Experimental Game Design

Artwork #1: Score

Pblind&J Game

by | Sep 24, 2024 | ,

Instruction

  • This game is designed for one single player at a time
  1. Cover your eyes with a eye mask and ensure nothing can be seen at all
  2. Touch, smell or use any other senses to feel everything in front of you
  3. Trying to determine which is which(including the tools you would need to make the sandwich)
  4. Find the bread and lay it on the cutting board
  5. Find the Jam and spread it
  6. Find the peanut butter and spread it
  7. Put the two slices of bread with spread together.
  8. Taste your sandwich

 

Material required(provided)

  • Bread
  • Water
  • Apple jam
  • Peanut butter powder
  • Spoon

 

Link to Presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1oyWSo9VXRoFq3RBi9OL-lc2-bG8TssTnuDS3W4zhtMs/edit?usp=sharing

 

Author’s statement

The game is inspired by both the previous class work and class activity. I went into thinking if we rely on our dominant sense, which is the vision, too much. Thus I want to design a game in which every sense except for vision will be greatly involved.

Along the development of the game, several changes have been made. 

To begin with, changes were made to the game materials: traditional peanut butter was replaced with a mixture of peanut powder and water (blended to become peanut butter). This was done to enhance sensory interaction. Since the peanut butter differs from the traditional one, players need to rely on their sense of smell to identify the ingredient.

Then the game process has been improved to become more precise and more controllable. Instructions should be handed to the player before game play starts while the game player should not have a peak on ingredients.

Through playtest, several feedbacks on the game have been collected: most players agree that the game achieves its initial approach and theme. It’s a highly interactable game for players to fully engage various senses. The limitation on vision encourages and helps the game achieve that. Before Yoko Grapefruit, I hadn’t tried to think of a game presented this way, yet at the end of game playtest and game development, it has strongly convinced me of its significance and playability as a game.

Fleeting Present

by | Sep 24, 2024 |

Gift a cube of ice to someone you appreciate

Show your appreciation until the ice melts

Walk away

Intention & Influence

Intention

I remember one night while I was at work, we were making goodie bags for guests at an event that was going to be held. My coworkers complained about having to make them, despised the smell, or didn’t think anything about it except that it’s work. This long process of making 100 goodie bags made me think of the significance of gifts. Why do we give gifts? Does it matter who gives/receives it and what’s in it? Why? If you are told to, is it really a gift? Eventually, I decided that the score would be the essence of what a gift is supposed to mean and feel like, without the actual “gift”. A gift is about the surprise, the genuine feelings behind it, and the meaningfulness of it. With a gift, you are attempting to communicate your appreciation. So, the score ignores what the gift is and focuses on that surprise, that genuine feeling, and how meaningful that gift is that they are just standing there, giving you a melting cube of ice, confessing all their appreciations to you. It’s simple, kind of goofy, and feels like a game, but it’s a warming, no pun intended, way to show someone your genuine appreciation that is filled with surprises, from the ways people interpret “show your appreciation” and how they show affection to how the environment affects them.

Influence

My main inspiration, came from Allan Kaprow’s happening, Fluids. In his happening, he and other people created a structure of ice and then it melts. It was a beautiful piece that to me, demonstrated the passage of time or how even as things get “destroyed” or “messed up”, it can be beautiful. Other inspirations would be the day the class all went outside to play with some simple things Celia, our professor, had laying around as well as the concept of Happenings during the Fluxus movement itself. That day, I just remembered thinking to myself about how everything was too funny, and that I felt like I was back to being a young child. It was the simplicity of things, creating games out of whatever we had, and the bright sky and colors that reminded me of being a kid. Part of this day helped influence my process and end result of the score, with the idea of simplicity, bright, and fun. I also remember reading Happenings in the New York scene. All the movements and words were sudden and random, but were things that you typically see or hear in life. Along with Grapefruit by Yoko Ono, these art pieces made me feel silly, happy, and spontaneous. One score I remember from her book was “Keep laughing: Keep laughing for a week”. It was such a simple and silly score but it instantly made me feel happy and spurred on a want to laugh. It was art that I wasn’t familiar with that seemed so freeing. Usually, when it comes to art pieces, whether it was a drawing or an essay, most of my pieces are a bit solemn and tense. However, these scores and happenings made me want to try something new. Although tears have been spilled from my piece, they weren’t bad tears but tears full of love and emotion—and I love that I was able to achieve that with just a piece of ice and some words.

Process

During the process, I wasn’t sure of anything. When the project was first introduced, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I thought, “I’m not creative enough to come up with something like this”. Grapefruit by Yoko Ono was so intriguing and I didn’t know how I could make something as good. I struggled until the day I made those goodie bags. At first, I was intrigued by the idea that a simple bag and random single items could become one and create something entirely new. Orange cloves, ginger, and a honey bear wouldn’t really make sense on their own, but when you put it in a bag together, tie it up, add a ribbon, and then put it in a mug, it instantly becomes a cute gift to make tea for the holidays. However, I couldn’t fully dissect that idea, nor think of a good score for it. So, then it became about gifts and the idea and reaction behind it. Making scores are… a very difficult process. I went through another week trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I did research and asked the internet about their thoughts on gifts. I asked my coworkers, my family, my friends. Then, even though I was eventually able to get a grasp on the meaning behind gift curation and gift receiving, I didn’t know what exactly about it I wanted to simulate into a score. Did I want to simulate the idea of consumerism behind gifts? That they were trash or a waste of time? Or how gifting was supposed to feel? After an 8 hour shift and failed attempts at creating a score, I thought of Kaprow’s happening, Fluids. This piece was brought up by Celia and my classmate before when we were score pitching, and I don’t know why or how it stood out to me so much, but that was precisely what made me come up with the score that I have now. Ice, or any quick, perishable object would be a perfect example of the “gift”, as the gift is not about the ice cube or the object, but the words and actions that are exchanged from the gifting. That’s how my score came about!

Playtests (Photos/Videos)

For playtests, I had three different tests and it was just to see what it would be like with different sets of people. I wanted this to be able to see the different reactions and what I could’ve missed. The first group was my sister and my mom, the second group was my two roommates who are friends, and the third playtest were my classmates. I definitely got different results which I’m very happy about!

Playtest #1: Sister and Mom

Mom and sister (after crying haha) after the score!

My sister had interpreted “show your appreciation” by telling my mom all the reasons why she appreciated her and the way she shows her love. They got overwhelmed with emotions and my sister cried. It took about 8 minutes for the ice to melt but when I explained my score to them after, they said that it definitely accomplished its job as they both felt the appreciation and genuine love. My sister also pointed out that she had wanted to hug my mom a lot during and after the score.

Playtest #2: Roommates

The recipient and gifter revealing the heart-shaped ice cube.

The recipient and gifter melting the ice together.

Roommate Playtest Video (Click!)

This was such a silly playtest but also so, so cute. The way my roommate interpreted “show your appreciation” was by giving the ice cube to her friend then helping her melt the ice cube. They laughed together a lot and there was physical touch and jokes being said. There wasn’t the talking that my sister and mom exchanged, but my roommates shared a precious, goofy moment as they worked together to melt the ice.

 

 

Playtest #3 Classmates

The gifter laughing while performing the score to the recipient!

In this last playtest, she also verbally told her gift recipient her appreciation. I realized how appreciation is conveyed will also depend on the environment! She was most likely embarrassed and thought this was funny, which was not only influenced by the score but also that she was surrounded by a lot of people. So, the appreciation probably didn’t get conveyed as well since there may be some things she probably appreciates about her friend that she didn’t want to share to the whole room as well. He also seemed embarrassed or awkward, but I think that all comes into play when it comes to showing appreciation to someone and giving them a gift. Embarrassment, awkwardness, appreciation, joy.

In the end, I gathered that the score does do what I hoped it would, filling the people playing it out with positive emotions and being able to share a precious moment between two people. What surprised me was the different ways people had interpreted “show your appreciation” and their reactions. Some were laughing, some cried, some were embarrassed! These were all influenced by the way they show their affection and the environment that they are in.

This was such a lovely experiment I had on the affects my score would give and I would love to see other people do it.

Walking Pictures

by | Sep 24, 2024 |

By Ruby Harkness

Score

find a friend 

and something to write with

take a walk together

 

avoid all distractions 

observe your surroundings

find something that interests you 

draw it

your friend will do the same 

repeat this 3 times

 

create a story

your drawings are performing

 

Author’s Note

Walking Pictures is a Yoko Ono esc set of instructions meant to promote observation, storytelling, and connections with others. The goal of Walking Pictures is for the user to completely rid themselves of all distractions and focus in on their senses. I feel that in today’s world people overload themselves with distraction, whether it be their phone, outside sources of stress, or even something as harmless as listening to music. Somewhat inspired by the Happenings we enacted in class, this score urges the user to rid themselves of distractions and be completely one with the moment for the duration of the score, which may challenge the user. Being able to draw your surroundings is also a very beneficial skill to have. I believe that visual artists are some of the most in tune with the world and observational people out there, and these skills can be developed through observational drawing, which is what Walking Pictures promotes. Not only is Walking Pictures a commentary on modern day distraction, but also it is a vessel to promote creativity and connecting with others. The entire score is done with a “friend,” who could be whoever the user wants. The storytelling aspect of the score is also a collaborative piece, with two people working together to use their observed drawings and make something more of it. It is a lesson in creativity and human connection. 

The language used in Walking Pictures is heavily inspired by Yoko Ono’s work in Grapefruit. I thought the simplicity and obscurity of the text was very interesting, and wanted to implement that into my own score. I liked the artistic nature of Ono’s writing, and when making a score somewhat focused on art, she was a perfect inspiration. 

 

Play test Images

Yranoitcip

by | Sep 24, 2024 | ,

I got the inspiration for Yranoitcip from a Leetcode session with my friends. One person would be at the board, coding based on the instructions given by the audience, and the next person would either continue or erase what had been written based on their own understanding. This sparked the idea to turn it into a competitive environment, where teams have to balance collaboration and misdirection to win.

Yranoitcip is a game designed for two teams with two drawers at the board, but here’s where things get tricky: the teams can give instructions to either draw or erase, and some players might even sabotage the drawing with misleading instructions. The goal? Get your team’s drawer to guess what’s being drawn before the other team!

Special shoutout to Yoko Grapefruit, who helped me shape the concept by adding more depth to the competition. She suggested the element of “hidden identities” to introduce more uncertainty, making it harder for players to know who’s helping and who’s sabotaging. This added an extra layer of strategy, where not only are the drawings at stake, but trust within the team becomes crucial to winning.

Rules Here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y9B5rsfYI5aITZXs7Kcl7TXKdOCzdfwKs7UGJjfzMIo/edit?usp=sharing

Artwork 1: “Biography”

by | Apr 28, 2024 | ,

Overview

This work is called “Biography.” This work is a commentary on the representation of people on social media.

Rules/Setup

Necessary Materials: Two pieces of lines paper, a writing utensil, and a 6-sided die.

  1. Number the first three lines of a lined paper as “1,” “2,” and “3.” Repeat this process five more times down the paper.
  2. Beside each group of three lines, write the number of the year it was 7 years ago. In the first sentence, express your feelings from that year. In the second, write about a regrettable action from that time. In the third, share a strong opinion you held then. Avoid specific dates.
  3. Repeat step 2 for each preceding year up to 2 years ago.
  4. On a new piece of paper, craft a 5-sentence paragraph about the most recent past year of your life. Separate each sentence on different lines, leaving a blank line after each.
  5. Roll a 6-sided die twice to randomly select a sentence from the first paper. The first roll determines the trio of lines, and the second roll selects the specific line (1-2 for the first line, 3-4 for the second, and 5-6 for the third).
  6. Place the chosen sentence into the first blank row of your 5-sentence paragraph about the most recent past year.
  7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until all blank rows are filled in the paragraph.
  8. Share the completed paragraph as a caption accompanying a self-portrait on social media.

Artist Statement

“Biography” stands as a poignant reflection on the intricacies of self-representation in an era dominated by social media. It is heavily influenced by the in-class activities we did where the whole class wrote various statements on a piece of paper to create one single ridiculous series of statements.

In today’s digital landscape, social media affords instantaneous glimpses into various facets of individuals’ lives, often presented in a non-chronological and fragmented manner. This phenomenon shapes perceptions and constructs perceptions of people that can be heavily influenced by past events, chaining individuals to outdated versions of themselves. “Biography” seeks to confront and unravel this phenomenon by challenging participants to reflect on their past experiences and beliefs and consider how it relates to their current self.

Specifically, the rules and setup of “Biography” are designed to disrupt the linear progression of traditional autobiographical narratives, mirroring the disjointed nature of social media timelines. By anchoring each section of the narrative to a specific period in the past, the work compels participants to confront the disjunctions between past and present. Through the random selection and integration of sentences into a cohesive narrative, this works aims to blur temporal boundaries, inviting viewers to reassess the fluidity of personal identity and the way they view other people.

Score: Making a game that isn’t fun

by | Sep 30, 2023 | ,

By Luca Sandoval

This is a game. It’s supposed to be fun. Here’s what you need to play it:

  1. A deck of face-down rule cards (provided.) 
  2. A large handful of coins (not provided, obviously.)

The rules are very simple. 

  1. There are two players. They each take turns flipping a coin, calling heads or tails before it lands.
  2. The person who guesses correctly gets a point.
  3. The first to one thousand points wins. 

If at any point during the game you decide you aren’t having fun, feel free to draw the top card from the pile of rule cards. This should help make the game more fun. 

————————————————————————————————-

(This section is not a part of the score.)

The rule cards provided are small pieces of paper that have the following messages, in order:

  1. New rule: Correctly calling the coin is now worth 10 points, but if you get it wrong, you lose a point instead. 
  2. New rule: Each player can recruit another player as their additional team member. Those two players also flip a coin, and the points they either win or lose belong to the team.  
  3. New rule: Each team should recruit three more players. At this point, it’s probably worth establishing some kind of team organizational structure. The original player is the ‘team captain,’ of course, but you should ask the new hires how they feel about that. They may choose to assist your cause, or not, I suppose. 
  4. New rule: Add all of the coins you have left to the game. Coins are now valuable, maybe even more valuable than points (that isn’t currently clear). After all, at the end of the day, you have to put food on the table and keep the lights on, and points aren’t going to pay those bills. As a secondary requirement for victory besides reaching one thousand points, your team should also ensure they are financially better off than the other team by the end of the game. 
  5. New rule: The team members have unionized. Team captains should have seen this coming. They all demand to be paid a fair wage in coins and won’t keep playing until those demands are met. As a new requirement for victory on top of the old ones, negotiate a fair contract with the team members. 
  6. New rule: There’s been an economic recession. Everybody is hit hard, none more so than the innocent coin-flipping industry. Inflation has skyrocketed and coins and now next to worthless. You can sell back your team’s coins to the bank for fifty points each, which seems like an okay deal. However, as a consequence of the recession, the new requirement for winning is one hundred thousand points. 
  7. New rule: There’s really no point in playing games anymore given the state of the economy. 

Reflection: 

My score was largely inspired by some of the works we saw relating to chess, and how artists in this movement would create twists on games that made them nearly impossible to play- and in the process allowed for the players to find their own fun using a broken ruleset. One that came to mind for my design was Yoko Ono’s White Chess Set, which featured an entirely white chessboard. This seems to make the game impossible to play, but in playing it I imagined that it might be its own sort of fun to attempt to remember which pieces were your own, or maybe just forgo the original rules altogether and simply play around with the broken ruleset. My score attempts to capture this energy by starting with a simple ruleset and slowly adding mechanics that derail it more and more until players are forced to find their own fun in the chaos. I also wanted the playing experience to be funny over anything else, thus the increasing absurdity of the rules.   

I was able to test my score two separate times, so it went through several revisions before the final. I was happy with the humor element of the score, as I feel in both cases the absurdity of the rules led to players creating comical situations, such as ‘firing’ their team leader or stealing/hoarding all the coins for their team. I do think that this score could be a bit more open-ended than the version I provided, and while I like the idea of the scenarios I’m providing for players (as a vehicle to create further comedy), it might be worth exploring a version of the game with less specific steps and punchlines while still maintaining the spirit of the score.

Score: Sketch and Stretch by T

by | Sep 29, 2023 |

Give each player 2 markers

Tell them to draw a picture

If they draw a circle, they do 5 jumping jacks

After 30 seconds, Vote

This score was designed with Yoko Ono’s work in mind, assigning seemingly random tasks to a straightforward idea. In this piece, the first goal of the game is simple – draw a random picture within a certain amount of time. However, much like a lot of Yoko Ono’s pieces in her book Grapefruit, there is a twist within the instructions that don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason for completing. This way of presenting a score is unique in the sense that it encourages outside-the-box thinking and exercises the creative part of one’s mind. However, where my score differs from any of the pieces in Grapefruit is that there is a more active engagement with the player, as opposed to having the reader ponder the meaning of the piece itself. In my score, this happens to be a disruption of the original idea through the use of physical exercise. This addition was inspired by the book about FLuxus, using the principle that the inclusion of multiple different people provides more room for creativity. By giving an open-ended task to the players to complete, it gives them all the power to create art in any way they want. Finally, the biggest inspiration for my Score would be the children’s games I used to play with my family, like pictionary or charades. These games have a simple premise with an emphasis on player engagement, and I wanted my score to reflect similar values. The game is designed to keep players on their toes, and force them to think about their approach to the game in a more abstract way, the same way a game of charades requires players to think creatively to win. 

Score of a Cooking Game

by | Sep 29, 2023 |

Scores:

The players draw a dish card from the dish deck.

Carefully analyze the ingredients and picture of the dish on the Card

based on those materials, try to figure out the steps of making that dish

go through the “Score Guide”, one correct step for one point

the player with the most points wins!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CRKWg9k4eKjT3d3IgrubVLPblPhlXVvk/edit#slide=id.p1

 

The reason why I made this game is because I thought it would be interesting to combine culinary recipes with board games. Theoretically, since everyone is on their own team, this game can be played with an infinite amount of people as long as you have enough cards for them. But because we only have two cards available, I would say at this moment, it is a game for 1 -2 people.

This game invites players to explore their culinary intuition by analyzing pictures of dishes and a list of ingredients. These elements serve as a canvas for players to envision the steps necessary to bring these dishes to life. As players must come up with their own recipes based on the materials, it’s just like painting on an empty canvas.

Score #1 – Board Game Constructor

by | Sep 29, 2023 | ,

Instructions:

  • Designed to be played with at least 3 or 4 players
  • The score is separated into two phases: construction and play
  • During construction each player takes turn to add to the game – by drawing on the board, adding rules, pieces or other elements of the game
  • During play each player takes turn to play the game
  • Each construction phase lasts one round and play phase lasts two
  • Existing rules cannot be overridden or removed, but can be appended
  • The score begins with a blank piece of paper, during the construction phase

Materials recommended:

Pen, paper, RPG dice, cards and anything that can be used as pawns

The aftermath of a play session:

Author’s statement:

My personal inspirations for a game about making games traces back to my elementary school days: with us being obsessed with computer games but unable to play during the day, we spent launch breaks after lunch breaks turning our notebooks into interactive games with only pencils and imagination.

In relation to our class reading, I think my score is mostly inspired by the Fluxus’s focus of delivering the performance over the final product, and its collaborative but loose nature during the process of creation. Additionally, the score can also be seen as an exquisite corpse, since each participator contributes to the game in turn as the game progress forward.

While I originally intended for there to be a clear instruction about needing to have a winner or an end state of the game, I decided to remove the rule so the players can decide what happens at the end, or if there needs to be an end at all. I believe that sometimes, having the goal of a game to be perpetuating said game can be just as interesting as having an outcome. In addition, as the rule stated, players can only add to a game, not to remove them. as I view the game to be like a big canvas, where things cannot be erased even though newer additions would eventually overwrite older ones – even if they are no longer visible, they still make up the work. Finally, as the playtesting shows, there is an endless amount of possible product of this score, and I think this fits nicely to the themes of Fluxus and some of Yoko Ono’s scores, where the process of creation is constant, yet the same starting condition can turn into a chaotic amount of products.