Projects

Artist’s Statement:

I got the initial idea for this project by looking at what it meant to be an artgame. After reading John Sharp’s, “Works of Game” I was inspired by his description of an artgame game. I understood that artgames use the innate properties of games like interactivity, player goals, and game mechanics to create expressive play experiences that explore metaphysical questions around life, ethics, and aspects of the human condition. Unlike normal games, the systems in artgames tend to model ideas and concepts rather than phenomena from the physical and social world. This concept spoke to me because I have long been critical of the way the current gaming landscape tries to force an experience onto its players. Many modern games explain every single thing from every control to every facet of their narrative. I wanted to get away from that by creating an artgame that centered its interactivity, player goals, and game mechanics to give the player an experience that I found lacking in the modern gaming landscape. I believe that the modern gaming landscape lacks many games that try to get the player to experience a narrative without the use of any words. Even in the case where games do create a narrative without words they often rely on out-of-game descriptions, cutscenes, or endings to show the player that there is a deep narrative present. I wanted to get away from all of that and present the player with an experience and environment that has no given explanation. It’s up to the player to discover everything, end when they want, and interpret the game in their way.

This project relates to a few of the artgames discussed in the readings. One of the games that relates is “The Marriage” by Rod Humble. “The Marriage” does not explain its mechanics, message, or narrative to the player and instead leaves it up to the player to discover and interpret for themselves. The mechanics themselves are simple yet the combination of the mechanics and how the squares react are what make the game so interesting to play. The readings also stated that it was unlikely that people would come out of the game with the message that the creator intended. This game is similar to what I wanted to do with my game because I want the player to experience the game without being told what to do. If they come out of the experience with a different meaning than what I intended that is perfectly fine and even encouraged by me because it will make conversations about my game more interesting. My game also attempts to use its subtle mechanics to help paint a narrative. The game also relates to “Papers, Please” because it has a very stylized art style and ends when you want it to end.

A lot of the other influence and intention is explained in the “Documentation / Process” section below.

Documentation / Process:

This section will spoil a lot of the intent behind the game so I would only read this part if you do not want to experience the game in the way it was intended to be experienced. After I decided on how I wanted to convey my narrative, I then wanted to figure out what I wanted my narrative to be. I decided that I wanted to have my narrative be about a fallen samurai because I had Japanese history and the game “Okami” on my mind at the time. I didn’t want to tell a sad story though, instead, I wanted my narrative to be whimsical and use VFX and audio as well as a well-crafted level to tell its story. This along with inspiration from the Xenoblade Chronicles series gave me a start on what I wanted the level to look like. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 both feature ethereal, majestic trees that I wanted to try to replicate. I thought that a magical-looking sakura tree would be the perfect place to bury a samurai. Furthermore, a well-respected and battle-tested samurai would likely want to be buried in a peaceful spot where they could be one with nature. This helped me settle on the island surrounded by water and helped me pick the sounds that I wanted to incorporate. I added wave noises that increase in volume as you approach the water as well as the song “Satorl Marsh (Night)” from the Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition soundtrack. I felt that this song would be the perfect choice for the game as it strikes an immaculate balance between Zen and whimsy. The song is one of my favorites and often makes me more in tune with my emotions like I hoped it would for the player. This song choice also helped inform my next decision which was to add a day and night cycle. I wanted to make it feel like even though you were dead the world kept moving, time kept moving. The area of Satorl Marsh (where the song is from) is also extremely interesting as it is unassuming during the day, but at night the trees start to glow, ether starts to float into the atmosphere, and the music gets intense. Using this inspiration I created the ether particles that move into the air to capture the sense of whimsy and beauty that area had. These visual effects also make the island feel spiritual in a way like the tree and particles make the island seem like a place where spirits would want to rest. This idea informed a lot of the decisions related to my mechanics. The spiritual feel of the island made me want to make the player character the spirit of the dead samurai who was chained to this island after their death. To accomplish this I started by creating a movement system with low-gravity physics. This was in an attempt to make you feel floaty like a ghost or spirit. I also added a very high jump/float if you press/hold the space bar to increase this feeling. Additionally, I removed the player’s shadow and made them be able to walk through the sword and tree showing that they do not have a physical form. Despite all of this, I still felt like it would be hard to tell who you were. To fix this, I made it so that particles of a humanoid figure follow where you were at night. This makes it so that the player is rewarded for looking around and that you can see that something ghostly is going on. Lastly, to accomplish the feeling of being chained to the island, I wanted to make it so that the farther away you got from the katana the slower you would move. Nothing is stopping you from moving far away, but it is clear that the island wants you to rest in peace.

Through playtesting, I learned that the tree trunk and the grass were distracting from the overall Zen and carefully crafted feel of the level, so I tried my best to improve them. I also learned that players had extremely different interpretations of what was happening, ranging from “the island is pretty” to “I liked that I was a ghost samurai.” I think the thing that I heard that made me feel like this was successful was when a playtester told me that they enjoyed that they had to think through the game and they liked that nothing was told to them.

Links:

• Game: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12Bx_Z0xHtnAee49fLxPxJAqhLteOa47t/view?usp=sharing
• Asset Links:
  • Song: https://youtu.be/jXs0qruX148?si=v24b4TNwgR3rSpzB
  • Katana: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/weapons/katana-4k-pbr-121020

Background:

In 1916, exiled Zurich artists such as Hugo Barr, Amy Hennings, Tristan Tzara, Hans Arp, Richard Husenbeck, and Sophie Thorber formed a literary society in the local Hotel Voltaire, where they expressed their distaste for the war and the values that spawned it, through discussions of artistic topics and performances.

Requirments: 4-5 players, Dice

Basic rules

Description:This is a board game that require 4 players. Each player represent a side, they are Military, Workers, Merchants, Artists. Each side will have 20 million population. If player’s populations being eliminated that means its side is out of the game. If there is more player, they will automatically be civilian side.

Basic Rules: Roll the dice to decide who to start with, with the order of players after that going clockwise.

There will be four identity cards representing the different powers on the field, and each person draws one at random after it is disrupted face down. After that, you will receive your population, and each player will have a total of 1 card with a population of 10 Million, 1 card with a population of 5 Million, and 5 cards with a population of 1 Million. Players will need to place these population cards face down in random combinations around the identity cards to avoid being seen by other players. Players can trade resources with each other (consensual) or money (players can use money to buy other goods and the person they are trading with can’t refuse), or attack (artists can’t attack).

Warmonger: This is a power ruled by war-mongers who are passionate about selling nuclear weapons or using them to bomb other countries. In the game, warmongers will bring their own nuke at the start of their turn, and automatically get one every 3 turns thereafter. Nukes can be traded and used to attack other countries, but only once every two turns. Nukes can be traded and can be used to attack other countries, but only every two turns. two ore and one money can also be spent to actively build nukes. warmonger needs to actively eliminate at least two forces to win.

Merchant: merchants have a great deal of wealth, and they oppress their workers and win through various means. Merchants have six money cards at the start of their turn and gain two money cards every turn thereafter. Money cards can be used to force the purchase of nukes, artwork, and ore. However, only one type of material can be purchased from a single player per turn. The merchant must eliminate the worker force himself to win, and if the worker force is eliminated, the merchant loses his solo victory and has the option of joining the artists in the fight against the warmonger.

Worker: Workers who are hard at work mining ore, and who resent the oppression of the merchants and rebel against them. At the start of their turn, workers have three Ore cards. Every two turns thereafter, the worker mines two Ore Cards. Ore cards can be traded for nukes. They cannot be actively sold but can be purchased by any other player. The worker wins by actively eliminating the trader, and if the trader is eliminated by the warmonger, the worker has the option of surrendering or joining the artist’s side.

Artists: Artists are a group of peace-loving idealists who fight against the warmongers by creating artwork that can’t be attacked by nukes wherever it exists, and the Artists come with two pieces of artwork to start with. Artists get one artwork every 3 turns, and artworks can be sold or purchased by the player. Artworks can be placed on any of the player’s Population cards to protect against a nuke attack, but they cannot be stacked on the same Population card, and a maximum of two Artworks can be used on the field at the same time. Extra artwork can only be stored and not placed on Population cards. The Artist wins if the warmonger is eliminated, but the Artist cannot use or buy nukes.

Special condition:When there is a fifth player or more on the field they are automatically in the civilian camp. Civilians cannot create any resources, open with 10 million population, and can generate a new 1 million population each turn. Population can also be traded for resources or bought and sold. However, civilians must not have a minimum population of less than 3 million or they will be considered eliminated. Civilians can choose one of the four camps at the beginning of the round, but this choice cannot be made known to anyone else. If the chosen camp wins, the civilians win together. If the chosen camp is eliminated, the civilians have another chance to roll the dice and decide on a number. If the result is the same as the dice roll, the civilian camp will inherit the abilities and victory conditions of the chosen camp, but not the population or resources, and will lose the civilian camp’s original abilities. If it does not succeed then it will be eliminated together.

When one phases out another side, that side will inherit the abilities of the phased out side, provided that civilians have not replaced the original side

• Price list:
  1 Ore = 2 Money
  1 Artwork = 3 money
  1 Nuke = four money
  1million population = 6 money
• Resource Exchange
  3 Ore can be exchanged for 1 Nuke
  1 artwork for 2 ores
  6 million people for a nuke
  4 million people for a work of art
  3 million people for a mineral card.
  Two million people for one money.

Play test：

I realize that when a set of rules is set up, it works in theory. But when implemented in reality it can be so irrational and unworkable. I got a lot of different feedback from players, so after playtest I improved the rules and added new ways to play.

artist satement:
I started out creating this game originally when I learned about dadaism and the story behind it in class this semester. I was inspired by the work of many artists against the war, such as George Grosse’s Metropolis. I was drawn to these anti-war pieces and was intrigued by the way they satirized war. I believe that people should live in peace with each other, eliminate prejudices and cooperate. This is an idea that many dada artists want to convey.
When I realized that there are still many people in the world suffering from war I decided to make a card game related to war. Because the game allows players to engage in real competition, it has a different advantage than just artwork.
My game contains four camps, they are the warmonger, the merchant, the worker, and the artist. Reflecting some groups in the real world, they check and balance each other, but can’t live without each other. Each camp has its own purpose to achieve. But I designed the warmonger to be more powerful, because this is the cruelty of modern war, the one who owns the weapon has the real power of speech. The artist camp, on the other hand, represents many peace-loving idealists who may be fighting back hard, but can’t change anything. But the fact that paintings can be traded in the game is also my way of satirizing the use of art as a money-making machine by certain artists. I hope that when players play my game, they can feel the cruelty of war, and the feeling of powerlessness when facing a really powerful opponent. At the same time, it can draw attention to and reflect on war. Of course, in addition to these core ideas, I also hope that players can bring in characters and win the game through their own decisions and thinking.

Requirments: Any device that can play apex legends

For my Intervene project, I had chosen the battle royal first person shooting game Apex Legends as my subject of intervention. In this game, I when to both the battle royal mode and team death match mode. In this game, people barely turns on their microphone before the game actually started. So in the beginning of every match, I typed something like:”Hi guys, its my birthday today, can yall sing happy birthday to me?”  I would like to see how my teammates react to my request. I want to interfere with their gaming experience through such seemingly unreasonable demands. At the same time their response interferes with my gaming experience and the results of my experiment. So I played around 10 matches in total and I only edit the 5 games out of it, because it seems like no one actually cares about their temmates birthday or they just ignore my request. Some of them did response but instead of singing the happy birthday song they typed Happy birthday in the chat. However in one match there was someone who actually sangs happy birthday song to me, I was so impressed.

Artist statement:

I embarked on an unconventional artistic intervention in a game world where strategy, skill, and quick reflexes are the main elements in a tense and exciting apex legends matchup. My project was unassuming but impressive, causing my teammates to pause in their pursuit of a game win to participate in a birthday sing-along in honor of my birthday.
The purpose of this intervention was to inject humanity and joy into every competitive and stressful online multiplayer game. It challenges the conventions of gaming interaction, blurring the lines between the battlefield and the shared space of celebration.

At the same time I see it as an exploration of human connection in the digital world, where the act of singing Happy Birthday is one that is universally recognized as a symbol of joy and solidarity, turning the digital battlefield into a vehicle for celebrating my birthday. I think this is similar to the work “Rope” in that my teammates are strangers matched through a computer algorithm, and they are not obligated to sing along with me for my birthday. rope’s idea is also to challenge the idea of how people get along with each other, and to forcefully bind two people together in a certain way (they use rope, I use the birthday song). The idea of rope is also to challenge different people to get along with each other in a certain way (they use a rope, I use a birthday song), and to accomplish seemingly impossible challenges until they reach a certain state of harmony, where human emotions can be transmitted to each other in the most unlikely of circumstances. What these two projects have in common is that they challenge the traditional way of being together, both in life and in games.

Equipment:

computers with Overwatch

Something can measure heart rates/ blood pressure (apple watch, phone…)

need 2-3 players

Rules:

Players need to measure their heartbeats before and after a regular Overwatch competitive gameplay. Use the heart rates after minus the heart rates before to get the current score of players. The player with the lowest score wins the game.

Artist statement:

Overwatch is a toxic game that often leads players to experience heightened emotions during the gameplay. Defeats in the game can trigger frustration and anger. As they get rages, their blood pressure or heart rates may increase. Therefore, the person with the lowest score could be considered as the calmest. By rewarding the player who maintains the lowest increase in heartbeats, this game encourages players to stay calm and despite the toxic gaming environment. It challenges the notion that winning or losing a match is the only measure of success in gaming and suggests that emotional control is equally valuable.

Before playing:

second round:

lose the game:

After losing for all night! (still the same heart rate)

Result:

I tried to borrow my friend’s watch, but we got some time conflict so I can only use the app on my phone to measure the heartbeat instead. I played this game several times myself. But measuring with my phone didn’t work as I expected. My heartbeats were 76 before playing. However, when I measured the heartbeat after an annoying and frustrating round, it was still around 80. I tried a few times and played four games in total, but the heartbeats just stick with 70 – 80. Maybe in the future, I could try to measure the heartbeats with other equipment. I found this game shares some similarities with Yoko Ono’s cut piece in that both projects explore vulnerability and emotional states. While “Cut Piece” focuses on physical vulnerability through cutting clothes, this game focuses on emotional vulnerability while playing Overwatch. On the other side, because Overwatch is such a toxic game to play, the players may face emotional stress and strain. And that can connect to Chris Burden’s “Doomed” which challenges limits of the body and personal endurance

For my project, I chose to intervene on a game of Valorant Deathmatch. Rather than determining success based on kills within the match, I would try to get other players to not kill me, whether it be they bad at the game, or they genuinely don’t want to kill me. Through my iterations, I realized that there are certain behaviors that I must adopt to get this message across. The first run that I have done with this idea didn’t go as well since the message didn’t seem to get across that I am trying to be a pacifist. After throwing myself in front of people with a melee weapon as well as use the in-game mechanics to get the point across. In the end, I even gained some people that ended up protecting me with in the match, killing others that would end up shooting at me.

Artist Statement:
The initial inspiration that I got for the project was from the Barbie Liberal Organization that was shown in class. I found it intriguing that altering the standards for a Barbie doll could lead to a message being pushed across as well as bring joy to those that comes into contact with it. Generally, activist movements tend to receive some form of backlash from the community, but BLO seemed to sparked more laughter compared to the anger that I was anticipating. I wanted to spark this joy within the FPS community, which is known for the toxicity and the negative player-base. By bringing this little wholesome moment to the game without any expectations, I hoped that I would be able to remind others that the experience of fun that players can have is up to them.
The behavior that I adopted to get the point across to other players was that similar to Yoko Ono’s cut piece. It was meant to make myself seem vulnerable to others within the game, that my intention is not to follow the standards that they are used to. By letting my fate be decided by other players within the game, it was fun to see how varied the reactions were. Some were caught off guard at first and decide to play along, while others killed me anyways.
Overall, it seemed that my point to bring fun back into the genre worked as it seemed like the players that played along enjoyed the concept enough to continue with it for the entirety of the match. If I were to bring this into other FPS games or game modes within Valorant, I hope to be able to keep the idea that winning or losing the game wouldn’t matter as long as the players are having fun within the game. As a result, by making these team-based games to be as enjoyable to others should be more prioritized as opposed to relentlessly putting others down for the self-satisfaction that one is better at the game compare to others.

Clips from playtests of this project:
https://youtu.be/ZioWrg21eU8

For this project I wanted to design an experience that would make the people participating break their typical behavior. Through schooling we are taught in a way to pass test, not in a way that teaches us things for long term memory. I wanted to create a test that would incentivize the users to abandon the exam for some other behavior, so I created an image, like a “wheres waldo” where the test takers had to memorize things in the image then answer questions about it. (see images and quiz below).

Because creating the image would take quite a while, the first iteration of this project for me was playtesting the idea with other people. I explained the concept of my project and wanted their input for if they thought it would actually work. From the few people I described it to, they agreed that it was an interesting idea however many people expressed concern that people would be unlikely to take the action I expected. I agreed and considered what I could do to make this idea more obvious but still subtle enough that it would still be the playtesters on choice to take action. I decided that I would test this on my roommates and depict our house in the image so they were already familiar with it. I showed a candy bag in the kitchen in the image and the test takers in the living room.

I noted to the players before the start of the “exam” that only the person with the best score would get a piece of candy. Despite the playtesters noticing that the bag of candy was in the kitchen, after they had finished the ‘exam’ they explained that the thought of leaving the “testing room” would never have crossed their mind, nor do they think there was anything I could have done to change their behavior.
One funny note, one of the testers was so conditioned by exams that they put their name at the top of the page despite me not adding that as a prompt on the exam page.  (there were only two of them and they were writing in different colors)

Ultimately, I think most people would show the same behavior as my roommates did if placed in the same position. However, despite this intervention failing, in some ways I think that it actually is more successful because it failed, showing the testers how schools have conditioned them in such a way.

This artwork was somewhat inspired by the Barbie/G.I. Joe swap, in that some experiences are not always as you expect them to be from their surface image. Like the Barbie/G.I. Joe swap, I wanted to create an interaction with the users that would make them reconsider their behavior with familiar items/experiences, and hopefully make them see these experiences differently in the future.

Image given to testers:

the testers studying the image:

the testers taking the test:

Quiz questions:

1. who is in charge of the “bath” chore?
2. who is currently #4 on the leaderboard?
3. how many carrots are in the image?
4. what day of the week was the 1st of the month?
5. What is the current time in 24 hour time?
6. Where is the bed located in Anna’s Room? Give your answer in cardinal directions.

The Process:
Check your screen time on your phone for the last week. Download the app Unpluq (black and yellow logo) and make an account. It will ask questions about your schedule, phone usage, as well as a choice to pick two apps to put blocks on. Choose the two social media apps that you use most (for example mine is instagram and tik tok so I chose those). Choose the time you regularly/usually go to bed during the week and block those apps one hour before that. This will prevent you from going on your social media apps as much right before you sleep as well as right when you wake up. Give yourself an hour/30 minutes before checking your phone when you wake up as well as when you go to sleep. Also, change your phone to black and white. Since everything on your phone has certain colors to catch your attention, making them black and white will make it less likely for you to click on something and get distracted with it. This should prevent screen time with high usage. You can find how to do this in your phone’s settings. With these changes your screen time should be down from the previous and you should notice a lot of changes with how you spend your time. While you catch yourself in a moment like this, write down on a piece of paper or in your notes about some new things you accomplished or did as a result of not being on your phone. At the end of the week, check your screen time and compare it to what it was last week. Hopefully it went down and hopefully you realize how toxic and unhealthy social media is and how long you spend on it.

The results:

For this intervention, I wanted to intervene in people’s daily lives and how they regularly use their phones and social media. I got inspiration from Chris Burden who was willing to put his health on the line in order to create his artwork. I decided I wanted my intervention to be something drastic like how Chris Burden did his work so I decided to hit our generation in its weak spot, taking away our social media. Of course, it was not nearly as physically dangerous as Chris Burden’s work but it was still mentally difficult to stay disciplined. So, I got a group of 6 people (roommates and suitemates) and gave them the above information. I encourage everyone reading to partake as well. They decided to do this for the week and see how it impacted their screen time as well as their day to day lives. I got tremendous feedback from my friends and they said it was an eye opening experience. All of their screen times went down by at least two hours, some even more. One of my friends decided to go rock climbing at the local gym in Fenway since he was not on his phone all day. Another one of my friends enrolled in a spikeball tournament and won with another one of my friends. They all found better alternatives in their lives rather than being glued to their screen all day. They also said their sleep schedule improved after a rough first few days since they were not used to going to sleep without their phone. Once they got over the first few days, it was easy to fall asleep since they accomplished a lot more throughout the day and were tired from it.

For my intervention project, I chose to intervene in the gameplay of Overwatch 2, specifically creating a game within the boundaries of the original game to completely ignore the already established goal. In my game, instead of pushing the payload or claiming the objective, your goal as the player is to sneak into the enemy team’s backlines to befriend as many players on the enemy team as you can. This directly contradicts the objective the original game has set up for you, as the only feasible way you can win a game of overwatch is by killing the enemy team as often as possible. My game further intervenes with Overwatch because in all of Overwatch’s existence, the game has been infamous for hosting a primarily negative and mean player base. Players take the game too seriously, they are not here to make friends, they are here to win. MY game does the exact opposite of this – you don’t win by winning the game, you win by making friends.

My project takes some inspiration from Yoko Ono’s cut piece, to provide some sense of vulnerability to the player and leaving the fate of their game up to the reactions of the other players. I wanted to try and show that making friends was harder, yet more rewarding, than making enemies, and put that idea in the context of a game. By letting my game be decided by other players, it proved to be a lot of fun to see the varying reactions from these people I didn’t know.

My results:

I initially expected very minimal success in my attempts to make friends with the enemy team, but I was pleasantly surprised to find many people were willing to throw the game with me. In every game I played, I was able to find at least one person from the other team who was willing to say hello and never attack me when I approached. However, for every one person willing to spam voice lines with me in the backlines, there was always at least one person on either my team or the enemy’s who would tell me off or attack me. Still, it was a much more divisive split between friendly/non-friendly players that I encountered while playing my intervening game. A nice side note I encountered was that in every game, I got at least 2 endorsements from the random people I played with each game! So while I might have lost every single game I played with this new ruleset, I made plenty of friends.

Link to the presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eKE2m1-s-Jtg3CdxkmaqQXl0jPDRZ2JHBu_S4kkxz_0/edit#slide=id.g29857f60692_0_0