Experimental Game Design

Artwork #4: Experience

Artwork #4: Experience

by | Dec 10, 2021 | ,

No Pain No Gain Rules Document

Each game starts with two up to many players and each player starts with 3 gainz and 3 life. 

In the start of the game, each player grabs one of the deck of cards in the middle along with three gainz and three life.

Each deck will include three gym cards: Chest Day, Back Day, Leg Day, three socializing cards: Gathering,  Bar, Party, and one Rest Day card

After every player gets their starting cards, discard the extra decks of cards in the middle.

The game starts and rotates through Monday, Wednesday, and Friday where players can make their choices either to socialize or to work out or take a rest(can only take one rest day per week). After making their decision, players flip the card of their choice and put it under the weekday in the middle. After every player makes their choices, reveal the cards and collect rewards. 

Here’s the layout of one week:

  • Monday: 

Hit Chest Day: collect 2 gainz

or

Go to a gathering: collect 1 life

or

Rest day: do not collect anything

Every week on monday there will be an event where the players can choose whether to skip. If the player is doing the event simply put a chip next to their card and roll the dice after revealing their cards.

Monday event(can be skipped): roll a four and above trigger success, roll a three below to trigger fail.

If you are doing chest day, hit bench without a spotter

Success:+2 gainz  fail:-2 gainz

Or, 

If you are going to a gathering, participate in a Poker game

Success:+2 life  fail:-2 life

 

  • Wednesday

Hit Back Day: collect 1 gainz 

or

Go to a Bar: collect 2 life

or

Rest day: do not collect anything

 

  • Friday

Hit Leg Day: collect 2 gainz

or 

Go to a party: collect 2 life

or

Rest day: do not collect anything

 

By the end of each week, if a player has hit all three body parts, he/she collects 4 extra gainz but loses 3 life. On the other hand, if a player went to all three socializing events, he/she collected 4 extra lives and lost 3 gainz.

 

By the end of each two weeks, if the player has not taken any rest days, they will collect a mental illness card(which does not have a direct effect in the game). 

 

End of each Month (every four weeks):

The player has to compare life and gainz with his neighbors if his/her neighbor has more gainz lose 5 gainz to his/her neighbor, if his/her neighbor has more life, lose 5 life to his/her neighbor

 

Win condition:

During the game if any of the players have negative life/gainz, he/she gets eliminated, and the game ends as the remaining players count their total number of life and gainz, whoever has the most wins the game.

If none of the players gets eliminated, the game goes on till the end of a semester(3 month/12 weeks), and whichever player has the most life and gainz wins the game.

 

Artist Statement

For my final project, I decided to use my own experience as a college student and the way I see my peers spending their free time as an inspiration. Although college life grants the students a lot of freedom over their free time, it can be stressful when a student decides to never take a rest day and spend all their time doing activities. During the playtests of my game, I observed that most players will always go for activities(working out and socializing) which is the optimal way of playing the game even when they receive a mental illness card every two weeks. Just like in real life many people neglect the importance of taking a break, instead they would let their mental burden accumulate inside to live their life in an “optimal” strategy. Similar to Yoko Ono’s Blood piece: “Use your blood to paint. Keep painting until you faint. Keep painting until you die.” Some people would live their lives with little breaks, and they spend most of their free time socializing and doing activities until they are mentally and physically exhausted.

Super Real School Life

by | Dec 10, 2021 |

In this assignment, I created a game called Super Real School Life. I appropriated the the game mechanics from Monopoly. The gameplay is very simple. The player has to do is shake the dice and take the corresponding number of steps. Select a slip of paper after a date has arrived. There will be a score on the slip. Players start with a score of 50 points. When the player reaches 100 points the player wins, but if the player loses all his points, he loses. My inspiration came from the word experience. I think of my college life when I see the experience. I thought it would be fun to make a game out of my college experience. The notes were all things that I or any other student would encounter in daily life. In addition, my idea reminds me of my first artwork. In my first artwork, I use color to record my daily mood. The content of the notes in this game is also based on my mood every day. For example, I’m usually in a bad mood on Thursdays, so everything on the note will be losing points. If I have to ask what the meaning of this game is, I think it is that although there may be some bad experiences in life, there are still good things to happen. In my playtests, some were lucky enough to hit 100 points right away, and some were lucky enough to hit 100 points right away. But in my last playtest, the player had exhausted all the slips of paper and was still playing. I think these results are also very interesting, because I can see the luck of different people. 

Experience:Life is Absurd -Xinyi Ren

by | Dec 10, 2021 | ,

The inspiration for this artwork comes from Life is Strange – this is a game full of details. In the game process, players need to make many choices, but the game has only two endings and is only related to the last option. This usually makes players doubt the significance and importance of what they do. Some people may be unhappy with this design, but I think the experience reflects the nature of life in a way.

Usually, the games that players come into contact with emphasize that “small choices can also bring great changes.” For example, in another game I like very much, Papers Please, what players do is just seal the passport of immigrants, but in the end, it can determine the life and death of many people and even the future of the country. And I want to take this opportunity to bring people an experience that violates this “hidden rule of the game.”

 

Process: I prepared 40 unrelated two-choice questions and printed them on paper of different colors. Before starting, I told participants that this was a test (but would not disclose the purpose), asked them to choose among these options, and could stop the process at any time. During the process, I will record their reactions (the answers to these questions are almost irrelevant, and they do not lead to a specific result) and inform the project’s purpose after the participants ask to stop or the questions are exhausted. That is: not every choice will have far-reaching consequences, and not every option has important motives behind it.

 

In my observation, I found that participants tend to spend time thinking and choosing the option that best suits their actual situation. When finally told the results, the participants’ reaction is usually surprised – they think I will draw a conclusion based on these illogical questions, even if they have realized that these questions are absurd. This result can reflect people’s subconscious belief that all events and choices are causal and meaningful; But in life, this is not the case.

Artwork #4: Experience – Understudied

by | Dec 10, 2021 | ,

The inspiration for this experience piece came from playing the game Overcooked by Ghost Town Games Ltd., which roughly simulates the stresses of being an overworked cook in a complex kitchen environment. The stress one experiences from playing this game can be very closely related to that which we all experience over the course of our college experience, which is exactly what I was going for in my parody game Understudied. Just as Takako Saito would take the game of chess and modify it to convey a completely different message, I wanted to modify overcooked so that it would accurately simulate the stress of trying to complete many tasks at once in a small amount of time.

Understudied can be played by 4-5 players with one player being the moderator, and the rest either working together or against one another to complete tasks. The goal of the game is to complete ten assignments back to back with the least amount of grade deductions possible.

Rules as the Moderator:

  • Begin by allowing the players 30 seconds to prepare and complete tasks before the first assignment is released.
  • Release the first assignment by rolling 2 dice (for vs) or 4 dice (for co-op) and announcing whichever corresponding tasks are rolled from the assignment creation box (marked in blue).
  • Upon releasing the first assignment start a timer for a minute (each assignment is due after a minute), releasing the next assignment 15 seconds before the current assignment is due.
  • When assignment timers run out, check that the players have either recorded their completed assignments (for vs) or are all present on the school tile space (for co-op). If they have not completed all tasks or all players are not on the school tile, a half a letter grade must be deducted from their current grade.
  • If a player crosses the red boundary at any time during the game, their piece should be moved to the “timeout box”. You must roll a d6 and assign this player a timeout time corresponding to a border event (marked in red).

Rules as a Player:

  • Start at any tile on the board. *You should optimally position yourself in front of an assignment so that you can get started on it immediately when time starts*
  • To begin tasks all you must do is use the arrow keys to move your piece to a tile adjacent to whichever task you would like to complete. Once adjacent to a task, begin a timer associated with that task. While this timer is running, you may move around freely and/or start another task if you would like.
  • When a task timer ends, you must return to a tile adjacent to that task to complete it.
  • *For Co-Op Only* When assignment is due, you and all of your teammates must be on the school tile in order for any of your tasks to be counted.
  • You must not cross the red boundary lines at any time unless you are willing to accept a small time penalty.

Game Board for CO-OP and VS:

Short Video of CO-OP Gameplay:

Gameplay Video

Link to Parodied Game:

Overcooked!

Artwork #4: Day In The Life-Anxiety Edition

by | Dec 9, 2021 |

The initial idea for this game began with the game Depression Quest on Twine. I remember playing it and thinking it was insanely sad but somehow insightful into the life of people who struggle with chronic depression. I was trying to make choices I would make in real life, in the game. But the game had other plans and followed its own separate path. I also tried to think of things I most struggle with in my day-to-day life. I then decided I wanted to make a game on Anxiety on Twine. This game is thus an appropriation!

There was also part of the Reading Works of Game that really resonated with me: “Central to this type of work is ambiguity— of function or purpose, of operation, and of the role the objects play in our lives. 15 While these ideas may be familiar to artists, they are uncomfortable for most designers. With games, however, ambiguity is already a large part of the design process. The design of the system of a game-defining its actions and goals, creating the tone of the overall experience, and so on— shapes the space of possibility within which players complete the game through their play. Design-wise, the designed space of possibility leaves itself open to exploration and interpretation, which by its nature results in uncertain outcomes. The play experience cannot be known until the game is played. And even then, players are left to make sense of and determine their own intentions and the meaning of their experiences.” It felt absolutely crucial to make a game that was uncertain in outcomes, which is why I made a story based choice game on Twine!

The first iteration of the game was just different choices and not much description in the story! The feedback I got this round was that while the message of the game came across, it would be funny to use humour to add a light aspect to the game. Initially, I was apprehensive. The point of the game was to be hard and dark but on thinking and playing through it more, I wanted a side funny story!

The final prototype had three different story endings!

I’ve also attached the link to the game on Canvas since the link is HTML style and can’t add it onto here!

 

Sharp, John. Works of Game : On the Aesthetics of Games and Art, MIT Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/northeastern-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3339955.

Mental Health Art Game – Final Project (Joey)

by | Dec 9, 2021 | ,

Mental Health Final Project Game:

Description: The Mental Health Game is a 2-4 player semi-cooperative game where players have to survive a total of ten weeks, representing a real-life shortened college semester, by completing tasks each week. These tasks will represent what any normal student would go through where if the tasks aren’t completed, there will be some sort of punishment, whether it be your grade being lowered or your mental health being lowered. The main goal of the game is to complete all the tasks every single week and survive ten weeks without reaching a failing grade, or 60%.

Rules and Setup: 

    • 2-4 players
    • Sheets of Paper for keeping Mental Health, Score, and Energy every round.
    • 2 6-sided dice for energy 
    • Every week, players randomly receive 3 tasks that they must complete or they will receive some sort of punishment
    • Players start at 100% for grades. If the students grades reach 60%, they are out of the game
    • Mental Health starts at 5 where the highest it can reach is 10 but can go lower than 0
    • Players can bring over a maximum of 2 energy per week
    • Players can trade 1 Mental Health for 1 energy unless your Mental Health value is less than 0.
    • Players gain 1 Mental Health each week

Majors: 

    • Each Player rolls a 2 6-sided dice to decide their major at the start of the game. Players with the greatest roll value can pick their major first. These will give small bonuses or negatives towards the players depending on the tasks.
      • Business 
        • Projects and Homework tasks take 50% less energy
      • Pre-Med
        • Tests and Quizzes tasks take 50 % more energy and failure means taking 1% more.
      • Computer Science
        • Projects and Homework tasks take 50% more energy
      • Psychology
        • Mental Health benefits give 50% more. Mental Health negatives are 50% less.

Code for Game (Randomizing Tasks Every Week): https://replit.com/@tsai-me/GameFinalProject

Tasks: List of Tasks: Anything with Group in front can be split between two or more players. Anything with Finals in front is for the last week of the game.

Name: Energy  Failure
Homework 1 -2%
Project 3 -4%
Group Homework 3  -3%
Group Project 5 -5%
Daily Chores 2 -1 Mental Health
Classes 2 -1%
Labs  1 -1%
Quiz 2 -3%
Tests 3, -1 Mental Health -5%
Study 1, (If you study on the same week with the test, you don’t lose mental health) Nothing
Cumulative Studying 1 (Each time you perform this task, the final week tasks would cost .5 less energy. Nothing 
Finals: Test 4, -2 Mental Health -10%
Finals: Project 6 -10%

 

Mental Health Tasks: List of Mental Health Tasks that the Players can decide on doing whenever they want during the game.

Activity Energy Mental Health Gain
Hanging out with Friends  1.5 1
Hobbies 1.5 1
Sleep 2 1.5
Exercise 2 1.5
Read 1 .5
Meditate  1  .5

 

Winners: The students that survived ten weeks of the college semester graduate. However, they soon realize that they will either have more semesters or graduate and go into the real world, facing the exact same issues of balancing their energy, mental health, and grades or work life wherever they go. They still see the sacrifice in mental health for better grades or better job opportunities or workload where they must constantly sacrifice mentally to essentially “survive” in a stereotypically world.

Artist Statement: 

One of the most important aspects of an art game is that the game’s mechanics speak in some way to the player, creating some sort of underlying message that can somewhat criticize or shine light on a certain topic. While brainstorming ideas, I realized that I wanted to create a game that has some sort of impact on my daily life, specifically about a community that I am heavily involved in, while also including commentary on that community about its stereotypical norms. Thus, I created the Mental Health Game which wishes to speak about stereotypical college norms and how that affects any student’s daily life which then ultimately speaks about the mental health of students in college. This idea was inspired by reading about the ending of the art game Braid and the meaning behind Braid where I also wanted to create an impactful game that can be applicable to many people. Braid speaks about the obsession of people when working towards a goal where they can become so obsessed to the point of not understanding the circumstances of some of their actions. This is further reinforced with its main mechanic of time travel where the main character sees the mistakes that he made and only focuses on correctly performing the necessary actions to continue yet he still doesn’t realize the fault in even trying to continue. Many more games that we discussed in class and from the book Works of Games, such as The Marriage or the Passage, contribute to creating some sort of art game that can attribute or comment on a certain aspect of daily life or a controversial topic. The Marriage talks about the relationship and connection between couples while Passage also sneakily talks about the same message but in another way. Learning about all these different art games inspired me to create the Mental Health Game where I want to solely focus on the mechanic of trading a mental health value for an energy value. I wanted my game to somehow speak to the way many college students feel where they have to sacrifice their personal well being, whether it be mental or some other factor, to maintain their grades up to the standard they want them to be. To further create a realistic game, creating effects for picking majors creates the stereotypical feel of what many people believe what some majors actually feel in terms of mental health. Overall, I believe my message that sacrificing mental health becomes a key factor for any college student where sometimes maintaining their energy, mental health, grade, or any other factor becomes challenging. Furthermore, as college students graduate, they realize that they are stuck in a cycle of sacrificing mental health with other aspects of their lives.

Players deciding on how they should spend their energy depending on their major, amount of energy given, and the given tasks for that week. The laptop shows the tasks and the players write down the three values of Mental Health, Grade, and Energy.

Final Project

by | Dec 11, 2019 |

My partner Pranav and I decided to collaborate together for the final project.  We wanted to make a game based on overcoming control from a mentally abusive character.  The game involved writing a lot of dialogue that was very demeaning and hurtful, however the point of our game wasn’t to hurt people but to try to set up the challenge of overcoming adversity. The influence for our game came from a game that was shown in class called Loved. The basis of that game is based on the world changing around whether you listen to the narrator or not.  If you go against the narrator the world alters and the narrator gets more and more upset and angry with you.  I wanted to make something that I could relate to. A big personal influence on making our game came from when I dealt with people personally with verbal and mental abuse from an ex and old “friend group”. Being in those circumstances were extremely difficult time but I want to be able to tell people that you can overcome no matter how hard it is. It will take its time but its do-able!
I never really thought I would make a game about this kind of topic but after this semester it felt right to make this kind of game and I am pleased with how its turned out so far and maybe one day I can take this game and make it something special.

Here below are some designs for a level in our game and a quote from the abusive narrator.

Pranav Gopan – Artwork #4 “Untitled Fox Project”

by | Dec 8, 2019 | ,

For our final project, Daniel Shapiro and I wanted to create a game that delves into the emotions of anxiety. Our game, “Untitled Fox Project”, is a 2D platformer that lets you play as a fox trying to rescue puppies in a building. As you explore and search for puppies, there are wolves that try to torment and stop you. Touching a wolf will have you respawn at a previous checkpoint. All the while, text consistently appears at the bottom of the screen. This text is meant to represent the fox’s inner thoughts and unease. Some examples include “Why can’t I breathe…” and “I’m just not strong enough” (I’ve attached a code snippet that shows all possible texts). The fox doesn’t believe it is worthy enough to take on this rescue mission. Because of past traumatic experiences and the pressure from the wolves, the fox’s anxiety gets to it. However, as you lead the fox up the building and collect more puppies, the fox starts to become more confident. When you approach the top levels of the building, the anxiety text disappears altogether and the fox is unfazed by the wolves. At the very end, a final wolf appears, asking you for forgiveness. You have a choice between answering yes or no. Choosing either will send you to a blank screen and the game will end.

We wanted the wolves to represent an emotionally abusive partner. Though due to the nature of the game, they can be perceived as the fox’s inner demons as well. Some things that the wolves say are “You deserve nothing.” and “It’s all your fault.” We left some vagueness so that the player can have their own interpretation. We also left the ending open-ended. There truly is no right or wrong answer when it comes to forgiving someone who has emotionally abused you. We believe that a person has truly moved on from their pain if it longer affects their life. The blank screen is meant to represent that. We drew inspiration from our own past experiences and games that were mentioned in class. Loved and The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom were two in particular. The style, tone, and message of these games helped us form our own creation. The idea of going against the narrator’s demands felt inspiring. We wanted Untitled Fox Project to be a game that allowed people to step into the shoes of someone who experiences anxiety and is attempting to overcome it in a meaningful way.

Playing with Food (Hastings)

by | Dec 7, 2019 |

Before I came to Northeastern, I worked a couple jobs in the restaurant scene, most recently as a chef at a more upscale seafood place near New Haven CT. preparing fancy food can be a lot of fun (when not under the stress of a hectic dinner service), and my favorite step in selling an order is plating. The customers eat with their eyes–I was told that countless times by all my bosses, and it’s true. People love a nice looking plate of food, even before the first bite critical judgement are made. That being said, I think it can definitely be taken too far. Avant-garde plating the likes of which can be seen on plenty of Food Network shows are sometimes laughably over the top.

That was the inspiration for my game, along with the game art section of “Work of Game”–I had a bit of an idea drought, until it occurred to me that I could re-purpose an existing game/experience to fit my aims. I wanted to provide the fun parts of the experience I had working in an upscale kitchen while satirizing the pretentiousness of extreme fine dining. I thought the best way to accomplish this would be in a “Chopped” style game-art mod/parody; however, in my ‘mod’ of Chopped all of the components of the dish were already cooked and prepared by me. The idea behind this was to place the entire emphasis of the game on the aesthetics and names of the dishes my two contestants came up with–the sole instructions provided to the contestants were to plate the most obnoxiously fancy dish imaginable given the materials provided, and to give said dish a fitting name.

In my first playtest, familiarity with the television genre I was parodying led to some interesting and comedic emergent behavior: the contestants presented their dishes in front of a panel of judges, and really had a blast acting like TV chef personalities, adopting some of the lingo while trying to put on a performance. This was awesome to see because it completely played into my goals for the game–even the judges followed suit when they gave their critiques!

For my final playtest, I tried giving the contestants less time to work with in an attempt to simulate the frantic pace one must keep up with during a busy service. It worked like a charm, creating a fun sort of stress that was even more fun (perhaps somewhat sadistically) for me to watch my friends panic and spill ingredients.

It was during this playtest that my favorite dish of the game was created (see below). It’s hysterically over the top for what it is, and I think the player who created it really hit the nail on the head as far as the goal of the game. In all, I had a great time playing this game with friends and classmates; everyone’s familiarity with shows like “Masterchef” and “Chopped” helped make it a fun parody.

 

Fruitting In

by | Dec 6, 2019 |

For my final project I wanted to base the game off an experience from my life. I chose to make a game to depict what it feels like to be African-American and White, raised in a Christian and Jewish household. Simply put, more often than not I find that instead of fitting into any group, I’m the odd one out in all of them. With a group of black friends, I’m the white one. To a group of white friends, I’m the black one. With my Jewish friends, I’m not Jewish enough because my mom isn’t Jewish. With Christian friends, I’m the Jew.

The way I aimed to create this was through a social game appropriating game mechanics from games such as Spyfall, Room at Top, and some other card-based games. The rules of the game are as follows.

The cards looked like this

I wanted the players to move around asking questions and trying to find people of their own group. I wanted to incentivize the people to separate by type, leaving the one person without the fruit to try to fit in with the other groups. I wanted the fruit players to have something to do, as well as not know who has the blank, that’s why they have to work to find out who is in their group. I also wanted to give an opportunity for the blank card player to fake it and try to fit in. The blank card player obviously simulates my experience in groups of people where I’m not quite sure what my identity is. The black card player often just goes along with whatever is said, as to not stand out. I can relate to that style of action, talking about the Jewish things I did when I’m with my Jewish friends, etc.  The main thing that inspired me to do this was Dys4ia. Watching that game made me very emotional considering how well the designer seemed to get across her life experience. I wanted to do something similar, and decided that with my skill set I would need to make an analog game. I appropriated game mechanics and tried to form them into a way that can give the players an experience on the small scale of something that I experience often.