Artwork #4: Experience

For Artwork #4, I wanted to create a game that would have players experience the work of a sound engineer. Sound Effect!, as the name suggests, is about experiencing the randomness and pressure of creating sound effects on the spot. As someone who sometimes has to make sound effects on the spot, I wanted the players to feel a similar rush, but with an even shorter time limit, letting them experience the need to act fast and rely on their instincts.

For Sound Effect!, everyone brings an instrument of their choice. Each round begins with the group drawing an action prompt. The prompts can be anything from “a door creaking open” to “footsteps” or something conceptual like “a spell charging up.” Once the prompt is revealed, each player has a minute to experiment with their instruments and create a sound effect to the best of their abilities. After the minute is up, the players take turns playing their sound effects. Each performance shouldn’t last more than 10 seconds. They should be brief and convey the idea effectively. After everyone has performed, the group votes on whose sound Effect was the most realistic or convincing. However, you can not vote for yourself. The person who receives the most votes earns one point for that round. After a set number of rounds, the player with the most tally marks wins. If there’s a tie at the end, the tied players do one extra sudden-death round with a new prompt, and everyone else votes to break the tie. This game is meant to be creative. Don’t let rules and prompts limit your creativity. I have created 4 variations of the game for different player experiences. I encourage players to develop more variations of the game to play with friends, using the existing rules as a foundation.

Rules:

• Setup:

1. 1. 1. Each player will either choose an instrument or bring their own. The game comes with a small list of action prompts to help new players get started. You may also add your own prompts at any time. The players will decide how many rounds they want to play. 

• Start of the Round:

1. 1. 1. Draw one action prompt from the list and read it aloud to the group.

• Prep Time:

1. 1. 1. All players will have one minute to create a sound effect on their instrument that matches the prompt. 

• Performances:

1. 1. 1. After the minute is up, the players will take turns playing their sound effect. Each performance shouldn’t be longer than 10 seconds. Keeping things brief for a faster pace and potentially more rounds. 

• Voting:

1. 1. 1. Once everyone has performed, all players will vote for the sound effect that best matches the prompt. Players cannot vote themselves. 

• Scoring:

1. 1. 1. The player with the most votes will receive one tally mark for that round. 

• Winning:

1. 1. After the final round, the player with the most tally marks wins. If there is a tie, the tied players will play one extra round, and everyone else votes to break the tie. 

Game Variations

Each variation uses the standard rules unless stated otherwise below. 

• Team Game:

1. 1. 1. Tools Allowed:
         1. Standard instruments or any variation of a tool that your group agrees upon. 
      2. Team Making:
         1. The players may decide how many groups they wish to break into; However, if the number of players exceeds 9, the minimum number of players per group must be 3. 
      3. Prep Time Changes:
         1. Players are allowed 2-3 minutes per round to compose. 
      4. Performance Changes:
         1. Teams must play together rather than focus on individual performance. 
         2. Each team will be allowed up to 20 seconds. 
         3. Players are allowed to layer, alternate, or blend sounds; however, everyone must have played at the same time at least once.
      5. Voting Changes:
         1. Each player may award a different team a point in each category
            1. Clarity: Was the concept clear in the team’s performance?
            2. Creativity: Was the performance unique and creative?
            3. Teamwork:  Was the team coordinated?
         2. The team with the most points wins, and the game continues. 

• Random Objects:

1. 1. 1. Tools Allowed:
         1. Players may not use instruments. Each player will use an everyday random object, ie, keys, cups, pencils. 
      2. Voting Changes:
         1. Players will vote for the sound that is most creative and convincing rather than strictly realistic. 

• Instrument Swap:

1. 1. 1. Tools Allowed:
         1. Any instrument or object brought by the players. 
         2. At the start of each round, players will place their instrument/object in the center and select a new instrument. Each player must choose one they are not confident in. 
      2. Prep Time Changes:
         1. Players are allowed 2 minutes to learn their new instrument and create a sound effect for the prompt.
      3. Voting Changes:
         1. As players are new to their instruments, they will vote for the player that they deem creative and intuitive. 

• Scene Maker:

1. 1. The goal of this variation is not to compete but to create a scene with all the players. A player will pick a prompt and be the first to start playing a rhythm or sound, keeping it short and replayable. The next player will join with a new sound to help add another layer to the prompt, the next will do the same, and so on until everyone has played. The goal is to create/make the scene of the chosen prompt together. There is no winner or loser; it is about creating something together. 
   2. Rules:
      1. One player chooses or draws a prompt for the round. 
      2. That player starts by playing a short, repeating rhythm or sound inspired by the prompt.
      3. After a few seconds, the next player will join by adding a new layer to the sound while the first player continues to play. 
      4. Players will continue to join one at a time until every player has performed together. 
      5. The goal is to create a scene that represents the prompt together.

Example Prompts

• Easy (Clear and Simple):

1. 1. 1. Walking
      2. Running
      3. Knocking
      4. Jumping
      5. Turning around
      6. Opening something
      7. Closing something
      8. The motion of dropping downward
      9. Sliding
      10. Shaking 

• Medium (Interpretive):

1. 1. 1. A person starting to fall
      2. Something sneaking up
      3. A sudden surprise
      4. Stumbling forward
      5. A slow build in tension
      6. Losing balance
      7. Heavy footsteps approaching
      8. Something wobbling
      9. A short burst of energy
      10. Someone waking up gradually

• Hard (Conceptual)

1. 1. A spark of inspiration
   2. A spell is charging up
   3. A sense of dread creeping in
   4. Something malfunctioning
   5. A chase scene beginning
   6. Calm turning to chaos
   7. Transformation
   8. A dramatic reveal
   9. A plot twist
   10. A powerful entrance

Iterations

For my first iteration, I only used the base version of the game. Everything was going as planned, but I noticed the original time allotted to the player to perform was too long. The 20 seconds were too much time for players to fill within the allotted time for practice. The voting system was also a bit strange, since the classmates who weren’t playing still participated. This created a few confusing situations, requiring us to rescore the results. Some of the prompts seemed a little too difficult for the game. After the first playtest, my professor and I agreed that the goal of making the game feel chaotic and random was a good one.

For the second iteration, we tried switching instruments around to add even more confusion and chaos to the game. Everyone agreed to use an unfamiliar instrument. The game turned even more chaotic, but that was the point. This version turned out to be more fun than the original. This was the inspiration for one of the variations listed above.

After both iterations, I decided to create more variations for the game. I wanted to emphasize that the original version was only the starting point for creativity. I ended up designing four variations: Team Game, Random Objects, Instrument Swap, and Scene Maker. Each one explores a different way to play the game, either by increasing chaos, encouraging people to work together, or pushing players’ creativity in a new direction. This was the point where I decided that the players should build their own variations using the core rules as a standardized base. This is an ever-growing game.

Below are videos from the playtesting!

Link to the game document: Sound Effect!

read more…

My game, Out of the Loop, is meant to invoke that feeling of when a group of people are talking about something, but you missed the starting context so you try to understand as the conversation goes on. To achieve this. in Out of the Loop, one player is left out of the conversation. The other players (the Cluers) secretly share a word, hint “cryptically” to each other, and choose a clue. The Guesser overhears everything and tries to figure out the secret word and what the others were even talking about.

Inspirations:

I often gravitate to simple games, since I feel they are the most impressive when they truly convey a message or experience, and that is what I tried to channel for this game. Games such as Marriage or many Mary Flanagan works, are so simple yet convey their experiences so effortlessly.

Rules:

Players:

• Minimum: 3 players
• Roles per round:
  • 1 Guesser
  • 2 or more Cluers
• As your group size increases, add more Cluers, but there is always exactly one Guesser.

Scoring:

• Earn points cooperatively as a team.
• Start at 3 points
• Reach 10 points & You all win!
• Drop to 0 points & You all lose
• Or, play without scores, if that is more fun for you group.

Setup:

• Choose a starting Guesser.
• All other players become Cluers for this round.
• Shuffle and pull one Word Card.

Playing:

1. Reveal the Secret Word

• The Guesser draws the top Word Card, placing it on their forehead, WITHOUT looking at it.
  • All Cluers can now see the secret word.
• Cluers silently read the word and begin to speak “cryptically”.
• Example secret word: Pig

2. Cluers Speak “Cryptically”

• Each Clue Giver thinks of one descriptive word related to the secret word. BUT they cannot say this clue out loud yet, because the Guesser is listening.
• Instead, each Cluer gives the group a cryptic hint about their clue, for example:
  • “My word starts with B and ends in N.” (intending bacon)
  • “Mine starts with P and ends with K.” (maybe pork… or pink)
• Cluers must follow these rules:
  • They may NOT reveal their full clue outright.
  • They must NOT say anything that contains or spoils the secret word.
  • Their hint should be clear only to the other Cluers, not the Guesser.
  • All discussions happen out loud, the Guesser listens and tries to understand.

3. The Group Chooses One Clue:

• After everyone presents their cryptic hint, the Cluers discuss (still publicly) and agree on one of the intended clue words to say out loud.
• Only the chosen word will be spoken directly.
• Example: The group picks Joe’s intended clue word: “bacon.”
• This is the only clue the Guesser receives.

4. The Guesser Makes One Guess

• The Guesser hears the chosen clue (e.g., “bacon”) and gets exactly one guess at the hidden word.
• The group scores a point if the guesser got it right and loses a point if the guesser gets it wrong!

5. Rotate Roles

• After scoring, the Guesser passes the forehead card to the center, and the next player clockwise becomes the new Guesser.
• Start a new round with a fresh card.

Testing:

I tested this game in class twice, with success and very minimal feedback, so I didn’t change much. Over the thanksgiving break, I tested it again and added the rule of putting the card on your forehead (to increase the feeling of being left out) and added the scoring (because originally there was no scoring mechanic).

For my Express/Experience piece I created an experience art piece that requires players to invite things or moments in their life that they would want to remember or leave behind and choose how they would want to use them in a piece and what the outcomes would be. I reference in this piece a few ideas from Yoko Ono’s book Grapefruit, where she wrote prompts for readers to follow and gives them the options of what to do with the end result of the action they have done.

So, I took the ideas and added them into my artwork. In this piece, I gave players either different color sticky notes or slips of different color paper and asked them to write 3 things they would want to hold onto/remember (such as a memory, physical object, etc.) and 3 things they want to leave behind (again a memory, physical object, etc.). Then the players would randomly scramble the things they came up with into two piles. Once the prompts are mixed players would randomly choose one from the hold on to pile and one from the leave behind pile and then in 5 mins have to figure out a way to merge the two ideas into a drawing piece. After having the physical piece, players would then decide what they would want to do to the piece. Given the option to either discard the piece, hold on to it, or leave it behind somewhere. The goal for this piece, who to see the outcome of what players had drawn and what they would want to do with it, showcasing if they are willing to leave things behind or hold on to them. 

During playtests, I ran two different iterations of the game, for this one I allowed for players to scramble all every sticky note and create drawings based on the random choices they got from the two piles. Then after having the two prompts, each player had 5 mins to draw a piece combing the two ideas into one. Which was done on whiteboards, making it easier to see the work done, however the last prompt to do something with the piece, wasn’t really possible since it was done on a whiteboard and all you could really do was erase the drawing.

In class playtest

Which is what I changed in the final playtest. I ran this piece again, but this time had it where the players would work based on their own prompts they wrote and at the end would decide what the outcome for their piece would be. For these pieces, player 1 drew the prompts of leaving behind their dorm room and holding on to being passionate, which came out in their drawing to be setting their dorm room on fire. Player 2 in a similar vein drew their prompts of leaving behind a badly ended relationship and to hold on to their sanity, which came out in their drawing as a candle burning a calendar of that marked off the last date they had with that relationship. Lastly, player 3 drew the prompts of leaving behind being rageful and holding on to their Nintendo switch, resulting in their drawing to be themself ripping their switch down the middle.

Player 1                                                              Player 2                                         Player 3

After they created their drawings, I then asked them what they wanted to do with said drawings. For the breaking switch drawing, the player had crumbled up their piece and threw it away in the trash. As for the other two, they wanted to hold on to the drawings. When I asked each player why they wanted the outcome they came up with for the drawings. Player 1 said they wanted to keep it as a reminder to get their finals done as a form of motivation that they will leave that horrible dorm they hated. As for Player 2, they wanted to keep their drawing also as a reminder to not go out with terrible men. And for Player 3, they threw their piece away because they didn’t want a reminder of the anger they once had and fully chose to leave it behind. Looking back I find it interesting how at least during this playtest, that when it comes to having the choice to hold on/leave behind something regarding themselves, player is more likely to leave it behind easily, as of something that involves someone/something else outside of one’s self, players were more inclined to hold on to it based on it being a reminder to not have it happen again. Somewhat like a lesson they are willing to keep with them.

Outcomes:

Player 1                                                              Player 2                                         Player 3

The non-verbal artgame UNSPOKEN requires players to convey and understand emotions through restricted body language. The player who expresses an emotion through restricted body movements receives no verbal communication from other players who try to understand what they see. The interpretation results from each performance session will determine how the physical structure develops. The Expressor receives brief control over the game after successful emotion recognition by at least one player so they can purposefully add physical elements to the forming cube. The game introduces random fragment placement when players fail to understand the expressed emotion. All additions made to the structure become permanent. The game records emotional understanding and misinterpretation through the accumulation of fragments which create an unstable or unfinished cube structure. The game lacks any scoring system and winner designation, and players can stop at any point. The game creates a visual representation of how communication affects shape development through time.

The first iteration of the game allowed players to discover non-verbal emotional signals without any established framework. The game required one player to show a selected emotion through limited body movements while the other player tried to understand the expression. The playtesting results showed that players failed to match their intended emotions with the emotions they thought others felt during most attempts. The iteration achieved its goal of creating emotional discomfort through miscommunication, but each play session ended without creating any enduring impact. The system required a mechanism to store ongoing misunderstandings because this need led to the development of physical fragments in subsequent iterations.

Iteration 2 introduced a playable prototype that translated emotional interpretation into physical accumulation. Building on the findings of Iteration 1, this version added fragmented pieces that could gradually form a cube over multiple rounds. When an emotion was correctly interpreted, players gained limited control to place a fragment intentionally; when interpretation failed, fragments were placed randomly. This iteration revealed how misunderstanding did not stop the game but actively reshaped its structure. Emotional alignment became rare but meaningful, while misinterpretation accumulated as visible spatial distortion, clarifying the project’s core mechanic.

The system evolved through Final Iteration into a dependable expressive framework which generated permanent structural changes after emotional interpretation. The system established clear boundaries between its potential cube components while it improved its ability to distinguish between purposeful placement and accidental placement. The system allowed brief control through correct interpretation, but permanent instability resulted from incorrect interpretation. The cube developed through time as an imperfect and frequently incomplete shape which served as a physical manifestation of emotional discrepancies rather than a targeted artistic goal. The system evolved from an emotional prediction test into a unified artgame platform during this iteration.

The references for UNSPOKEN derive from artistic practices which use instructional methods to create conceptual art and process art and expressive games that utilize rules and constraints as their creative elements. The project draws inspiration from Yoko Ono’s Instruction Pieces which establish execution and interpretation as the core elements of art and Sol LeWitt’s Incomplete Open Cubes which guide the project’s cube structure that exists independently of completion. The artwork follows Mary Flanagan’s critical play theory and employs expressive game elements from dys4ia and The Marriage and Walden a game to express personal and social experiences through abstract representations and restricted gameplay.

Play on itch.io

Overview

Interpreter Training Program is a short experience in which you play as an interpreter trainee, completing deterministic tasks involving a set of unfamiliar symbols. The game takes place through a diegetic interface, the player’s workspace, consisting of a CRT console, a custom keyboard, a training manual, and a display panel. The player is introduced to the environment and completes tasks that treat arbitrary sequences of symbols as words and grammatical components but hold no real semantic grounding. The space is mechanical, utilitarian, and ultimately meaningless. By the end, the player completes the training and begins receiving tasks that require interpretation and meaning, only to realize the absurdity and cyclical nature of the system. The machine then takes over control to answer and generate meaning for you, leading to the collapse of the system.

This piece draws on several thought experiments and fiction, including the Chinese Room, the Infinite Monkey Theorem, Newspeak in 1984, and Papers, Please. The Chinese Room is a thought experiment in which a person who does not speak Chinese is put into a room with a manual. By following the instructions in the manual, the person can construct a believable response in Chinese despite not understanding anything. A Chinese speaker outside the room can have a valid conversation with the person inside and will not notice that they cannot speak Chinese. This raises the question of understanding without comprehension, which is exactly what I wanted to create through the symbols: words, grammar, parts of speech, and devices such as particles. The system presents sequences with real, convincing grammatical and linguistic rules and trains the player through tasks that resemble a gamified language-learning app. The player learns to understand the system, yet there is no comprehension. In the ending sequence, the machine begins to answer the questions for the player. Not the deterministic, lookup-table-like tasks, but questions about the player, personal, and intimate even. This creates the irony that the player is completing deterministic tasks a machine can easily accomplish, while the machine becomes the one that generates meaning and expresses “itself”.

This is what we see today with the development of generative AI tools. In my Artwork #3: Cogito, ergo sum, I embodied an LLM by speaking only what the AI tells me to. LLMs do not understand the meaning of the text they receive or generate. They “speak” and “think” by guessing the most probable next token based on the training data. They do this so well that the text becomes convincing, just as the responses generated by the operator inside the Chinese room. In this game, the player essentially becomes the machine, performing operations by following deterministic instructions without understanding any of the words they generate. I observed that when players are abruptly asked to “interpret” – for example, by describing the characteristics of a chair – they inadvertently return to the menu and look for adjectives or sequences of symbols that resemble a chair. When asked to enter their favorite color, they often recall their response to “the color of the sky” that was supposedly “correct”. The truth is, these questions were never evaluated by the program. Pass/fail is only determined by a pseudo-random number generator, which, ironically, is also deterministic by nature.

Throughout the experience, the player does not make meaningful decisions. They are guided throughout the training, and the system does not care who they are or what they do. Unlike Papers, Please, where you have only a limited time each day and have to earn money for your family, the system never rushes you (except in the Memorize task). You can always quit and resume later, and you can be away for a long time, and the system will still be there, waiting for your action. The environment is neither hostile nor welcoming – only indifferent. Obedience isn’t forced, but voluntary. To amplify this, I designed a “maintenance break” around halfway through the experience: a full minute of nothing but waiting. I found it interesting that most players would just sit there and stare at the progress bar, like an idling machine waiting for the next instruction. Perhaps it is because the maintenance reflects a sense of meaning, showing that their actions in this arbitrary system have an impact.

Iterations & Documentation

The first iteration focused on solving logical puzzles that are closer to the Chinese Room. The tasks involve either processing the sequence to generate output or categorizing it according to rules. While this aligns more with mechanical and procedural gameplay, it distracts the player from the central message: those who are not used to solving logical puzzles find it confusing and intimidating, while others become too focused on the challenge and enjoyment to understand the experience. The interface design was also confusing to use, though I personally liked the 3D low-res style.

To address the issues, I decided to go with 2D, which allows better organization of the components and improved readability. I simplified the tasks, which is when I realized I could draw inspiration from language-learning apps, which helped shape the final set of tasks: Translate, Parts of Speech, Fill in the Blank, and Memorize. Through the playtest, I noticed that the new interface is very intuitive for the players to pick up without any explanation. The tasks are much less “fun”; however, they align better with the theme and do not distract the players. I would say the interface design has been one of the most challenging parts of this project, especially with the relatively minimalist style. For example, one piece of feedback I received was that players often do not notice when their task has changed, and sometimes they only read part of the console messages, missing crucial details. I ensured that each task had a unique appearance so they were easily recognizable, but the most effective modification was adding a one-second transition when the screen changed.