peart.c

Artist Statement:

Intention:

For my fourth artwork, I was inspired by games like Celeste that merged the gameplay of platformers with messages about life and its many struggles. As a result, I aimed to make a simple and abstract platformer about the experience of making important and meaningful choices in life while being uncertain about the future. I wanted to replicate how I have often felt in my life when I have to make certain choices that deeply affect my future and how I get overwhelmed by the many challenges I may face from those choices.

Original Idea and Playtest:

At first, I wanted to create this experience by having the player play from the perspective of someone dreaming. In a dream, the player character must explore a level filled with obstacles and reach its end in order to wake up and start the next day. After the day is over, the player dreams again and the entire level is changed. This would have continued on for each day forever. This was supposed to represent a person whose goals in life are constantly changing from day to day, as they are uncertain about how they want to live and what they want their life to be like in the future. I planned to achieve this experience by possibly using random generation similar to simple roguelikes like Downwell. However, during my first playtest as I was explaining my idea, someone pointed out how if I were to continue with my plan, I would not be including one of the core aspects of the experience that I wanted to create: choice. My original game didn’t involve the players making a choice, as it only involved them blindly following what the game tells them. Once I realized this mistake, I knew I had to change my idea. This led to the final iteration of my project.

Final Iteration:

The final game involves the aspects that create the experience of making an important choice:

Choosing between options – At the start of the game, the player is picking between two doors that lead to two types of levels, one being platforming levels and the other being combat levels. This is supposed to represent how many times in life you reach a point where you have to choose between a number of options, such as picking a career to pursue and choosing a college to go to. Additionally, I added a little hint, such as having to jump on a platform and having to kill an enemy about what each of the doors represents without explicitly telling the player. This is supposed to show how in life you have little knowledge about each choice you have to make, but you never know exactly how those choices will affect your future until you actually choose them.

Continuing forward or going back – Once you make a choice in the game you must then take on challenges that increase in difficulty as you go on. In order to move to the next challenge, you must make it to the rightmost door. However, you can always choose to go back if you find the challenges too hard, but doing so will send you to the beginning of the game. This represents how in life once you make certain choices, you endure struggles and challenges that relate to that choice without knowing what’s going to come next. If you find the challenges too hard you can often choose to undo your choice, but doing so will set you back in an aspect of your life. These aspects combine to create the experience of making a choice.

Player Controls:

Move – left and right with WASD or Arrow Keys

Jump – Space

Ground Dash – press Shift on the ground, jump while dashing to do a long jump

Air Dash – press Shift in the air

wall jump – Space while sliding on the wall

attack – press R to kill enemies

Enemies:

enemies die in one hit, if the player touches an enemy, they die and restart the level

enemy 1 – move back and forth

enemy 2 – slowly follows the player

spikes:

if the player touches the spikes, they die and restart the level

Pictures:

Starting Level

Platforming Level 1

Combat Level 1

Platforming Level 2

Combat Level 2

Platforming Level 3

Combat Level 3

Win Screen

Reflection:

Overall I say that my project was a success in creating the feelings that I wanted. Some things I could definitely work on in this game are the enemy sprites and how I balanced the difficulty, but I feel like I did pretty well with the time and experience that I had. In fact, I feel like I can take what I have done so far and turn it into a fleshed out game about overcoming challenges without knowing what will come next, which could be a great message to experience for people who are going through the same things I am and a great addition to my portfolio. I loved working on this project, as it gave me a chance to really try unity for the first time and see how it works. It also gave me a chance to work on my skills in level design, enemy design, and player mechanics. I really enjoyed this class and I can’t wait to take what I learned and use it to help me in the future!

Assets Used:

8-Bit Dungeon Deluxe Tileset/Sprites by Jamie Cross

2D Pixel Art Character Template Asset Pack by ZeggyGames

Materials needed:

• Uno cards (of course)

Basic Rules:

• Each player starts with zero cards
• For each round, one player takes their turn as the drawer and places two cards from the shuffled deck on the table.
• The first player to touch a card gets to keep it in their hand
• Any card that is not picked is added face-up to the discard pile
• After the turn is over, the next player in the rotation takes their turn and draws the next two card

Duplicate Cards:

• If a player gets a card with a number they already have, then they have to choose to give up at most 3 cards and add them face-up into the discard pile.
• If a player gets a card with a number and the same color they already have, then they have to give up all of their cards and add them face-up into the discard pile.

Special Cards:

• Reverse Card – If the player gets a reverse card, they can switch hands with a player of choice
• Skip Card – If the player gets a skip card, then they can’t pick a card the next turn
• Draw Card – If the player gets a draw 4 or a draw 2 card, they can choose to pick 2 cards or 4 cards for free respectively from the shuffled deck or do nothing  
• Wild Card – If the player gets a wild card, they can pick one card of a chosen color from a chosen player

Win Condition: The first player to get the number cards 0-9 wins

Special Rules:

• If two Special cards are in effect, then the player who’s turn to draw comes first plays their special card first.
• One player can only grab one card during a round
• If you use a draw card and get another draw card, you can choose to draw more cards based on the type of draw card drawn on top of the cards already being drawn
• If you use a draw card and get a reverse, you can choose to use the reverse after you have drawn all of your cards.
• If you use a draw card and get a skip, then you can no longer continue drawing cards. Additionally, you will not be able to pick a card next round
• If you use a draw card and get a wild, you can choose to use the wild after you have drawn all of your cards
• If the game runs out of cards in the shuffled deck, take the cards from the discard pile and flip them over to make in the new shuffled deck

Playtest Notes:

• Playtest #1:
  • Problem – The player who drew the card for the round had too much of an advantage, as they could immediately go from drawing to picking a card. 
  • Solution – The drawer for the round now draws 2 cards instead of one, allowing for everyone to have a chance picking a card and increasing the choices available for players
• Playtest #2:
  • Problem: The discard pile was made with cards being face down, potentially allowing for a player to cheat by lying about what cards they put down
  • Solution: The discard pile is now specifically face-up so that other players know what cards a player is putting down.
• Pictures:

Inspiration:

Takako Saito’s chess series inspired me, and how it changed small elements of chess to completely change the meaning of the game. I wanted to achieve this same effect with one of my favorite childhood games: Uno. Additionally, I was also inspired by the Dada movement, as I wanted to challenge what a Uno type of game could be just like how the movement challenged what art could be. While my game and the original are completely different, they both revolve around the same core idea of managing the cards in your hand and using luck to your advantage in a way that is simple enough so that all ages can understand the flow of the game. I really wanted to emphasize this in my game’s design, so I made sure to achieve a good balance between skill and luck.

Instruction

Take a picture of you. Then find a picture or video of you that was taken at least a year ago. Compare how you look today with how you looked back then. Then go back another year and repeat the process. Keep going back until you’ve reached 3 years or ran out of pictures. After you’re done, talk to a partner about the differences you noticed.

Materials Required

phone(provided by the participants)

Artist Statement

For this project, I wanted to create a score that focused heavily and specifically on self-reflection and soul searching. I believe it is an important and meaningful practice that should be done by someone every once and a while to remember where they’ve come from and who they are now.

The project is inspired by books read in class, such as Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. This book contained simplistic directions and instructions that were clear enough to understand but allowed for the reader to interpret them in their own way. This created thought-provoking and meaningful experiences that were unique to each and every reader but similar enough that they could be compared. After reading this book, I knew that I wanted to at least attempt to construct a score that achieved a similar effect.

At first, my score involved taking a series of pictures that represented different points in life, such as pursuing marriage, graduating from college, and having children, and arranging them in way that fit the life the player had in the past and the life they want to have in the future. However, I ran into a simple but devastating problem. What is considered a “meaningful” point in life? Owning your first pet? Getting your first house? Getting your first real job? What about something as small as achieving a savings goal? Fostering Self-love and self-appreciation? The problem that I uncovered was that there are simply too many experiences that are important for the human being to be condensed into 15 or 20 simple images. This in turn complicated my process, and I had to pursue the project from a different angle.

Consequently, I turned my attention to how a person views themselves, and how that self-image changes drastically even in a small amount of time. I focused on the pictures provided by the player themselves rather than by the project, and how the change of those pictures over time represents the change in the player’s sense of self, thus leading to the final iteration of my project.

Through the playtest, I received overall positive feedback from participants. They found the score very enjoyable and insightful, as it gave them a chance to reflect on how much they’ve grown as a person and appreciate what they’ve become. As a result, I would describe my project as a complete success.