Week 9: November 1

Week 9: November 1

This week for creative research/inspiration I went to a special exhibit at MoMa called Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design.

Note that I will be attaching videos here since the games are better depicted as videos of gameplay.

Flower

By Jenova (Xinghan) Chen and thatgamecompany

“In flower, the player becomes the wind. The game is presented as a potted flower’s dream, in which the wind blows one of its petals away from the city and into a verdant landscape. The wind picks up more petals as it goes, and the pleasantly aimless journey becomes increasingly vivid and intense. There is no goal, only complete immersion in nature and whatever sensations that brings - whether thrilling, soothing, or contemplative”

Walkthrough of Gameplay: 

My notes when playing: 

There is only a mouse. You can move the mouse around, but can’t do much with the buttons.

You can move up, down, left, and right

You have to stay above ground and can only go so high

There is a glowing orb in the center of the petals that is the center of control for direction.

Is very simple in the sense that there are not to many signifiers or menus

There is a sky and a ground that is a landscape

Grass at the bottom blows in the wind

There are some sparkles, especially near the grass

You are an orb and petals move in a whirlwind trail behind it

Sometimes there is a glowing trail or two of sparkles beneath you reflected on the grass like a shadow if you are close enough

The glowing orb that is the main center of control is mapped to the cursor. Moving the mouse up causes you do move up, down causes you to move down, left causes you to move left, and right causes you to move right

Going through the grass causes the grass to part, and sparkles to fly around, as expected would happen based on physics

You approach with a sense of curiosity because there are not too many signifiers on the screen, and the colors and simplicity draw you in

It is contemplative because you just wander the environment

There is a sense of thrill because you are able to fly, and the moving petals and grass provide a continual sense of movement

You pick up petals as you go along

The backstory was given through reading the wall, as well as in the beginning of the game

There isn’t really a goal, but you can pick up some petals as you go along, and some areas gain more color as you go through it

You get more colors as you go along

When you get closer to the ground, there is a glowing path that follows you.

The grass blows in the wind and moves out of the way when you go through it

There are swirls of color in the grass

It is understood that the user is supposed to use the mouse as it is the only input interface. Based on prior experience using computers, it is understood that the mouse moves you up, down, left, and right when you move it in the same direction

Flying Letters 

By John Maeda

My notes: 

You can right or left click with the two buttons below the touch pad

The rectangle in the middle of the screen tells what areas of the screen are actually active/you are able to interact with

There is a menu with numbers 0-9 in boxes that you can right click on to access a new interaction. The mode you are on will have a white box with black text, while the others are inverted with white text and black background

The cursor arrow only appears when hovering over the menu to show that you are able to click on it

Is very simple. There is rectangle in the center that tells what areas of the screen are actually active/you are able to interact with

There is a menu on the right labeled 0-9 that lets you select a new interaction mode

There is only a touchpad with a left and right button to interact with

The touchpad is on a table that is waist level, and the screen is an old fashioned computer above you, pointed down in you direction. You have to look up to see the screen.

The numbers 0-9 on the menu map to different letter interactions you can play with

The letters follow the cursor, and act in a way that one would expect in real life. In one mode, the cursor is the front letter in the word “Flying letters”, and the other letters follow it. Each letter follows in the letter before it’s previous position, making the letters flow as they follow the cursor. Letters that rotate on an axis in one mode move up, down, left, right depending on what direction the cursor moves. In another mode, the word ‘vertical’ is written in all caps vertically across the screen, and horizontal in all caps horizontally, and the cursor is the intersection. The cursor controls where the two words intersect, and it moves up, down, left, right with where the finger is on the touchpad to drag that intersection point across the screen.

There is a sense of curiosity. When clicking on a new mode, you don’t know what it will do at first, and some of the interactions are surprising.

There is a sense of wonder because you have to look up at the screen.

Letter interactions are satisfying

No particular goal

You play with each mode until you understand or are bored or satisfied, and move into the next one

Everything is black and white

Older screen provides some movement because it flickers just a little

No sound

Letters follow where the player is touching the touchpad, and moves up, down, left, and right in a way that would be expected. It does pull from interactions the user has had before. The sphere made of letters rotates like a 3D one, or the horizontal and vertical lines create an intersection that can be moved like maybe the user has seen before in other apps. The interactions are simple enough though that it can be figured out just by moving around on the touchpad.

Getting Over it with Bennett Foddy

By Benett Foddy

Foddy bluntly says, “I created this game for a certain type of person. To hurt them.” It’s the kind of player who feels entitled to make progress and eventually win - an expectation Foddy delights in thwarting. The goal is to climb a mountain of rocks and garbage, but the character attempting it is awkwardly stuck in a cauldron, and the game’s controls are infuriatingly - deliberately - clumsy. Players cannot save their progress; mistakes can tip the character down the mountain. This near-futile exercise prompts reflection on what we expect from a game, and what keeps us playing.

My Notes: 

There is only a mouse as an input interface

You can right click to grab onto something with the ax

There is a slightly transparent white circle where the cursor is, which controls the tip of the ax.

You can click to grab onto something

There is only a mouse

Is very simple in the sense that there are not to many signifier or menus

There is a sky and a ground that is a landscape, and lots of rocks and trash to grab onto. The rocks and trash create a mountain to climb.

Otherwise relatively desolate

Player is stuck in a cauldron.

Occasionally text appears at the bottom, which is the maker of the game sort of mocking you

The semi-transparent white circle represents the tip of the ax and is where the cursor is, so the player can control how the ax is swung

The ax movement is limited by range of the human arm, and can really only be moved up or down in a circle, so the ax moves with the cursor, but only to an extent

Incredibly frustrating

You get frustrated because it feels a little bit like the controls don’t follow exactly the way you feel like they should

Also it’s very easy to lose all your progress

Make it’s little hopeless, but when you do make progress it fills you with determination

You start at the bottom of the mountain and climb your way to the top of the trash/rock mountain. You generally move right.

It’s incredibly hard to control the ax accurately to pull yourself up the mountain. You only can use the ax because your legs are useless because your lower body is stuck in a cauldron

Even when you make progress, a mistake can send you all the way to the bottom. There is no real way to save your progress

Along the way the game maker will talk to you and sometime sort of mock you, which can add aggravation

Somewhat realistic color palette

Background is cloudy and green, it seems rocky, industrial, and desolate other than the rocks and trash in the foreground

Dusk can be kicked up by the ax

Water can slosh out of the cauldron you’re in

Some sound effects from the metal of the cauldron hitting the ground, and the sound of the ax hitting the rocks

Sometime game maker will come in and talk/make fun of you adding to frustration

Relatively quiet otherwise for concentration and also no distractions so you can fully feel how excruciating the task is

It is understood that the user is supposed to use the mouse as it is the only input interface. Based on prior experience using computers, it is understood that the mouse moves you up, down, left, and right.

Tweenbot 

By Kacie Kinzer

Tweenbots are human-dependent cardboard robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, they rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal. The Tweenbot’s success is dependent people’s willingness to step outside of habitual actions and engage with a technological object in the city space. As emotive characters placed in the improbable setting of the city, Tweenbots create an unexpected interaction, disrupting the narratives of our everyday experience, and offering a fleeting and playful connection in the context of the city street.

Tweenbot description

Tweenbot

I love how tweenbot is made of such simple materials, yet is such a powerful project. Its design is super cute, which maybe makes it more friendly for people to want to approach it. I also like the level of involvement and interaction that a tiny robot is able to cause. Strangers are all working together to help Tweenbot reach its goal. It is a little heartwarming. 

Visiting this exhibit taught me a lot about designing interfaces, and not just for games. It taught me how people interact with things in museum on display, and the proper amount of information needed for someone to understand how to interact with an object. For example, the labels all also have icons at the bottom that showed what the user was able to use to play the game (mouse, keyboard, touchpad, etc.). I also liked Flying Letters, and thought about what if there were letter interactions that juxtaposed each other, sort of like the horizontal and vertical line interaction that it was able to do. There was a horizontal line made with the letters HORIZONTAL and a vertical line with the letters VERTICAL, and you could play with where the lines intersect. 

For scholarly research this week, I looked at an article called “Why Did Humans Evolve Pattern Recognition Abilities?” by Aditya Shukla.

Citation: Shukla, Aditya. “Why Did Humans Evolve Pattern Recognition Abilities?” Cognition Today, December 4, 2021.https://cognitiontoday.com/why-did-humans-evolve-pattern-recognition-abilities/. 

Link: https://cognitiontoday.com/why-did-humans-evolve-pattern-recognition-abilities/

This article is similar to the previous one I wrote about about Superior Pattern Processing (SPP), but in more accessible language. It discusses why people are wired to see patterns evolutionarily, the brain structures in places that allow this pattern recognition to take places, and some of the side effects of this pattern processing. It also discusses how pattern processing is linked to memory and our senses like smell. This is part of the psychology of juxtaposition, which depends on pattern recognition or associations with symbols. Some important quotes are highlighted below: 

This quote is about how we impose patterns even when there is none. This explains why in previous creative explorations, when I put random works together, I would form connections between objects where there wasn’t necessarily one.

Pattern recognition is evolutionarily advantageous for us, as it allowed us to recognize something we’ve seen before and behave accordingly, This is why it is so ingrained into the brain - part of it is always active seeking patterns. Again, why we see patterns sometimes when there isn't necessarily one - we are always on the lookout for it. 

Pattern recognition can also lead to some negative things like confirmation bias and jumping to conclusions. This ties into some of the negative aspects of soft power, as this can be taken advantage of. 

Overall this week, I got some really good inspiration for how and interactive work can encourage the audience to interact with it with the right discoverability and signifiers. Flying Letters also maybe gave some ideas for how I can make something related to juxtaposition interactive. I was also inspired by the simple material of the Tweenbot, and how it encourage people to come together to help it complete a goal. The article I read provided some clarity to the previous on on SPP, and more directly related to juxtaposition (How it works because of the patterns and connections we are able to make), and soft power (how pattern processing can lead to confirmation bias and jumping to conclusions).