E-Frame

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Journal

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jTE08ptYKHr6AlP_62_fmb7kcDNZlMhs/view?usp=sharing

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Layout and Card Design (August 1st - 3rd)

Initial designs: All the designs I had created above were very merely just to get ideas. Each design was really quick and simple as long as it made sense design wise toward the name of the game which was deadpan.

Deadpan meaning : impassive or expressionless.

To me the way I interpreted those meanings of deadpan was to show case it quite literally. But in mask form. The mask itself is an attempt to showcase an aspect of the gameplay of deadpan. Where the mask would be the facade of face you have to try and maintain whilst underneath meaning your inner emotions is covered by your physical appearance. Which I thought was a relatively good idea. But checking back the cards look aesthetics isn’t a necessity for the game. The other designs were minor little tweaks by utilising other imagery and a few were just wild cards to see if there were ideas and elements which could work for the finalisation of the card design. In the end the the others had a survey to test the most successful designs from our peers and they decided to go with the first design. Whilst rather simplistic I was glad that it was chosen personally. Just since the simplicity of the game wouldn’t be too much of an eyesore as the main focus is the game.

Thus now leading to multiple iterations of that design. And the main way to iterate was the colours. A very common opinion within our group was that we didn’t want to use primary colours. We were challenged in class as to why we don’t want to use primary colours but I personally had my reasons and the others there’s. Our games aim is to create scenarios and moments where it challenges players to build tolerance for a lot of different opinions or interpretations and jokes. The game itself is quite controversial in terms of the content of the cards where at times we felt was quite provocative. But because of that controversial aspect where other players restrict themselves from reacting to it and are unable to do anything about certain moments I wanted that to transcend just the gameplay aspect and enter the designing process where the colours aren’t super controversial but because of the use of uncommon colours that’s where it didn’t matter too much in gameplay. But the gameplay aspect really aided in the design decision. What I decided to do next was go bac to my knowledge of colour theory was to use split complimentary, secondary or anologous colours. Each one had their own appeal as shown above to the multiple iterations of colours. But in the end the goal for using these was because amongst the three colours each time there was always a colour which stood out among the three. Hence that was where the most stand out colour would be used to create order. Where the scenario card, the first card to be flipped created a way for players to distinguish the major card against the other two. This definitely went hand in hand with the 3 circles. I also decided to make it so the colour would shift along with the order of the cards. Which my group and I thought was quite successful interms of communicating order for the game.

In the end we decided for those colours and that design. Ravenne had finalised the design for the front part of the card with the text. A common opinion of how our cards looked was that they compared it to the game Cards Against Humanity, whilst this is a valid point and quite true. Even amongst our group we discussed this point. But looking further into the fonts between the two. The final designs of the card and comparing the two very closely. I was able to again see and use this comparison as a design choice to again play into the controversy of the game. Where even the fonts between the two games are similar, but there are clear differences that I noticed where Arial is similar to Helvetica but not exactly. Even the edges of the cards, ours are sharper but there’s are curved edges. Which of course I didn’t think would play too much into the gaming aspect. But design wise it was all definitely influenced by the games motif. Where people can point it out, notice things. But just like the game they really can’t do much about it. So I thought that was quite an interesting design choice leading to the final design.

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Systems Experienced - Final Blog Post

Game: deadpan

Academic Description

User experience image (collaboratively sourced)

This photo exhibits suppressed laughter which is part of the main objective of the game (don’t react). It also displays that the participants are enjoying the game which is what we want our players to feel like.

Project title

Deadpan, a game for close friends to use their wit and quick-thinking skills in order to challenge their ability to suppress a reaction.

Reflective Statement

Throughout the past weeks of this project, I felt like I really learned a lot, in ways that are relatively foreign to how I am designing wise originally. I was able to constantly find ways and ask questions and analyze certain aspects of this project throughout tests where I would usually overlook and not consider as it was not my own opinion. Many situations would usually ask of me to create something and I would without ever considering the audience I am doing it for and would only ever consult myself as I would think I myself am my own audience. But throughout this project, although the final result I personally felt was relatively lack lustered in the outcome, in terms of the games simplistic nature at first glance that is. But I believe through the amount of testing we had considering many different aspects we were able to achieve a game to the best of our ability designed to be played how we initially didn’t want it to be, but I doubt the initial idea could face up to our result now. I really find it fascinating considering more opinions in terms of understanding how people use and play with things compared to just how they think it looks, this time around I was able to really feel fulfilled in a sense as I haven’t really created or designed anything with this much client input and being able to implement a lot of those opinions feels rewarding. Rules of play (collaboratively written)What you’ll need: The Deadpan cards - 30 Scenario, 30 Action, and 20 Expression Pen and paper Timing device Rules: 

Players take turns drawing two cards, one Scenario, and one Action. If the Action card has a “Draw Expression” card then do so.

Perform the action in relation to the scenario, using the expression if you drew one. For example, if the Scenario card is “You died”, the Action card is “Sing about it” and the expression card is “as Gordon Ramsay”.  NOTE: The Expression card is only drawn when stated on the Action card.

The player then has 30 seconds to come up with and perform this combination.

While this is taking place the other players must try not to “react” (what defines a reaction is up to the groups discretion, it could be laughing, smiling, applause etc.) If they do then they gain one point.

The game then carries on going clockwise.

The game ends when you run out of scenario cards. Now, the player with the LEAST amount of points wins the game.

Playtest Video

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Card blogs (19th July - 1st August)

Throughout these dates I admittedly haven’t been able to go to uni as much and therefore my participation level in comparison to the other members of the group is lower.

But I fortunately have been present at times where bigger and more impactful iterations were decided and pressed forward. A very evident iteration that we had for our game was to implement a third deck.

Initially our two decks after play testing had good results in terms of the people playing stating it was “fun” but gave nothing more than this. Some would talk about how some cards had more impactful reactions compared to others but information and reviews for our game were relatively lacking.

But after a few of these play tests, I came to realise the players were answering questions for us whilst playing the game. Things like Charles constantly flipping action cards and pairing the cards together. Whilst it wasn’t an intention of ours to do. We as a group had noticed it was a good direction to go toward and implement a third deck. This was because some cards that he did flip over did conflict each other. An example would be; “make it sexual”, followed by “in a French accent”. Which didn’t end up making sense nor was it doable. Another reason as to why we decided to implement a third deck was because we began to notice that some people found it really awkward and uncomfortable not being able to do things because there wasn’t enough substance to what they were doing and they didn’t have enough “resources” (the action cards) to make a situation or scenario funny in a sense. Which then led to them feeling embarrassed.

So further down the line implementing the third deck we decided it would be expression cards. The difference it has from action cards is that it’s supposed to aid the action cards and add a trait or twist of character to further push and provoke the player to act or do certain things which creates quite uncommon outcomes in terms of how the players would go about interpreting the cards.

Following the addition of the third deck we met a few more road blocks such as the expression card not working with the action thus making it difficult to do. This was definitely a hurdle we overlooked seeing that we did decide to implement the expression deck to avoid such matters. So we decided to quickly change the dynamic of the expression card to not be a constant since not all expression cards work with action cards. So we decided to just have the action cards entail whether or not you draw an expression card or not which definitely made decisions and instructions a lot clearer for those playing.

*whilst playtesting we always implemented a time constraint*.

Implementing time constraints we thought before even playtesting would be great to have to restrict dragging games along and making it boring having to wait for the player to act. Thus the pressure and time aspect is something they have to consider which definitely had mixed results. Ravenne from the group went out with friends for dinner one time and introduced the game to them. She first tested without a time limit to check our theory about the game being dragged along and it ended up happening. Thus we decided to keep time constraints. The environmental aspect was also something Ravenne was able to test as they were in a public restaurant. She had pulled conclusions that her friends were very uncomfortable. Saying that it would be great to play and okay if it was just them but some cards would be too awkward to perform in such public environments.

So from consistent play testing whether or not I was present we pulled a lot of conclusions and created decisions based solely on how we analysed and saw people play our game and how certain aspects of the game developed.

An iteration we tried to cater more toward the players was having 10 second grace time where they can think of what they need to do and 20 seconds to do it. But this ended up become reluctant as some players began to start whenever they wanted to. Thus we reverted back to just the simple 30 second time frame for everything to happen.

Another conclusion we drew from play testing was that our game was not at all an ice breaker game. Which meant that most people who would play would more likely feel a lot more playable in the presence of people they only know.

Something we really struggled with was, “What defines a reaction?” Our game focuses on restricting “reactions” but the definition of reacting in the game was rather blurry which was very apparent in a lot of our playtesting. This was very apparent when people would begin to clap and applaud, or groan etc. which triggered other players to call them out and say they reacted. Which led to discussions and arguments as to who won or who reacted. So we iterated with making reactions completely non existent. Where you wouldn’t be allowed to do anything. But we found this was too much and was too difficult to maintain within the whole game. It was difficult to maintain as we felt as though we were forcing people to play the way we went them to. Which made it too hard. So we decided to make it so that the players have to, strictly have to decide for themselves before the game starts on what the rules are on restricting reactions and they can distinguish what reactions they’re not allowed to have. Where people genuinely liked to have the power of controlling such constraints.

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Personal game concepts and finding a group. (18/07/18)

For the couple of days that we were presented with the brief, I was tinkering with a few ideas and game concepts to myself just finding things that peaked my interest in terms of the style of the game but also an objective of the game in general. Continuing on from my interests I didn’t really have many game ideas. But really just a singular game where I had just thought of different ways it could be played.

In short the game was a game which provoked Anger but restricted that. A game where there would be two players that face each other whilst others watch and they would pretty much talk about a topic about a card they draw where the main objective is to make the other person react in an irrational way. The way to distinguish who won or who lost is if they don’t say the words “of course”, this could be changed. But the words of course are just to be able to restrict and to promote acceptance that others will have different opinions and yours isn’t the only existing one. So each person takes turns stating something but it has to be in a question form which is relevant to the topic. But the only way to reply to the question is of course. If you don’t you lose. Relatively rough idea.

Thankfully through studio today I found a group. It was rather spontaneous, as Liam was talking about his idea and Jake, Ravenne and I just began spitballing and throwing ideas that could help Liam’s idea which then I guess we figured out at this point that we would end up working together in a group. It was great as Liam’s idea had some similarities to my own and the other members also had similar ideas.

The games concept is that there are two decks / sets of cards. One is a scenario card and the other is what you will do because of it. Relatively simple game, but your objective getting the cards is to make everyone react in some way. If they laugh, or get mad etc. they lose. I really liked the game as it really provokes you to be quick witted and be clever with how to go about making the others react to you. But also I want to look more into how this kind of repression develops and builds tolerance, to develop tolerance creates a way for players in future to be able to control more of their own emotions.

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Design and make a deck of cards that encourage, frame and/or facilitate play. (16/07/18)

Making a deck of cards the “ENCOURAGE”, “FRAME” and/ or “FACILITATE PLAY”. I personally don’t play a lot of games. So I have a lot of trouble pulling any personal opinions. But nonetheless what I want to define first is the word “PLAY”, for me the word play means fun, right? To me it does, and to me, fun is quite a sadistic thing. For me from my little part of playing games, whatever they may be, was always quite consistent in that I always had a lot of fun sparking fuses, creating commotion and watching people at each other's necks. Now its quite a sadistic interpretation of what’s fun for me but shamelessly I have to say, some games just become a lot more interesting because of this aspect. In addition to this games cannot be without these types of reactions. Anger, toxicity, sadness, irritation, frustration... etc. all stem from competitiveness. This aspect of games is something I find really enjoyable for me, but at times can be quite distasteful. Thus I wanted to design a game that can really facilitate these types of feelings and that competitiveness and channel it in a rather unconventional manner. 

I watched a video called “Breakdown: Toxicity And Competition in Video Games”. As the title says it’s about video games, but games such as Monopoly, Uno and in very rare instances small games such as snap and go fish can go out of hand due to the same reasons that the video points at. 

There are 3 reasons:

Repercussions for toxic behavior have changed.

Technology has changed.

Rage and Toxicity is a surrogate for personal issues.

The first applies more than most, but yes, the repercussions have changed, where because many games now have a tendency to be “east in, easy out” games, which means that the communal aspect of games is harder to develop as players no longer need to invest a lot of time and patience as it’s easy to go into games with others, do whatever and leave and expect to never see them again, hence easy out. This aspect of it I really want to look into for the project. To challenge the easy in and out system and provoke those kinds of emotions in an environment where it is safe to do so.

Technology changing is the point where I thought strayed away from everything, but technology has provoked a lot of players these days to lack discipline, as you can hop on play a game with anyone and anywhere at any given time. Playing into the easy in easy out system again. Of course, in games, there is always the aspect of winning and losing, and because of this, we as humans hate to admit and feel defeat and loss, thus we take it out on others in an area where we know we won’t be punished for. Since we’re working with cards and the interaction of these games is a lot more intimate, it would be great to further look into how reducing the distance between and amongst players can help these types of behavior.

The final point is how these reactions that occur are actually surrogates for personal issues. This point is definitely open to interpretation but for me, this comes down to personal choices.  

 “Just because your pain is understandable, doesn't mean your behavior is acceptable.” 

 - Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience by Steve Maraboli

For me, that quote really stands strong as it should really not be used as an excuse. To be able to utilize that as an excuse is completely hypocritical in which you disregard what other players may have on their own plates or their own lives and it’s a completely selfish act to be able to feel some type of power in life. This point is going to be the most difficult to find distinct answers to but it’s definitely a design goal to be able to facilitate such feelings so that players no longer feel the need to have to vent in such degrading ways despite me finding it fun to watch and see it really isn’t desirable nor healthy behaviour if not moderated.

So the goal of interest is relatively contradictive as whilst enjoying the behavior my goals are rather conflicted as I want to really see how such ideas could evolve if it were to be used in games.

Breakdown: Toxicity And Competition in Video Games 

from :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLIfBuhMrFQ

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Creative Technologies Studio I Project One: “SYSTEMS EXPERIENCED”. (16/07/18)

“... To reflect and iterate through the design of a “’set’ of ‘cards’ that encourage play” to help you understand the process of understanding your audience(s)”.

When first reading the brief of this project, from the start I failed to comprehend the brief and all of the different processes that were intended to be taught and to be assessed in this project. I failed to begin with as, as soon as I heard the word “DESIGN”, I instantly thought I myself personally had it in the bag. Coming from a background of constantly creating I thought that was design, I admit in the past I I craved attention and craved something deeper than hearing that things I created were just “cool”, but what I failed to do aside from seeking substantial critique was to design effectively. I always created things in my past which came from spontaneous ideas, but I wouldn’t ever stick to the said idea and evolve it into anything more. In short, I would create it, Keep it there, then create something else, and if that new creation was better I wouldn’t ever touch the work prior. I would merely use it as evidence that I did work before. I thought that way because I always feared that if I fail to create a decisive opinion and final verdict on my own work that I had created, then I wouldn’t ever know when to finish as there are too many ideas and creations that are left floating, thus I was quick to cull and set aside work that I deemed not worthy based on my own opinions and nothing else. But re-reading the brief I was able to cultivate a whole new array of ideas and I really hope to establish a greater foundation in design through understanding the brief throughout the next 3 weeks. To be able to grasp that I am able to research constantly and create my ideas constantly to be able to create work that I am able to look back and check up on but also to be able to design more effectively.

The words “Effective” and “Design” stood out to me, like a dynamic duo of sorts. To me, effectiveness in design from what I interpreted from the brief was to also become efficient. The efficiency comes from me being able to “... Stand on the shoulders of giants”, that’s for me to be able to see clearer and be able to draw conclusions of what was good, what worked and what didn’t without doing a lot of the work myself because there were so many ideas and projects that precede my own and let alone all the people who did things relatively similar prior to my own existence that could definitely aid in the way I can go ahead with my project. The projects and outcomes from these past projects, both from my own and others, I can now utilize whether they failed or succeeded. To be able to assess why it failed or why it succeeded and see why, or test if the outcomes will be similar in the audience of today.

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Final project done and dusted

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Final Project Journal (TBV) 15

Journal Entry 15/06/18

SCREENPRINTING TIME

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Final Project Journal (TBV) 14

More mocking up...

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Final Project Journal (TBV) 13

More lining 

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Final Project Journal (TBV) 12

Journal Entry 05/06/18

Lining Time

In the process of creating the new lining for both suit jackets I first though it would be great to get a sewing machine to do all of it, but then I thought what an evern better way to show more of the aesthetic of loose fabric waste than to make hand stitch a lot of myself, handstitching wasn’t too difficult nor was it fast either but I personally found the results quite fun and rewarding as each stitch is solely my own by hand but quite authentic in a way where no stich is the same as another in terms of execution. Which I found pretty cool in a sense where the grunge and rough look also catered toward the more street style vibe of fashion but also the overall goal.

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Final Project Journal (TBV) 11

Journal Entry 04/06/18

Influences and Mocking up the final.

I am now into the mocking up stage. There is a new addition of secondary coat jacket over the initial grey one. I’m quite surprised I decided to do that myself also. But a huge influence came from me and group members playing around with all the fabric waste we had acquired and multiple suits jackets were in the bag. So we decided to put them on a play around with them, for some reason there was an instance when Rachel put on two jackets halfway on either side where I was completely taken aback by how cool it looked but quite functional in terms of achieving my goal for the final suit look. The overlapping and two different colors of suits added another contrast of color, but because of this I can almost imitate and tell the story of the two contrasting worlds of what has been and what can become of the suit. Where either side can articulate in a visual manner where and what the suit was and what I want it to become.

I then also began to add several patches on the outside of the suit just to test how visually appealing it was for myself.

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Final Project Journal (TBV)10

Journal Entry 03/06/18

MAKING TIME

So it was now time to begin the creation process of the suit. First Thing I decided to do was remove and stitch up anything within the inside of the suit so it was completely bare and empty. Thus when the suit was empty I thought and was completely taken aback by how nice it was on the inside in terms of the over aesthetic I am going for. Similar now to how many lofts and buildings are utilizing open and exposed piping and other ‘behind the scenes’ type of things to create the aesthetic I thought it would be great to utilize the inner part of the suit to show off as well how bad the suit itself has become in terms of its use. But that doesn't mean I will do no new lining entirely, I will still add a new lining but leave certain parts exposed.

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Final Project Journal (TBV) 9

Journal Entry 31/05/18

Developments before Creation process.

At this point, I had explored multiple arrays of different possibilities for silhouettes and colors and many other things.

I had tried increasing shoulder width to make the suit look bigger on the wearer and wider shoulder padding back in the 80′s was a huge trend to make women wearing suits have a more dominant feel to them. I explored creating longline versions as if they were overcoats. Patchwork, and of course implementing a lot of my art and paintings into the suit was a big thing. But in the end, I concluded to wanting to have a very refined but street looking suit which was grey to not be too loud, but let the other fabrics colors overwhelm it almost, I guess this was to further imitate the look of fabric waste piles where It just became a cluster of color.

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Final Project Journal (TBV) 8

Journal Entry 31/05/18

Concepts 2

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Final Project Journal (TBV) 7

Journal Entry 29/05/18

Concepts 1