Jon The Automaton

[jontheautomaton]

Here Because

Brace yourself; I am an art student.

Here Because

Here Because is an arcade style video game playable on computers equipped with a webcam. The game is presented in a style reminiscent of early Game Boy games: an olive tinted screen and simplistic graphics. The over arching theme I wanted to explore with this project was indecision and uncertainty. I decided to approach the project from this perspective to question whether purpose is necessary. Essentially the core of Here Because's concept is the lack of concept. The game is conveys this by demanding the endless pursuit of a goal that is ultimately unobtainable.

The game in progress

Here Because is a single player, arcade style, video game. Players are placed on a stage where the walls, covered in spikes, slowly close in on the player. In order to survive, the player must collect flags – every time a flag is collected the walls recede. However here in lies the paradox: each time a flag is collected, the walls will proceed to close in on the player at an even faster rate, which eventually leads to the player's demise. From the start the player has no chance of success. While it is a losing-game, Here Because has been designed such that it provides the illusion of success, and provides incremental moments of achievement. In this manner players are enticed to play the game, and in an addictive fashion chase the highest score possible.

Little Dude must collect flags to avoid spiky walls!

Upon losing, the computer takes a candid picture of the player's face, which is then displayed to the player along with their score. This picture represents the culmination of all their efforts and aims to capture the emotion (or lack of it) the player's face conveys. The emotions captured vary for each player, but demonstrate how the player felt the moment they lost. It also hopefully provides some introspection, as the player sees themselves immersed in the experience that has just ended. Why have they participated, if only to face a failure that was inevitable?

Let us cut the crap (or perhaps sink further in it). Here Because has no “concept”. It is a video game, it is a simple joy, and it is a finite and momentary immersion in pointlessness. This lack of concept is the concept. An arcade styled video game was chosen as it serves as a perfect analogy for our life's experiences. Each of us are thrown onto life's stage. We seek love, companionship, careers, money and the latest Apple devices, but eventually we meet our demise. All of these things are temporary, existing if only for a moment in time. The game mirrors life's pursuits through the metaphor of chasing flags, and life's end through the parallel of an inevitable Game Over. Why do we play the game; what is its purpose; and how do we cope with the paradox of “all for naught”? In my failure to produce something artistically meaningful, I have created meaning. I pray that at the end of all things, I will still find success in my attempt.

[jontheautomaton]

Me and Konstantino started working on multiplayer for our game Face Fighter. The documentation can be found over at his blog.

[jontheautomaton]

Kinect Sound Mapping

I had recently been working on creating a video game that split visual and auditory experiences into two. However, I quickly realized how terribly dull the audio experience was without visuals. If there's ever been a marriage that worked, it was the marriage between audio and video. I started to regret ever starting the project, because quite frankly being blind sucked. At that point I had a realization that my whole life had been lived visually and perhaps I needed to back up and approach the issue from a different perspective. I decided to do some research into the different ways I could create rich audio experiences.

As an ongoing project I hope to explore different methods of creating rich aural-spatial experiences. Currently, I am experimenting with Kinect and have created a rough prototype for mapping virtual sound sources to physical space. The goal of this experiment was to allow users to move freely through an environment, while simulating realistic 3D audio.

The prototype represents sound sources as cubes and the listener's head is represented by a green sphere. As the user moves their head through the environment, its position is tracked in 3D space by the kinect. This data allows openAL, the audio library, to simulate accurate panning, scaling of volume and gain, and direction of audio as if it were a binaural recording.

In testing the prototype I had a few interesting findings regarding user experience, content and possible applications. To me this was purely a technical demo, so not much thought was put into the actual content conveyed. However when presenting the prototype before my peers, I noticed the content shaped their experience more so than the technology itself.

The audio track played was "Human" by Daft Punk. The track was split into three different layers of audio and spread in different locations throughout a room. I found that students were attracted to the most rhythmic of the tracks. So in moving through their space, students were selective with what they wanted to hear.

This could have applications in games: providing a goal oriented environment where players seek certain audio "targets".

Another application would be to deliver personalized content to users, since each user can be delivered different audio.

Because students were jumping to and from different sound sources, a suggestion was also made to use the framework for dance environments – since dance has both aural and spatial components.

Another segment of students were focused on controlling their experience. It may have been mildly entertaining to use their bodies to control the panning of sounds and as a result that became an activity that was actively sought by many of the participants. This leads to the obvious use of the kinect as an interface for gestural sound control.

In an attempt to make the experience self explanatory, I decided to present it with accompanying visuals that served as a virtual map of where the sound sources were located. This was interesting for two reasons: users wanted to orient themselves on the map, but had great difficulty doing so. It would be interesting to re-conduct the experience without the use of visuals to see whether or not that changed the way the technology was engaged.

Lastly, changing the audio content would allow for many different applications. I love mystery novels, films, games, you name it, so one my interests with audio is identifying what it is, where it is, and why it is. Recreating the scene of a murder or robbery through an audio space could provide a compelling experience for users who enjoy solving puzzles. By answering who, what, when, where and why in the context of audio and space allows for the recreation or conjuring of memories.

[jontheautomaton]

Tiff Nextwave - Future Frames

I'm super excited to announce that Super Conveniently Head Controlled FaceFighter 10987654321 *whew* will be presented at Tiff's upcoming Nextwave: Future Frames and Games Festival. Some of the most creative and talented post secondary students from all across Canada will be showing off their work May 10th - May 12th at Tiff's Bell Light Box in Toronto - if you're in town check it out! I'll be standing around with my partner in crime Konstantino checking out all the projects.

You can check out the festival details here at Tiff's website.

teventsSee you there!

[jontheautomaton]

Super Unique Top Down Puzzle RPG 9001

TLDR;

Super Unique Top Down Puzzle RPG 9001 is a two player cooperative video game. However the game splits the visual and auditory components across the players: one player is given only visuals to interact with, while the other is given only audio. This creates two very different and distinct player experiences. The game is designed such that neither player can progress without working with the other. Since most games are easily played without sound, we wished to challenge that by making audio play an equally important role in our game.

Super Unique is currently more of a proof of concept and what is represented here is more of a technical demo of our progress.

Artist Statement

Super Unique Top Down Puzzle RPG 9001 is a multiplayer video game installation that requires two players to cooperate while separated in physical and virtual space. Our work is driven by the idea that every medium is traditionally limited by the expected interaction it affords: for example, a video game carries the expectation of being seen and heard simultaneously. These conditions are similar in that either element is tied to one of the five senses – but if these “expected” attributes were to be fragmented, how would the end users cope with the changes? We plan to explore this “fragmentation of the senses” by distributing the primary sensory outputs of traditional video games across two very different playing experiences: one player will see the game, and one player will hear the game.

Description The installation will be set up as a simple computer kiosk. The “seeing” player will be able to view the game screen, as well as navigate the player character through our visual environment using keyboard controls. The “hearing” player will have a set of headphones, attached to the same computer, as well as the ability to explore the game’s soundscape using a rotating potentiometer. The players must act together to ensure their character survives and escapes the dungeon he has been situated in by communicating to each other.

While most games can arguably be navigated through and enjoyed with the sound turned off (relying heavily on visual feedback), we are designing Super Unique so that the seeing player is reliant on the proactive communication of the hearing player. Visual players are first handicapped in that there will be a spotlight with a small radius surrounding the hero, creating a limited vision of the game space. Many traps and puzzles will be set up that communicate strictly aural signals, meaning visual players must consult with their hearing teammates to avoid landmines and pits, as well as to locate hidden platforms, switches and paths. Hearing players can “tune in” to sounds by turning a potentiometer. The visual player can see an arrow on screen that corresponds to the area the hearing player has tuned in to, allowing the visual player to pinpoint the location of any sound the hearing player describes. The game is completed when the seeing player, with the assistance of the hearing player, safely navigates to the final room of the dungeon.

Conclusion Our system deconstructs what is expected of traditional video games by compartmentalizing essential modes of communication that are typically synchronized and unified (visuals and sound). In our efforts to challenge the user’s expectations of media, we believe that video games lend themselves to our experiment by naturally inviting user participation. In an ever-changing technological society, it is important to continuously challenge the limitations of the mediums we use regularly; our project demonstrates this in an engaging and challenging interactive experience.

Members:

Jonathan Seguin Konstantino Kapetaneous

[jontheautomaton]

In My Nightmares I Dream of Black Blocks

For, In My Nightmares I Dream of Black Blocks, I aimed to make a game that combined several core game play elements together. The main theme around which I based the game was survival. I wanted the player to feel threatened, to feel like their chances of winning were limited. However it is difficult to create a game play environment that truly feels threatening. When playing video games I quickly start to notice where the rules can be bent; how the game has been structured and how those realizations limits the game designer from conveying the emotions they wish a player to feel. For instance in a game like Metal Gear Solid, your goal might be to stealthily sneak pass guards, but if you observe carefully you will notice a dissonance between what should realistically happen, and what the guard's AI is capable of emulating. You stand facing a guard and you see the guard, yet the guard does not see you. This is because you are standing just outside of his range of detection. Should this have been a situation in real life the guard would have been staring directly at you and you would have been caught. Noticing these patterns removes the player from the situation and makes them aware of the game itself.

With this in mind, there were several things we studied throughout the course that I felt could create a more satisfying type of game environment. Specifically, generative processes were intriguing to me, because they have the potential to create situations that are unique each time they are experienced. I decided to implement a genetic algorithm based on a class example. Using a genetic algorithm made it possible to develop enemies that would be responsive instead of premeditated in their actions. This also relates to Jim Campbell's article Delusions of Dialogue: Choice and Control in Interactive Art. By using a genetic algorithm to serve as the enemy's artificial intelligence, it appears that the enemies are acting with increasing intelligence. However every action each enemy carries out is the result of adhering to a strict set of rules. Yet, the enemies do not have a deterministic set of behaviours, their rule set instead determines how they learn to behave. Thus the enemies present an interaction with the player that is continuous in the way that they constantly measure the state of their success and act accordingly. This biological approach to computing also led me to want to incorporate other biological elements into my code.

Casey Reas' Process Compendium fit perfectly with my concept of genetic algorithms and behaviour. Each process in his work represented to me a DNA sequence or set of traits that could be passed down to future generations. Instead of just variables, behaviours themselves could become part of the DNA.

In My Nightmares I Dream of Black Blocks, is my attempt at creating a survival game that implements an environment that is adaptive instead of discretely responsive. By implementing a genetic algorithm, no matter how dumb the enemy, it will achieve its goal eventually.

How It Works

Players are given a setup period to construct a barricade. Barricades consist of 4 different elements:

There are two types of physical blocks that act as obstacles: wooden crates and metal crates.

Wooden crates are more abundant, however enemies will break through them fairly fast.

Metal crates on the other hand are much more durable, they have double the life span of a wooden crate, but there are fewer of them to utilize.

The other two barricading elements are traps.

Yellow squares represent traps that will limit the enemy's speed; making them slower and easier to avoid or escape.

Red squares represent traps that do damage over time. Enemies that walk into these traps will slowly have their life diminished.

After the player has finished setting up their barricade, the game starts. A group of enemies, "Creeps", will attempt to hunt you down. At first they may not even reach the player, however creeps come in waves and each generation of creeps are smarter than the last. Creeps have certain behaviours and traits they possess. Some creeps will try to break your barricade down, other creeps will consider barricades a dead end and continue moving. The player is tasked with surviving these waves of enemies for as long as possible.

To survive:

The player can move around the entire map positioning themselves to avoid waves of creeps.

The player is supplied with a gun and 100 bullets to defend themselves with.

Each creep takes 2 hits to kill, however shooting a creep temporarily halts their movement and forces them backward.

Creeps become smarter by determining which creeps are most successful and spawning a new generation of creeps that mimic successful behaviours. Currently success is determined by how close the creep makes it to the player and how much damage it does to the player.

Above: The game in action.

Improvements

The concept is not fully implemented and future versions could improve vastly on the formula. I wish to tweak the success criteria for the genetic algorithm to include things such as:

Does a creep have the player in vision?

How many collisions with undesirable objects have occurred?

Has a creep died before it's life expectancy?

Source Code

Processing source code can be found here.

[jontheautomaton]

Super Conveniently Head-Controlled Face Fighter 10987654321

Pew pew pew! I've created a shoot 'em up game that you control with your face! Players move their ship left to right by leaning or tilting their head. Oncoming asteroids must be avoided or shot with your laser cannon! Shooting is performed by nodding: this is risky because nodding diverts the player's focus away from the screen. Play wisely my friends.

FaceFighter was programmed in processing and requires a webcam. Very much an alpha build.

Project Members:

Jonathan Seguin Konstantino Kapetaneous

[jontheautomaton]

NightBallonist 4-Button Arcade Panel

Working with my great pal Konstantino, we built an arcade style button mashing controller for Miguel Sternberg at SpookySquid Games. The button box was built for a really fantastic arcade game The Night Ballonists and was shown at the Hand Eye Society's social #11. The innards of the button box involved hacking an Xbox controller by soldering connections between the xbox PCB and the arcade buttons.

Photos after the break.

Above: A commemorative picture just after the box was constructed. We built this thing on Konstantino's living-room floor. Good times.

Above: Fellow Hand Eye members looking amused ~

[jontheautomaton]

Plasmata

Plasmata is a project that aims to create an educational environment through gameplay. Two iPads function as touchscreen inputs to manipulate colour selectors. Users can then grow "plasmata" or colour orbs, which they launch at the opposing user. In future development plasmata will possess different properties based upon their colour and volume and will introduce fast-paced strategic gameplay based on the interactions between plasmata.

Game Development

The game would function similar to air-hockey or pong, however involving the complexity of colour.

Each player has a rainbow aura that acts as a colour selector and also marks the zone they want to protect.

Players can prevent orbs from reaching their zone by launching and colliding their orbs with the incoming ones. This is called nullification.

To nullify an orb you must match, roughly, the size and hue of the opposing orb in order to nullify it.

Certain colours may respond differently upon a failed nullification. For instance red orbs may explode into several smaller orbs, green orbs may accelerate, yellow orbs might stop, but slow down other orbs within its range, etc.

Players may wish to nullify orbs, or purposely trigger their effects.

The game then becomes a dilemma of which colours to utilize and how fast players can make those decisions. Underlying the gameplay would be elements of colour theory, complimentary colours, colour mixing, etc, that would be acquired by playing the game.

Project Members: Jonathan Séguin Konstantino Kapetaneous Nick Pagee

[jontheautomaton]

Mine Sweep: A Mouse Hack

Turn any dull room into a minefield full of exhilaration and imaginary lost limbs! I created a small party game by embedding an optical mouse sensor into a makeshift mine detector (broom stick + cardboard ftw). With a bit of software modification the mouse is able to track its position in a room of any size. Players navigate from one end of the room to the other trying to avoid stepping on mines.

This project was an assignment for one of my second year classes at Ryerson. The criteria for this assignment was to "hack" an optical mouse and repurpose its function. The idea I came up with was to use the optical mouse sensor as a mine detector. I felt the experience of walking through a mine field, where one false step could mean your end, created a very tense and exhilarating environment for game play. The game functions as follows:

Players would navigate through a space with boundaries set in the form of a rectangle.

The goal would be to make it from one end of the space to the other end without running into any mines.

Players however would not be given any visual cues to where the mines were planted. Originally the plan was to blindfold participants in order to have them focus on using their other senses (hearing).

As players approached a mine with their mine detector, a beeping noise would play. The closer a player moves to a mine the faster the beeping would play.

By using the beeping sound players should be able to navigate carefully to the other side without meeting their dooms.

Additionally I decided it would be good for those observing to be able to monitor the situation more clearly so they could see whether or not the contestant was poised for doom. Projected opposite the back of the player is an overview of the player's position and mine positions. This actually created another form of feedback for the player to take heed of. The level of anxiety in the audience is directly expressed to the player as they move through the field giving them another way to gauge how well they're doing.

Of course this is yet again a very rough prototype and should I choose to resume work on it I would like to include much stronger visuals, audio and perhaps a timer to increase the player's anxiety.

[jontheautomaton]

Ghost Image

"Ghost Image" was a project I did that combined an implementation of two-dimensional metaballs, projection and hardware control through the use of an arcade style panel. Participants could control the colour, and size of each metaball spawned to create vivid visualizations projected on a surface.

The project was programmed in processing and allows participants to create blobs called metaballs that behave similar to the lava in a lava lamp. Blobs merge together and separate in a gooey-like fashion.

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Participants can create metaballs of difference sizes and colours by pressing a button of corresponding colour for a duration of time. The longer the button is held; the bigger the metaballs.

The arcade panel was created using an open source microcontroller, Arduino. The arduino manages hardware input and outputs switch data to a laptop running the metaballs visualization in processing.

Above: The inner workings of the arcade panel.

metalProject Members: Jonaathan Seguin Konstantino Kapetaneous Nick Pagee

[jontheautomaton]

Generic Lava Platformer 5000

Generic Lava Platformer 5000 was conceived as a final project during my first year at Ryerson University. The object of the game is to keep yourself out of the lava as long as possible by jumping from platform to platform. Platforms fall slowly from the top of the screen, however as the game progresses platforms fall faster and faster and also shrink in size. 

Here are screenshots of the actual game in all its low res glory:

Above: Brilliantly designed titlescreen by Konstantino

Above: The game being played. It's not so hard at 34 seconds in but I'll be damned if you make it past two minutes.

Above: The game's "game over" screen

Group Members:

Jonathan Séguin Konstantino Kapetaneous Winnie Kwan

[jontheautomaton]

Snakes in the Third Dimension

I seriously don't know what to name my projects, but here's another Processing visualization. Kind of reminds me of those old microsoft 3D pipe screen savers.

[jontheautomaton]

Explosive Particle Cube

Here's a little visual programming experiment I did back in my first year in Ryerson's New Media Program.

Programmed in Processing

[jontheautomaton]

Care to show me those 18 more? No? Oh, okay then.

[konstantino]

Introduction Super Unique Top Down Puzzle RPG 9001 is a multiplayer video game installation that requires two players to cooperate while separated in physical and virtual space. Our work is driven by the idea that every medium is traditionally limited by the expected interaction it affords:...

[jontheautomaton]

Status

Start Post:

So here's a little blurb about what's currently on my mind/in progress.

Tino and I have come up with a list of puzzle elements that are to be in the game these include:

Monsters that chase after you. They'll follow you in the dark, always have to keep an ear out of them.

Burrowed monsters that explode if you step over them (*cough* banelings *cough*). As a player moves closer to a burrowed monster the frequency between it's cries increases and gets louder.

Paths that emit sound from them. Used in mazes to determine the correct path.

Chasms with invisible platforms to walk on; location identified by sounds. Sound will only occur if the player's pointer is pointing towards walkable ground.

Spikey walls that snap shut... don't know how to describe it any better than that. The timing of the snap-shut is given away by a sound pattern.

Switches; these puzzles aren't currently fleshed out, but probably involve the opening and closing of paths.

More complicated puzzles will combine these elements.

Technical Mumbo Jumbo:

Currently working on the underlying workings of the sound player's pointer. It needs to determine which sounds it's pointing at. It should have a "field of view" which would basically be a visual analogy for the angle range at which it will pick up sounds from objects it's pointing at. I am half way through solving this problem using processing's PVector class and utilizing the heading function to determine the pointers direction and orientation.

Things to do:

Implement a class that handles events: Events would be anything that requires triggering.

A level handler, for switching between levels/rooms, resetting and loading assets, updating level assets.

Add in room transitions between rooms.

Add in more rooms

Clean up code

Probably a million other things.

End Post.