scott

My final game is a text based adventure game written in a way to emulate the struggles someone with dyslexia has. You play a silence protagonist who also struggles with Dyslexia and goes on an epic adventure to distract themselves for the bullies that often torment them, along the way you explore an abandoned school, fight monstrous beasts, and meet a great mentor.

Artist Statement:

My game was mainly inspired by my own struggles with Dyslexia and having to overcome the difficulties that come along with this learning disability. I wanted the player to understand what it’s like for someone with dyslexia to read even simple sentences or words, as it is hard to describe the struggle to people. Using a text based adventure game seemed fitting to me as it is much like a book but more interactive, fun and engages the player in the story and world. Another big inspiration for this piece was Yoko Ono, a lot of her works took some ordinary object and would changed, and use it in a way that was out of the ordinary. I tried to do that in my game by take words and misspelling them in ways where the letters would still produce the same sounds and hopefully confuse the player, as it is very reminiscent of being dyslexic in my experience. I also took inspiration from games like Grimrock and old text based adventure games; exploring a dungeon, fight enemies and getting lost is what made those games enjoyable to play and I tried to recreate that experience in my game as well by the way I layed out the map and how the play moves around. I also think my game explores the idea of affordances; words are meant to efficiently express information yet in my game they do the exact opposite. Most of the words are misspelled which only makes it more difficult to understand the story and what is happening, and this is also very true for people with dyslexia as word are more of an obstacle for them. I really enjoyed making this game; I hope you have a good time playing it and learn part of the small struggle that people with dyslexia go through.

Dislecsic

Video:

How to play:

You do need to have Java 11 downloaded on your computer in order for the game to run.

If it asks for an account when installing Java 11 you can use :

Username: uocrlowbtsksjqavyo@nthrw.com

Password: 123!Test

1. First download the file above to your computer
2. Next double click on the zip file
3. Then open the folder that was created when you double clicked on the zip file
4. After that right click in the .jar file named Dislecsic.jar and click run
5. It should run the program it might also prompt you ask if you want to run it click yes.
6. If you have any issues, encounter any bug or experience any difficulty please email me at pignataro.s@northeastern.edu.

My Game:

My intervention piece is a real-world game of Where’s Waldo. The way you play this game is by dressing up as Waldo and going around and trying to discreetly get in the back of people’s photos; that way when they look back at their photos they will see Waldo in the background and hopefully chuckle.

Artist Statement:

My inspiration for my game came from several places but my main inspirations were a Halloween Costume, which was Where’s Waldo, and the Pac-Manhattan game. In my senior year of high school, I got to participate in my Elementary School’s Halloween Parade and as the parents took pictures of their kid in costume I would stand in the background that way the kids could “find Waldo” later. The Pac-Manhattan game really interested me when we talk about it in class but it took a game from a completely different medium and took it into the real world; I really enjoyed that concept because it took something that most people would only consider a videogame and made it tangible. The goal of my game was to take the fun of the picture book game and move it into the real world by taking the normal convention of trying to void getting in someone’s photo and turning it on its head, by having the main objective to sneakily and discreetly get in the background of photos. There are some challenges with this though, my biggest struggle was finding a place where people are taking photos where you can reasonably get in the background, some great advice given to me was to go to landmarks or museums as those places often have high photo traffic and tourist taking photos. Some common issues I ran into were that people would sometimes position themselves in ways where you couldn’t get behind them, ie up against a railing or wall, another issue was closing the distance between the people taking the photo and where I was. I of course didn’t want to run as that would draw unwanted attention to me and ruin the point of the game.

The photos Above are some of my attempt at this game. On the left was me “ruining” my friends photo of the statue outside the MFA. The center is me and some friends near the Boston Commons, they were helping me get photos of me playing the game but sadly I was very unsuccessful as I struggle a lot getting in the background of photos. On the right is a fun game for you, somewhere in that photo I am hidden, and I challenged you to find me, good luck.

Games Rules:

Each turn the Art Critic chooses 3 cards from the themes pile. They choose their favourite and shuffle the remaining 2 back into the deck. Then the Art Critic tells the other players, The Artist, the theme for their piece of art. The Artists have 3 minutes to create a piece of art using images from magazines or news papers that fits the theme. Once 3 minutes is up, The Artists stop working and present their piece of art to the Art Critic and talk about what they made. The Art Critic, then, chooses their favorite piece of art and that Artist gets a point. Lastly the role of Art Critic is passed to the next player and the game repeats. First to 5 points wins.

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Artist Statement:

My game was heavily inspired by the collage artwork that was very prevalent in the DADA movement. The piece that I enjoyed the most and that I drew the most inspiration from was Hannah Höch’s, Bouquet of Eyes. I love this piece because I find the human eye extremely fascinating as it is incredibly complex and beautiful at the same time, and this bouquet made up of eyes interested me a lot. Another thing I took inspiration from were DADA heads; they took old hat racks and added ordinary objects to them and they became something so different. I really enjoy the idea of taking something simple and plain and adding things from your environment to make it unique and extraordinary. Raoul Hausmann’s Mechanical Head is one of my favorite DADA heads because all he did was add normal objects to this hat rack but it made the hat rack so much more. While I was making my game I also took inspiration from some already existing games, mainly pictionary and cards against humanity. I think Pictionary is such a great game because it lets every player be creative but also unique at the same time. I wanted to capture that feeling in the game I was making; I wanted my players to take a central theme and put their own twist on it, that way they had to be creative. Cards against humanity works really well in my opinion because it lets the players choose what they like and don’t like. This lets the players have more fun because they are boxed in by rules and complex instructions, which is why the winner of a round is just chosen by a player. The reason I wanted the players to make a collage is because it gives the player a sense of creation, something that I think was integral to the DADA movement and it lets the player have fun and be creative.

Score:

Find a place with a table and chair

Take out your work and place it on your chair;

Then sit on the table.

Start Working.

Struggle.

Adapt.

Artist Statement:

This Score was inspired by a lot of things but many by my roommates. One day I came home and all my roommates were working so diligently at our dining room table. Watching them work made me think about how people often do not think about how important something is in our daily life. I do not often think about how useful a chair and table are but watching my roommate struggle to get any work done while sitting on the table really shows how underappreciated some things are. I was also inspired by the idea of using things in a way they are not intended to be used. When you use something in a way it’s not intended it can have really fun and humorous results. In the case of my score my roommate had a blast making jokes and laughing about the different techniques that could be used to be more efficient. The score that inspired me the most was, Tape Piece III. The score was simple, yet in my opinion very deep. Taking something like an audio tape and using it as a bow for a present or a gift wrapper, as suggested in the score, was really fascinating to me. Most people would never think to use a tape of audio for anything besides listening but Ono had come up with such a unique use for it and I found that really inspirational for my own score.  Seeing how people adapted to the challenge of sitting on a table while having their work on a chair is super interesting. One of my roommates thought it would be easier to work while on his stomach; after switching positions he found, at least for him, it was easier to get work done. I wish I could have had more people try out my score so see different adaptations.

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