Projects

My game is called Misinformation Telephone. It’s a digital, online game meant to represent how disinformation is created and spread. In it, one player takes the role of the “consumer” and everyone else takes the role of the “reporter.” Each reporter has a specific role (specifically, they’re either a supporter or a critic of the fictional politician Bob Smith). The goal of the game for the reporters is to get the consumer to agree with their stance.

The game takes place in rounds. In the first round, original stories are given to each of the reporters. Each reporter’s job is to change three words of the story so it fits their stance better (as in, they need to bias it). The next round, the goal is the same, but instead of being given original stories, the reporters are being given a story second-hand from another reporter. This is where the “telephone” part of the game comes from; each story gets more and more distorted until the end of the game, when it finally reaches the consumer.

My goal for this was to represent the unreliability of the modern news landscape through a fun, Jackbox-style game. Because players can change the story however they want, they can go in absurd directions with their changes, which–in effect-makes each resulting story a parody of sensationalist reporting in the real world. I also thought it’d be interesting to put most players in the position of the reporter, since in real life, we’re usually the consumers–so switching people’s point of view on this phenomenon could add some insight into why things are the way they are.

This might seem strange, but I was largely inspired by the Anna Blume poem while making this. The way it parodied the overly flowery language of conventional romantic poetry made me realize the value absurdity can have in critiquing a trend. In the same way that the poem goes on and on with “thou”s and “thy”s to mock that kind of media, this project mocks inflammatory news articles by aiming to create stories as ridiculous as possible.

The pictures below show the game in action (from a reporter’s perspective). The first picture is from when they’re modifying a story, and the second is from the end of the game, when they’re watching the consumer evaluate the story.

Both versions of my game are available below. The new version has features like better visuals and a proper timer, but I’ve had some inexplicable issues when trying to run it, so the old version may be more stable. The networking tools I used in Unity don’t seem to work for HTML5, so I can’t upload the project to itch.io, and instead the game unfortunately needs to be downloaded.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13t3vnGiqXN3bPARVVXrchaDz519qZu-V?usp=drive_link

I struggled quite a bit with this project but I am extremely happy with how it turned out in the end.

The original concept for this game was to design a tile based board game where players must advance, however they have the opportunity to determine their own future. Just like in life, there is a game of chance on how much progress will be made in each round, and they may become more successful or unsuccessful through their own planning and design. I wanted to design the game in such a way that playing collaboratively would help both players succeed, however inherently incentivized them to play selfishly. This part of the game was heavily inspired by the game (sorry I don’t know the title of it), where the players were supposed to work together to win, however the directions never explicitly stated they should do so. Similarly, through the design of my game, I wanted to see what emergent gameplay would develop through intentionally vague rules, and see if players would force themselves into expected boardgame behavior, or if they would manipulate the design for their own gain.

On the first iteration of my game, players could place tiles anywhere, there were no connection points, however despite this they believed they could only place their tiles on the preset board. This is why I added connection points to the pieces. It also adds more strategy where players can block tiles from being placed on top of certain tiles. Additionally, I realized the player who went last had the most advantageous position for altering tiles, so I added a line into the instructions about how the player who goes last becomes the new first player for the next round.

On the second iteration, players were more limited on their tile placements, increasing the amount players strategized, however players still never placed tiles outside the preset board.

After these trials, I realized I needed to define my directions more explicitly, and also hint in the directions without explicitly stating so towards this desired emergent behavior. One of the key lines I added was “Players must move forward, they may not return to the tile they just came from”. This instruction was confusing to the playtest group as they assumed there was only ever one path, and despite voicing this confusion, they still never placed tiles outside the path.

While I was developing the tiles for this game, I realized that the board for the game may give away the behavior I desired from the players too obviously if I designed a preset board then put indents across the board outside of the main path. While this was a solution to hinting towards having players place tiles outside the original board, it was more obvious than I wanted. Eventually, I realized I could simply make the starting board out of the same tiles I was designing for the players, since these were individual tiles, I would have players assemble their own board at the beginning of the game and hopefully the act of doing this would help them realize that the starting board was not set in stone. This new design for the board also meant that players who realized it, could also modify the starting board mid game which was not possible in the past tests. I really enjoyed this new design and playtested to see how it affected player behavior.

While several of my earlier iterations of this game were unsuccessful on the emergent gameplay front, I had confidence that I might be more successful after I prototyped a more polished version of the tiles for this game, and I was right! By the time the tiles were designed, I had also rewritten the rules a few times to best encourage players to do more unexpected behavior and I think the design of the tiles also encouraged this. See end of post for the final game rules.

While playtesting this game I learned that players could alter the intended way to play if I did not word my directions very clearly so after each iteration, I attempted to modify the rules so they would be as clear as possible for the intended game play, while still leaving parts intentionally vague where I wanted players to discover they had more freedom then they may expect. As altering the starting board is an unexpected behavior, many of the people who playtest this game for the first would often only place their tiles on top of the starting board, and never mutated the shape of the board.

Another result of these playtests which was unexpected is that players were always ‘selfish’ in that they would play the game so they could win and no one else could. While this game is designed to be easy to win between 2 people, players never collaborated. Maybe because its completely possible to win on your own. I think its interesting to watch how players strategize in this game. Since the players designed the starting board, it was interesting to find that some players would isolate themselves and collect points in a 2×2 tile area, while others tried to determine the shortest path from the start to the end and place their tiles along this path. Additionally, players are hesitant to touch other players tiles or move the start or end.

I worry that depending on how much freedom the players realize they have, it becomes very easy to win this game, however because this is the case, players who play this game several time seem to enjoy how the strategy mutates along with their discovery of different interpretations of the rules.

I really enjoyed our discussions in class of games with ‘loose’ rules. We had discussed another students “graveyard” game and also I was inspired by how many designers of art games modify the way players interact with the pieces in order to change the expected interaction between players and the game. Thinking back to Mary Flanagan’s ‘giant joysick’ and how increasing the size of the controller forces people to move a single controller collaboratively, I wanted to design my pieces in a way where the core focus of the game is on placing the tiles and modifying the game space instead of acting on top of a designated board design. I also enjoyed how players had interacted in my score from the first project and wanted to return to that idea of mutating the game as you play. Additionally I wanted to continue with the concept I had for the intervention assignment where I tested if people would act different given signs in a test setting or if we have become so conditioned by tests that they wouldn’t even consider another action then simply taking the test. I wanted “gamify” this concept more where it was more replayable when players discovered their freedoms. I really enjoy games with greater player freedom and wanted to design a game where the players own freedom is determined by themself, similar how in life we are expected to follow a certain path, however people have more control over their direction then they know, and are often fearful to stray from what is expected of them. Just like in life, the only thing the player can not do is remain stationary, every turn they must move forward, even if it is just one tile. Even if they are not moving towards the “end” they are still making progress, often with a side goal (like collecting coins) before making their way to the end.

first playtest

tile development! I learned how to 3d print and vinyl cut while making this project!

first playtest after tiles were designed/printed

first playtest after players were able to design their own starting board

Rules:
@ GAME START
- players should connect 17 tiles to make the board, this should include the "start" and "end" tiles. All pieces should be connected; no islands
- all players should choose a color and place their player on the start tile
- all players begin with 4 tokens, ensure that there are 8 tokens left in the pot
- players should roll a die to determine who starts. 

@ EACH ROUND
rounds consist of 2 phases. all players should complete the first phase before moving to the second phase
PHASE 1: TILES
players must choose one of the following actions:
- place a tile
- move/rotate a tile
- remove a tile
- skip your turn for this phase

* tiles with a player on them may not be modified. 
* adjacent tiles must lie flat, 2 male connections cannot be adjacent. 
* adjacent tiles must be on the same plane
* if you must lift tiles to complete your action, this action is invalid. 

PHASE 2: MOVE
each player should roll the d4 and move that many spaces
* players may not move backwards (back onto the tile they just came from)

if a player lands on:
- THEIR OWN COLOR TILE: take your dice roll X2 tokens from the pot. if there are no coins in the pot, do nothing
- ANOTHER PLAYER'S COLOR TILE: give your dice roll of your tokens to the player whose color the tile matches to
- NON-COLORED TILE: pay 2 of your tokens to the pot

@ END OF EACH ROUND: player that went last, should go again and begin the next round

@ GAME END
This game ends for each player when they land on the "end" tile. At this point, they no longer take a turn even if other players continue
If a player finished the game with 9+ tokens, they win.

This game is a 1 vs 1 board game based on Chess board and Pieces, and it is inspired by the game Train, so it is more like an experiential on-off game.

Initially GM will tell both players one side will be the terrorists and the other will be the soldiers and they are not allowed to tell their identity. However, the twist is both sides will receive the same identity card telling them they are the army of justice and their opponents are the terrorists.

Pawns now act as civilians. Players can choose where to place their civilians on their half of the board, but the civilians are uncontrollable. Players can choose to capture those random pieces as well. Both players will be told that the terrorist side has the ability to turn one of their civilians of their choice into their own piece that acts as a bomb, and can kill the opponent’s piece when they are on the vertical or horizontal surroundings. 

However, the fact is since both sides are the army of justice as they think they were, there will actually be no terrorist at all, and all the civilians they are being motivated to murdered during the gameplay are innocents.

The gameplay are the following:

1. Players can choose how to arrange their pawns/civilians on their half of the board.
2. Players initially will only have one piece of their choice.
3. Players can recruit a new piece every 3 rounds. For pieces besides queen, they can recruit both of the same piece if none of them are currently presented on the board. (If there’s none knights on the board, they can recruit 2 at the same time. If there’s one knight already on the board, they can only recruit the one left)
4. All army pieces will spawn at the bottom line.
5. Once a piece is captured, it can be recruited back again.
6. Both sides can call out national mobilization once in the game, which will mobilize one of their civilians into other army pieces besides the queen.
7. Players can give up playing at any point of the game where they won’t be able to win or they find the game not fun anymore.

There will be no winning objective, the player will need to make their opponents surrender/quit the game to win the game or they can also give up playing at any time once they feel tired of this game. The king is now removed, and the other pieces besides the pawn move in the same way as Chess. 

In the original version, the winning objective is still capturing the opponent’s king, but the ways pieces maneuver are different from Chess, but it does not reflect the nature of the war that much, so I removed the winning condition and let the players themselves decide when to stop and quit playing.

Also, letting players decide how to place their civilians also reflects part of the war. They can choose to place their civilians in a rather safe area or use them as a human shield to block the opponents movement.

Playtestings

Human shield vs Protecting civilians setup

Identity Cards

Artist’s Statement

I have always had the habit of daydreaming random made up fantasy scenarios, to the point I would consider those made up scenarios a small part of my identity. Therefore I wanted to create an experience where this process is visualised. daydream is a text and image based narrative adventure game/visual story aimed to recreate this experience. The game is made up of a series of unrelated short stories/scenarios that the player jumps between randomly. It is slow paced, has no ending, with the “goal” being to simply experience the stories.

Some aspects of daydream can be considered to be appropriation, as a significant amount of my daydream scenarios are heavily influenced by the media I consume, especially in the emotions they made me feel, and the immersion I felt while reading/watching/playing/listening into those made up fantastic worlds and the stories that happen within them. These influences are reflected in both the writing and artwork, where I included small bits of paraphrased lyrics and titles of my favorite songs; and that my art style is very draws heavy inspiration from backgrounds and scenery of anime and movies made by Studio Ghibli, Kyoto Animation and Shinkai Makoto. Of course, my creative inspirations is only part of the game, the main theme I’m trying to capture here is my creative process: jumping to and from very different ideas, trying to capture them before they slip my mind. I also tried to vaguely depict some of my artistic frustrations and general regrets in some of the stories, as well as my hopes to growth as an artist.

One more thing I tried to convey with daydream through the writing and artwork is a general atmosphere or “vibe” of peace, calmness and tranquility, both as a personal preference of storytelling, but also to create break from the chaotic and extremely fast paced real world with this game. Additionally, I also wanted to convey a sense of slight sense of somberness and melancholy in most of the short stories, but also to instill a concrete ambience of hope, in a “brighter days are ahead” kind of way. I think I did this both because of my narrative preference, but also because I feel like the real world has been harsh and depressing, but media and creative outlets such as creating art offers an escape and makes me feel healed. While I am unsure if I can get these feelings across with the game, as it is quite possible for players to feel bored given the slow pacing of the game, I do still think daydream can resonate with certain players.

Finally, I want to present a lyric from a song by my favorite artist: Get Your Wish by Porter Robinson

The work that stirred your soul
You can make for someone else

I hope daydream and the other games and artwork I will make in the future can inspire others to create art, just like how I was inspired to daydream, to create worlds and tell stories of my own.

Documentation

Sample gameplay video:

Credits and Game Download

Game engine: Twine 2

Writing and artwork: made by yours truly

Download here, extract and open the HTML file to play

Artist’s Statement:

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

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

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

Documentation / Process:

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

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

Links:

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

Background:

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

Requirements: 4-5 players, Dice

Basic rules

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Playtest：

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

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

Sources： some icons are from “thenounproject.com”

Requirments: Any device that can play apex legends

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

Artist statement:

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

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