Experimental Game Design

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The Snowball FINAL

by | Jan 25, 2016 | ,

Go outside on a winter day.

Make a snowball that you can hold in one hand.

Go back inside with the snowball.

Name your snowball.

Now:

A) Try to save its life and keep the snowball from melting. 

Or

B) Watch it melt and let it die.

Score (Artist Statement)

Documentation

Choosing Option A)

I went outside and made a snowball. I affectionately named it Steve.

S1

This a picture of Steve shortly after being created by me.

Option A is about trying to save your snowball’s dear, dear life. Unfortunately snowballs tend to have extremely short lives.  The good news is that modern medicine has evolved to the point where we can keep snowballs alive inside giant ice boxes (A.K.A my fridge).

Here is Steve in its new ice box. I think Steve is enjoying it there.

Choosing Option B)

I went outside and made a snowball. I affectionately named it Olaf.

S2

Hey look! It’s Olaf the snowball.

Option B is all about watching your poor snowball die in front of you. It begs for help, but all you are allowed to do is what helplessly as its life slowly slips away.

S5
S4

Olaf in the ER. It’s so sad. I can’t watch!

Olaf has been slowly melting for the past few hours. Olaf is now essentially a puddle of water.

S6
S7

It was nice knowing you Olaf.

Cop Training Simulator 2K15

by | Apr 21, 2015 |

Jeff Feinberg

Tyler Kaminsky

Cop Training Simulator 2K15 is a parody target gallery game in which the player must shoot at targets that spring up from behind a wall.  When the player shoots a target with a white character on it, they lose points.  If the player shoots a target with a black character on it, points are rewarded to the player.  We chose to do this to essentially make a game commentary on the actions of many police officers in the country’s recent history.

Originally, we had an ammo limit in the game, but we took that out in an attempt to mirror situations in which people are shot multiple times by police.

The game has two end states.  The player wins when all black targets are shot and loses if all white targets are shot.  Upon shooting a black target, the player is praised, but shooting white targets is met with a stern finger wag.

CTS2K15

 

 

Cop Training Sim 2K15

by | Apr 7, 2015 |

Jeff Feinberg

Tyler Kaminsky

 

Cop Training Simulator is a simple target shooting game in which the player must click on targets that appear on screen to shoot them.  The player is either awarded or decremented points based on the targets they hit.

 

Any time the player shoots a minority target, they gain points.  Any time a non-minority target is shot, points are taken from the player.

Below is a draft of potential art for the different in-game targets.  Also discussed was the use of photos of real people that we could find online.

Cop Sim 2015

Dollars and Dungeons: Final Pitch/Iteration

by | Apr 7, 2015 |

Idea: You are the financial accountant of a mythical kingdom of magic and monsters. The country is slowly rebuilding its economy after a massive civil war, and the new king has, wisely, taken a loan from the Dragon beneath the capital. The dragon is quite open-minded, of course- all it wants in return is peace and, of course, a return on its investments. Your job is to report the kingdom’s financials to the dragon, lest it grow impatient with the King.

Your job:
You receive requests for funds from all sorts of government employees. These requests require…
– the correct insignias
– the proper signatures
– a specific format
If the request has all these elements, you must determine the TYPE of expenditure that is requested. It could be…
– a lump sum
– a loan
– an investment
You must then organize these sums on a balance sheet.

Sounds like fun, right?

Each object will have a timer during which the request is “Relevant.” The player must organize these expenses in Assets (Current and Non-current), and Liabilities/Equity.
These two must balance- in order to do so, the player can also create finance block as well.

I’m currently trying to build this in Unity with a system of movable blocks.

Final Project Draft 1

by | Apr 7, 2015 | , ,

This should serve as a basic design document as well as an indication of where code will be appropriated from.  The experience I am trying to provide is that of deliberating with whether one should put themselves at risk to protect others that don’t seem to care that they’re being attacked.

 

  • the map is a bunch of houses and grass.  possibly some white picket fences.
    • houses
      • just there as set pieces
      • enemies can go through them, player and civilians can’t
  • enemies
    • dark and shadowy
    • they have a big eye
    • they float around
    • possibly have an animation
    • they attack the player as well as civilians
      • they suck little message-looking things out of civilians
      • they damage the player
    • reuse capstone project code from seeking missiles and wandering enemies, possibly from the a.i. companion as well
  • player
    • has a rolled up newspaper to hit enemies with
      • you can use it rapidly
      • “whap” sound effect
      • you don’t kill the enemies they just kinda leave you alone after you whap them enough (around 3 times)
    • you walk slowly
    • balance is such that you can defend yourself easily but it is hard to keep other people safe
    • if you lose all your health you get sent to russia
    • win condition involves dick-picks or something – see last week tonight
    • reuses capstone project code from the player
  • civilians
    • they don’t try to fight or avoid enemies
    • they just kinda walk around
      • possibly talk to each-other in speech bubbles or send little message-looking things to each other which enemies could intercept
    • they don’t die
    • reuse capstone project code from wandering enemies

Intervention: Minecraft Infrastructure

by | Mar 17, 2015 | , ,

Statement:

I decided to download a pre-made Minecraft map that contained a city, change my character to look like an engineer, and then go through the city and inspect its infrastructure, culminating in me granting it a grade.  The infrastructure I inspected was mostly things like highways and transit systems; as the map, understandably, did not include structures like a water treatment facility or dam.

Some intentions of this work were to highlight the suspension of disbelief inherent in Minecraft, as well as to bring up a topic which is often outside of the spotlight in reality, and largely non-existent in the game: the maintenance and inspection of infrastructure.  A common assumption in Minecraft is that what you, the player, build will basically remain a monolith untouched by the passage of time; one of my goals in this work was to challenge that assumption.

Documentation:

Bridge

The bridge can be seen here.  Due to numerous broken suspension cables, it has received a grade: F, and has been deemed unsafe for use.

 

Rail

The rails are shown here.  Due to their sturdy construction, decent maintenance, and lack of protective railings, they have received grade: B.

 

Road

The roads are shown here.  Due to their quality construction and flawless maintenance they have received grade: A.

 

Waterway

The waterway is illustrated here.  Because of its lack of pollution and the absence of much flood prevention measures,it has received grade: B.

 

Transit

The transit system is depicted here.  Due to the sturdy building materials, decent maintenance, and exposed wiring, it has received grade: B.

 

Park

The park is shown here.  Due to its small size, lack of public facilities, and poor lighting at night (possibly reducing safety), it has received grade: C.

 

Report

This is the infrastructure report card, illustrating the various grades given to the different parts of the city.

intervention; a taste of the future

by | Mar 6, 2015 |

for my intervention project, i want to do something for our future,

materials

marker pen

large paper sign

multiple items that can be functions as a container ;etc hat, cup, shoe

 

procedure

write with marker pen on several paper; “in case everything goes down”

put the sign near each major academic building. ext, school of business, school of art, school of computor science, within the NEU campus

put a item that is relative to the building’s teaching object under the sign. example; next to school of computor science, put a broken monitor underneath the sign

put some spare change and coin in each of the container.