Experimental Game Design

Artwork #3: Intervene

Green Heaven – Treasure Hunter

by | Nov 7, 2023 |

This game is a treasure hunting game that tries to strengthen the importance of green spaces in cities, and intervene with urban planning, lack of green spaces, and the prioritization of commercial and residential developments over public parks and recreational areas. Every treasure location will be a green area in downtown Boston. The treasure will be plant’s seeds which can somehow motivate players to take more care of the urban environment and try to intervene with it by growing plants on their own in the city. This Game will be a long term game that will last either 3-7 days fully online via social media such as Discord channel or Group DMs. The GM (me) will post hints everyday on social media, including a screenshot on the general green area of where the treasure is, and 2-3 pictures shot from the POV of the location of treasure. The idea of fully virtual and no NPC is involved in person was inspired by the game Uncle Roy All Around You, but the ultimate goal of this game is about helping environment instead of helping random strangers.

The initial idea was inspired by Pac Manhattan where is conducted and intervening in downtown city. It was only a 1 day treasure hunt event and it will take multiple stops to reach the final treasure. However, I feel like making it a long term event will better strengthen the importance of green space since it encourages players to visit a green area to seek treasure and receive different plant’s seeds everyday. Moreover, instead of giving a set of instructions of where to go, giving a general area and some visual hints will be more fun to play from a player perspective, because this creates more affordances for players to move on their own rather than simply following instructions.

DAY1 Hints

DAY2 Hints

DAY3 Hints

Unfortunately, I only had 1 playtester for one of the daily treasure hunts. This seeking part is definitely fun and not too difficult, but the reward may seem a little unsatisfying since it basically plants. Perhaps adding more rewarding treasures on to plant’s seeds will intrigue more players to join this game.

Where the treasures are:

Playtesting:

    

 

Intervention: Uncle Roy Koopa

by | Nov 7, 2023 |

My project is “Uncle Roy Koopa: All Around You,” a scavenger hunt that takes place in Mario Maker 2.

Players enter the level as normal, but will quickly realize that the only way to beat it is to enter a 5-digit code they don’t know. In a floating comment, the character “Uncle Roy Koopa” (based on the koopaling from the original Mario games) explains what’s going on. He says, “The code is at my other home. QX8-G82-2WG.” The sequence he gives is the ID for a completely different level. Players will then have to play that level, explore obscure parts of the map, and find *another* floating comment that states which level to try next. All in all, there are three levels the player has to explore before getting the final code.

The point of this game is to disrupt the way people play Mario Maker levels. In general, the community treats levels as very disposable, playing a level quickly from start to finish, and then forgetting about it. This is very unfortunate to me, since it reflects the increasingly apathetic way that people are engaging with art. Instead of being a meaningful experience that makes people think or feel, people are just consuming and moving on. I wanted to see if I could break that trend by turning a Mario Maker level into a more mysterious, longer-term experience.

The biggest inspiration for this level (probably obvious) was “Uncle Roy: All Around You.” While this game doesn’t have the social aspect of that experience, it does have the element of interacting with the world differently than we normally would. Instead of treating our cities as a simple, start-to-finish experience (go to the store–then we’re done), the game encourages people to find wonder and intrigue by exploring areas of their city they probably don’t normally visit. Because of that, I thought it was a great intervention model to follow.

This game has changed a little bit since I first came up with the idea. The biggest difference from before is that it used to be a social experience, where users would leave comments to pledge that they’d “be there for someone they don’t know.” That isn’t really practical in Mario Maker 2, since the active player base isn’t what it used to be size-wise, and so forming a lot of pairs like the original “Uncle Roy” can’t really happen.

Link to a video of the level: Link

Thoughtless Objectives

by | Nov 7, 2023 | ,

Title: Thoughtless Objectives

Inspiration:

  • Watching the video that Jen and Derek put on with the man deciding what the woman should do and what decisions they should make
  • Then thought about how I write stuff and how others influence my decisions when I’m writing

Supplies:

  1. Notebook/Journal (preferably on the cheaper side)
  2. A pencil or pen

Setup:

  1. There will be one person with a notebook(the notetaker)
  2. Next, there is at least 1 person (a person) who will get the notebook and decide what they want to change in it (They can either overwrite, erase, nothing, or be creative).
  3. There will be a neutral judge that will decide whether the objective is complete or if the objective is possible

Before Playtest:

Gameplay:

  1. The notetaker will write down what they want for two minutes while the person tries to influence their decision (by talking, moving, or anything besides physical interaction)
  2. The notetaker’s goal is to write/draw something that is beneficial for them. Without letting, the person’s influence get to them
  3. When the person gets the notebook, they have 30 seconds to do whatever they want to the notebook. (obviously not destroy the notebook or make it unusable) 
  4. The person’s goal is to either have the notetaker actively write down their influences when they are writing or make the notetaker give up.
  5. There is no end unless the person’s goal is fulfilled or the person gives up

After Playtest:

Gameplay:

  1. The person will give the notetaker an objective (it has to be something that can be written down into the journal and feasible in 2 min)
  2. The notetaker has two minutes to achieve the objective (while the person tries to influence, distract etc)
  3. If the judge decides the notetaker completed their objective then they get 1 point and the roles switch (players can choose who they want to be)
  4. If the judge decides the notetaker did not complete the objective then the person has 30 seconds to mess up whatever the notetaker wrote (they can not make the notebook unusable up to judge’s decision)
  5.  The person gets a point if the notetaker gives up
  6. The first to whatever how many points wins!

 

Objective based-goals:

write/draw everything on a gudetama poster 

Write down page 132 of the book in its entirety 

Write the exact  number of candies that are in that pile on the floor, as the pile exists right now, without removing any candies

Write down 120 words, each of character length greater than 3, and each word has to be unique. Shorthand is not permissible, and the 120 words refers not to “120 words” but rather to the action of writing down all 120 words. 

Write down the hex color code of this blanket

Poster used for one of the objectives

 

 

 

 

 Artist statement: 

The original meaning of the artwork was to mock the simple task of writing a schedule, detailing a plan of action, doodling etc by showing the power random people have seemingly over us and changing/influencing what we want even though it’s our journal. I’m exaggerating my critique on how our minds seemingly function, and questioning why we let people dictate our actions. But as the playtest went on, the meaning of the game changed. It became more of critiquing unrealistic tasks that we are given on a daily basis. Everything from school to home life, it’s all a crumpled mess because doing it all seems impossible. We work so hard to reach a goal only for our work to be rendered useless or something comes up that delays us from accomplishing that goal. The new version of “Thoughtless Objectives” is supposed to be representative of this feeling. Being the notetaker, you are under an immense time crunch, trying your hardest to finish the task while the person is actively trying to sabotage you. The person only wins by making the notetaker give up; this was intentional in order to hit home the idea that there is no real reason for making things difficult for a person besides satisfaction in a person’s misery. Although the task given is supposed to be possible, the person can dance on the line between extremely difficult and impossible. As I witnessed in my playtests, I had a person tell the notetaker to count all the candy on the floor (being over 400 candies). While the notetaker did attempt it, they ultimately failed. On a personal level, there are times where I feel like everything is just conveniently against me. With every mistake I make or extra time I take, the dumber I feel amongst my peers. The more I feel this way the more I listen to others rather than myself. Even with this project, I feel like the real intervening was the playtesters’ feedback vs my original idea.

Intervention: The Northeastern ARG

by | Nov 6, 2023 | ,

Overview:

My intervention project was a Northeastern ARG, or ‘alternate reality game.’ These typically involve using real-world locations or settings and creating a fictitious narrative for players to follow. A lot of times these games involve puzzle-solving, and thus a mysterious and intriguing element is almost tradition for these types of experiences. I decided to follow suit and create a short puzzle game that would take place on campus, with players tasked to uncover data about a supposed “Northeastern Conspiracy” that is hidden somewhere on campus using clues posted in different locations to track it down. 

Rules:

Two locations near to each other on campus were identified, and this is where the ‘clue’ pages were left. I wanted to keep the number of clues needed to solve the puzzle to an absolute minimum so that students passing by would potentially be more interested in playing the ARG as it would be over very quickly. The ‘A’ page contained a key with letters corresponding to numbers and symbols:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ! ^ $ % – * ( ) & + [
a r s g t h y l r f o m e d i n c u b k

Meanwhile, the ‘B’ page contained the location of the data itself, but encoded using this key: 

!2^$ 56% 97-%9 6188 3*4( 5&9( 9*465 1(- 6%1- 1)2^33 56% 359%%5 5^ 56% 5188 42133 12^&(- 56% 3*-% ^! +%621[*3 56% -151 *3 6*–%( *( 56% 42133

In addition to the piece of the clue, the two types of pages would each list the location of the other type of page, meaning that regardless of which page was found first a player would know where they needed to go to make their end of the puzzle work. Put together, the two clues would reveal the following sentence: “From the Ryder Hall sign, turn right and head across the street to the tall grass around the side of Behrakis. The data is hidden in the grass.” Just as the clue states, the ‘data’ (which itself was a piece of paper with text on it) was hidden outside in a weatherproof bag for players to eventually find. 

The paper itself contained an absurd description of the process of paying tuition to the school, described in a way that made it sound like criminal activity. However, it was revealed at the end that this was all a joke and part of my ARG to avoid any unintentional distress or people taking my game more seriously than it was meant. 

Artists Statement:

Certain in-class examples, such as the Barbie Liberation Organization, created scenarios where a false ‘narrative’ was created by intervening in a real-life space. In that instance, a fiction that the toys themselves were rebelling against their company was created using the setting of real stores in a manner that interacted with real people. While my ARG was more interactive than this- I was still inspired to try and use the ARG to facilitate my own fictional narrative. I wanted to create a tongue-in-cheek parody of the idea that there was a conspiracy going on at Northeastern that poked fun at some of the most common student complaints about the University. In this way, it acted as a very small form of protest while simultaneously being an absurd narrative that somehow there was an organization dedicated to uncovering the secrets that players could interact with throughout the game. 

Unfortunately, in my attempts to set it up on campus, I was stopped by student employees at Northeastern both times I tried to put up my posters at my planned locations- unfortunately preventing me from seeing the results of my intervention as I had originally intended. In hindsight, I should have planned to put them in locations that were more free for students to put up posters but I am inherently limited by what I’m allowed to do on campus- and it is possible this project wasn’t feasible given the time I would need to coordinate it with the school. I was also concerned about player participation in my game, and whether or not anyone would take the time to do it. I think had I planned a wider setup of my posters this and the previous problem could have been alleviated.

Photos:

Here are some photos of me attempting to put up the posters and hide the clue:

Reality TV: The Game

by | Jun 29, 2023 |

Reality TV Intervention

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fXjOANLjYkqW5-dZz5mtzAvVHRaTP6tf/view?usp=sharing

Please click the link to view my deliverable.

The existing process I chose to intervene in was everyday life. Similar to the Pac-Man game we saw in the presentation given by the game professors. The Pac-Man game in Manhattan interrupted the lives of the players and the people outside of the Magic Circle who were just roaming the streets on the way to whatever they needed to do. I was inspired by the idea of creating a game in a place that was common to those who played it as well as the players. In Reality TV: The Game, I wanted to create a score that would allow one to intervene in their own lives by filming parts of their day and offering commentary on it. Something that is abnormal in everyday life but normal for those who are on reality tv shows. Having a game where one’s objective is to interrupt their day by filming whatever they are doing and then offering commentary about it in post, would stir some feelings of anxiety in the sense that most people think that what they do on a day-to-day basis is uninteresting. This is precisely why I chose to playtest my game on the most mundane day of the year: the day after my birthday. It was difficult even making myself interested in the things that I was doing throughout the day but my perseverance highlighted my purpose for this game. In the age of social media and reality shows where people are doing extraordinary things, I’d like to present the idea that anyone’s life is worth being documented. It is only until we get older that we appreciate videos of our younger selves. I am giving each player permission to romanticize their life. Something I think many dada artists did with their work.

Materials:

-Camera

-Microphone

-Tripod

Instructions:

-Film 3 separate videos: at the start of your day, after you eat something, and sometime before you go to bed.

-Each video could incorporate you doing some activity for at least 1 minute. A phone call. Brushing your teeth. Drawing. Studying. Whateva

-For each video you created, create 3 more short videos for at least 15 seconds explaining what it is that you are doing. A confessional if you’re familiar with the term.

-Once you have all of your clips, use any video editing software to piece them together. My personal format was. intro-1st clip -1st confessional- 2nd clip- 2nd confessional-3rd clip -3rd confessional-outro-also i used Inshot the phone app to edit

-Add some sound effects and background music.

-And BAM. You got yourself a pilot for a reality show.

“I Will Pay Someone To Write This Essay For Me”

by | Dec 17, 2022 |

Goal:

  • Manipulate and weaponize existing bots to impede upon the experience of other Twitter users
  • Demonstrate the prevalence and omniscience of bots on social media, in this case specifically Twitter
  • Show the predatory behavior of “Essay Writing Services” and their ease of access

 

Procedure:

  • Acquire the permission of the selected affected user
  • Go to a recent tweet and reply with some variation of “I will pay someone to write this essay for me”
  • View the almost instantaneous response by various bots

 

Artist’s Statement:

My initial inspiration came from the widespread activist practice of needing to slightly exacerbate a problem or nuisance in order for the proper authorities to notice it and fix it. Sometimes one must make an issue worse so that it either actually steps into the sight of an overseeing organization, or so that it creates enough justification for resources to be spend dealing with the issue. This practice can be seen in a multitude of ways and with varying levels of severity. It might be as simple as widening a pothole or crack in the sidewalk so that the city determines it to be enough of a hazard to merit repair. One man in England taped raw fish to broken ATMs so that banks were forced to service the ATMs when they came to remove the dead fish. It could also be the demonstration of backwards, outdated, nonsensical, or hypocritical laws. The practice of “sit-ins” during the Civil Rights Movement are a fantastic example of exacerbating what was perceived “as a nuisance” to demonstrate the illogicity and backwardness of excluding black customers from restaurants. While no where near as noble—or hard fought—as such a practice, my intention with this intervention was the demonstrate the prevalence and lurking nuisance of web-crawlers and bots on the internet. The selected environment, and specific issue to highlight, was the presence of bots on Twitter; More specifically reply bots offering a service, in this case “essay writing services.” These bots masquerade as authentic people, but are—for the most part—actually a highly networked service of web-crawlers auto replying to individuals lamenting the difficulties of their essay and then connecting users to a paid essay writing service. In this way, these bots act in a particularly malicious matter, as someone not even explicitly asking for such a service—possibly just posting to vent their essay related frustrations to their friends—could find themselves deluged with accounts offering their services at competitive rates. Thus to demonstrate this, I had a friend reply to various Twitter posts with some variation of “I will pay someone to write this essay for me.” Each time resulted in a multitude of bots replying to him, offering their services, and we even saw some other genuine users commenting how my friend had “summoned the bots” or saying something to the effect of “here they come.” This demonstrates that this issue of auto-replying bots is a widespread and known issue on Twitter, but rather than being cracked down upon, they are instead tolerated and ignored as their annoyance is only minor and temporary. Hopefully this intervention helped exacerbate this issue in some individuals’ eyes and compelled some to try and act to resolve this nuisance.

 

Documentation:

Attempting to Book a Club Room

by | Nov 15, 2022 | ,

Intervention Game: Attempting to Book a Club Room

This game, Attempting to Book a Club Room, is a scavenger hunt-esque game that takes place during a club meeting of the Northeastern University Game Development Club (NUGDC). In this game, a normal meeting is interrupted by an actor proclaiming that their current club room has been acquired by another club, and the NUGDC needs to find another club room utilizing Northeastern services.

Goal
The goal for the players is to find the final club room location for that week’s NUGDC meeting.

Requirements/Materials
– At least 3 actors (including the “game master”)
– Website handout (handout here, website here) and riddle poem (here) for two scenes of the game
– General script outline for the game (here) for GM and actors to follow
– Access to a starting room and Ryder rooms 143 and 207

Rules/Setup
There are no explicit rules for the game for the players to be aware of, as this experience is one that is suddenly put onto the players of the game. Each session should be led by a “game master” (GM) to help direct the players through each “scene” of the game. As this was designed to only be run at an NUGDC club meeting, this is the ideal place to run the game. However, choosing another starting location is possible. As the GM, the only rule for you to follow is to let the players do all the work but answer questions with appropriate clarity as players ask them.

Scene 1: Kariotis 110 (or other room)
The game starts in this initial location that starts with dialogue between the GM and the NEU Admin actor. The NEU Admin hands the GM the paper handout that lists the link for the website that contains a quick puzzle for the players to solve. Open up this website on a projector or some other way that is easily seen by all players. By following links on the website, there will be a table with room numbers and corresponding 5-letter combinations that represent different buildings on campus. The answer to the wordle (RYDER) will show the correct room by finding Ryder Hall in the website’s table.

Scene 2: Ryder 143
An actor should be placed at this location ahead of time playing the role as the Club President in the dialogue outline. After the dialogue is complete between the GM, Club President, and NEU Admin, the players will be handed the riddle poem that leads to the next room. The synopsis of the riddle’s answers are as follows:
1. The next club room is also in Ryder
2. The code for the room can be found by counting objects on the first floor of Ryder as specified by the riddle
3. The first number is the number of bathroom sets on the first floor, being 2
4. The second number is the number of courtyards in Ryder, being 0
5. The third number is the number of CAMD banners in the foyer of Ryder, being 7
6. The final club room will be in Ryder 207

Scene 3: Ryder 207
The game will then end upon reaching Ryder 207. This will include a debriefing about the game and what its purpose was (which I will talk more about in my artist statement). As this was a part of an NUGDC meeting, our club concluded with a short presentation on Games as an Art Form where I presented on some of the things I’ve learned so far in this class (slides here if you’re curious).

Artist’s Statement

The inspiration for this game started with seeing the Uncle Roy All Around You game and the Men in Grey intervention piece. In Uncle Roy, players were asked to explore a large city, both in-real-life and virtually, in order to find the office of an “Uncle Roy.” In Men in Grey, people on a vulnerable internet connection were shown their current internet activity through a screen on suitcases by passing men in grey suits. There was one aspect in each of these that I really wanted to replicate for my own piece: in Uncle Roy, the idea of going on a large-scale adventure that requires a player to get on their feet, and in Men in Grey, the idea of unexpectedly taking people out of a place of comfort. I combined these two ideas into the general concept of this game: to suddenly whisk people on an adventure that would take unsuspecting players around campus on the hunt for a specific location.

With this general idea in mind, I had two problems. I wanted to make this game purposeful in that it conveys some kind of message, and I wanted some kind of consent to play from my players without giving them any kind of hints that they would be playing the game. As I am an eboard member of the NUGDC, I participate in weekly meetings about proceeding club meetings and activities, and during one such meeting, we realized we had an opening one week and needed something to fill it with. I saw this as an opportunity to run such a game during the club meeting, as everyone attending is always expecting to participate in some kind of game-related activity. Seeing as the club meeting would be the ideal setting for this game, I also wanted the message of the game to be something club-relevant. I thought back to some of the problems I’ve encountered as an eboard member of the NUGDC, and remembered one that was very prolific at the start of the semester, being the difficulties getting an adequately-sized club room.

Newfound inspiration in mind, I began to develop the game around the idea that the players would be jumping from club room to club room, trying to find one to hold the meeting while getting kicked out of ones they would find for reasons beyond their control. I knew that I wanted some relatively easy puzzles to be the way that they would find each subsequent room after the first, but as I needed to fit the game into the club meeting’s allotted time and still have time for a presentation afterward, I also needed to make them easy enough to not spend a whole lot of time on. I had a tough time coming up with puzzles that related to my design, so I broadened the purpose of the game to including some general dissatisfactory aspects of NEU that I’ve noticed over the years. Specifically, I took inspiration from some of the archaic websites (at least by today’s standards) that sometimes didn’t even work that I would need to use in order to do things like book rooms for certain events. I decided to represent this in the game by having increasingly-archaic ways of “generating” new club rooms for players to find, being a very minimal website and a delivered letter in the form of a riddle written in cursive.

Just having the puzzles and game progression wasn’t enough, though, and my game still had one major unaddressed issue: I couldn’t run this by myself. There were multiple interactions that would only make sense if I had other people playing as actors to represent different voices in this narrative I was constructing. So, I enlisted the help of two other eboard members to play the role of a strict and punctual NEU admin, and a club president that is also caught in this mess trying to find a club room for their club. With the dialogue outline written, the puzzles designed, and the progression for the game detailed, this game turned into a very fun experience for everyone involved.

Documentation

A Day In The Life

by | Nov 14, 2022 |

For my activist game, I want to explore the life of another person. 

The activist game starts with a person documenting their day; they capture themselves with pictures and videos. They share the information online to a maximum of 10 people and pose the question: how am I feeling at each given moment? Each participant has to provide responses  of what they think the pictures and videos convey. Each participant is now eligible to participate in the game by posting pictures and videos themselves creating a chain reaction. A day in the life starts with a person that shares their most revealing and vulnerable experiences that allows everyone to learn and grow from each other. One of my inspirations for this game comes from talk show host Carson Daley who shared a picture of himself during a live television show when he was experiencing a panic attack while everyone thought he was having the time of his life.

My game illustrates the artwork of  Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh who tied a rope around each other and did every move together. This artwork was particularly inspiring to me because of how they stayed connected for over a year. They say, “They take out the dog, they  run, they have tea, watch a lot of TV, spend hours at the work tables sitting back to back. For pleasure, they watched  movies and rode their bikes around, one following behind the other (4).” Through thick and thin, this connectedness was therapeutic, but at the same time caused a rift between the participants. I’m not insinuating that there has to be a conflict between the posts, I just want it to be open to all emotions and themes. Linda and Tehching togetherness still created a bond with each other by sharing their lives. I want my game to capture this same meaning and experience.

Another example is Burden’s “ Five Day Locker” piece where he curled up in a two-by-two-by-three-foot locker which he endured for five consecutive days. The text, On Edge, quotes, “… to his surprise, people he didn’t even know came unbidden to sit in front of the locker, to tell him their problems and the stories of their lives. … Certainly, those who came were projecting something onto him. And Burden’s been extremely conscious of audience behavior ever since (Carr 18).” Burden’s artwork shows that everyone has a story to tell even though the person may not look like they do. I want to invoke the same emotion by making the viewers question and critique others’ lives and how it relates to themselves.

Trash Can Travelogue

by | Nov 12, 2022 | ,

The Requirements:

*4+ player (competitive)

*Ages 12+ (children & adults)

 

The Materials:

*Map of Northeastern University (x1)

*Cardboard Box (with trash & recycling items)

*Pamphlet of Photographs (x1)

*Checklist (x1)

 

The Instructions:

*Meet with me in front of Ruggles Station to receive your necessary materials…

*Read through the pamphlet of photographs to deduce which items Binson, Binjamin, Binley, & Binard wish to obtain…

*Travel across the campus and navigate using a physical (or digital) map of Northeastern University…

*After you place an item in a bin, keep track of its whereabouts using your checklist…

*If you find any litter during your journey, pick it up and place it in the nearest bin (and write it down on the BACK of your checklist)…

*Return to Ruggles Station, and I will grade your checklist by determining if you disposed of the items correctly…

*Depending on how much litter you picked up, you’ll receive bonus points for your endeavors that will contribute to your final grade…

 

Artist Statement: 

In the Interactive Media & Society course that I finished last semester, my final project was to conceptualize (but not fully implement) an interventionist artwork that can be incorporated into a public space realistically. The assignment’s core requirement was to convey an important message regarding contemporary activism and societal reform, so I quickly went to the drawing board and brainstormed some ideas. Overall, as someone who advocates for responsible recycling and the avoidance of littering, I ultimately decided to compose an interactive piece that would raise awareness about garbage pollution in a lighthearted manner. This overarching concept would later become “Reduce, Reuse, Restyle,” a public demonstration where trash cans and recycling bins would be decorated with speech bubbles and googly eyes. Each of them would discuss which types of wastes that they enjoy “eating” in their everyday lives, further providing them with their own unique personalities. In short, these artistic endeavors aimed to supply people with an eye-catching reminder about where they should dispose of their unwanted items for the betterment of the environment…

Since the entirety of this assignment simply composed of an ideated pitch, I never actually had the opportunity to enact this narrative premise in the real world. However, after watching the famous interventionist piece titled “Uncle Roy All Around You,” which was a massive multiplayer game where strangers communicated with one another throughout a city, I realized that I could transform “Reduce, Reuse, Restyle” into a compelling experience involving Northeastern’s main campus. These revelations established the foundational groundwork for “Trash Can Travelogue,” a game where four players compete and navigate themselves across campus to dispose of specific items in particular bins. Moreover, any litter that they witness during the experience must be documented and disposed of in order to receive additional bonus points at the end of the game, further motivating the players to beautify the university. Even though this project hasn’t been playtested by multiple volunteers simultaneously, I am very proud of the central concepts behind my artwork and I am rather content with how it evolved beyond its original source material…

Many of the intervention piece mentioned in the guest presentation were especially reliant on public spaces and individual volunteers. Some of them involved multiple locations in one general area whereas others relied on unsuspecting volunteers. Furthermore, every single one of them expressed their underlying messages in a wide variety of interesting ways. Even though I greatly appreciate the different methodologies for each individual artwork, I wanted to separate myself from them and experiment with my own creative processes. After all, such an inherent quality is best exemplified by the avant-garde movements that we learned about thus far, and I am genuinely striving to continue with this trend throughout each of these projects. In the end, despite some of the apparent shortcomings with this submission, “Trash Can Travelogue” is an interventionist piece that I am satisfied with in more ways than one, and I (once again) look forward to our next major assignment for the Experimental Game Design course…

Grab A Bev

by | Nov 12, 2022 |

Requirements:

1.Maps app (Google or Apple Maps)

2.Money to buy food

3.Discord

 

Rules:

1.A player selects a location nearby to get food for, the player must not buy a drink

2.All players enter the food they bought into the discord on server

3/One of the other players enters a drink that they would like to combine with the food on the discord server

4.The player must then try and find said drink, buy it and enjoy their meal with it

5.Pictures of the full meal are then posted on a separate channel on the server for full meals

6.Players then share their reviews of the meal combo on that channel

 

Artist Statement:

  One of my main inspirations for this piece was the game Uncle Roy All Around You. The premise of Uncle Roy All Around you is that the city in which the player is in serves as the arena in which the game takes place. They are then instructed online to complete a number of tasks to help find Uncle Roy. This puts forward the question “Would you be there for a stranger in need?”, to which most players would answer “Yes”. Although I drew inspiration from this game, I decided to go for a generally lower stakes premise which is allowing your meal to be completed by a stranger. In my game, players allow other players to select the beverage to be drunk together with their meal. In response to the question asked of the players in Uncle Roy All Around You, “Would you let a stranger select the beverage for your next meal”. The answers to this question were less straightforward with players in my playtests asking to what extent is the other player a “stranger” etc. Although I chose food and beverage  to lower the stakes, it creates a paradox in the sense that  lending help in some cases is something people are more willing to do for strangers than allowing to choose what they consume, because of course you wouldn’t eat a random meal or drink a random glass of unknown liquid lying in the subway simply because it could contain all manner of harmful substances. To this end I created the balance between reducing the high pressure environment of a seemingly life and death situation to a more lighthearted one which still bore some weight.

  Another source of inspiration for this game is the plethora of online arcade cooking games in which players are meant to put together different meals when given multiple ingredients and are then scored based on the coherence between the meal they made and the standards that were being requested in the game. However, I took out the scoring aspect as a objective element whereas if certain ingredients or combos don’t match in particular meals then a certain number is given as a score and rather opted for the more subjective route where players write their own reviews based on how they feel after they tasted the meal.

 

As you can see, all sorts of interesting combinations arise from the game, with some players aiming more for humor while others are genuinely suggesting a combination that they like. Either way, it is great fun and everyone is a winner.