™t belong to my civilization. My gaze met the head of a statue. I couldnā€™t comprehend what was before me, but I was deeply shaken. Back home, I fell into deep thought. I felt like I had received a new inspiration, with various truths and ideas flooding my mind. Perhaps I should start my creation now.ā€ 怑

PICT 0206

**A Corner of an Octopus Sculpture**

怐 The curator of the Massachusetts Maritime Museum loves to share a story whenever he sees someone admiring his favorite octopus sculpture. He tells them that before Columbus set sail, he had a dream about a giant octopus. He told his crew he had never seen such a beautiful creature before. So, he decided to get ready for a voyage, hoping to explore all the oceans just to catch a glimpse of this amazing being.

As he traveled, he did expand our understanding of the oceans and continents, but he never came across that dream creature. His sailors insisted that finding the beautiful giant octopus was their reason for setting out, but historians didnā€™t really buy that explanation. So, this fascinating bit of history is only known by the curator, who is passionate about the ocean. 怑