Fifty Shades of Beurre

@monkeyotoshi's game dev adventure blog. they should update back to paris.

[ouiouiotoshi]

We could be living in a Utopia by now, if it weren’t for Capitalism

Since Social Network Sites (SNS) have evolved to become a fixed part of our daily lives in the past two decades (boyd, 2007), with internet becoming accessible to many people, and technology advancing to facilitate computing for everyone, our communication, sense of self and privacy have changed. People are united across continents, able to find others with similar interests or forge new friendships. In the beginning, many SNS were created with particular target groups and small audiences in mind, accessible only to those who received an invitation from someone who was already a registered user. Apart from the gamified features added to the sites in the course of further development, this invitation felt like the admittance to a “Magic Circle” (Huizinga, 1938), that represented real life, communication and other types of social interaction in an abstract way with its own emerging rules.

This essay aims to explore the influence money has on SNS and their users, how equating people with brands is harmful, and how social networks could create real value if they put “social” first and “capitalist futurism” second.

The appeal of social networks on their users is rooted in both the aforementioned exclusivity by either being part of the target audience or receiving an invitation, and the intrinsic human wish for communication and socialization. Shortly after its launch, a social network connects people, who already know each other, creating a net of relationships and allowing for each individual to aim for a personalized presence online (McMahon, 2015). Social networks allow their users to share information about themselves, which in and of itself is a selling point for the general population. It is as motivational an activity as eating and having sex, and serves bonding and the acquisition of self-knowledge (Tamir, 2012). Especially for the millennial generation, born during the 1990s, social networks became a big part of their formative teenage years (boyd, 2007, 2008), shaping their daily lives and influencing their communication. The amount of information derived from a simple message (time stamp, duration of typing, if it remained unread etc.) or who likes which picture that was posted weeks ago, is part of hyperpersonal communication (McMahon, 2015) and tells the user a lot about the relationship with their peers.

In the short but intense history of SNS, many sites emerged, displaying particular qualities for certain target groups, and then lost popularity again. One social network that appeared, persisted, and came to shape the internet like no other, is Facebook. It launched in 2004 and has evolved into an important platform for – indeed – social interaction, but also data gathering, advertisement, and political discourse i.e. propaganda (Hill, 2013). If Facebook was about connecting people in the beginning, it soon emerged as a marketplace of personal information in exchange for personalized advertisements, promoted posts etc. Now, with worldwide 1.9 billion MAUs (Monthly Active Users) and advertisement revenues of almost 8 billion US$ as of the first quarter of 2017 alone (Facebook, 2017; Hill 2013), it is clear to which degree Facebook values their users (17.07 US$/user on American and Canadian, 5.42 US$/user on the European market in revenues, to be precise).

At this moment we reached an interesting tipping point. Facebook earns its money as a mediator between users/customers and companies/advertisers and it aims to retain its relevance for both users and advertisers. The only problem is: People have begun to share less about themselves on SNS (Hoffmann, 2016). This occurs for two major reasons.

On one hand, people have become skeptical about the practices of services like Facebook and Google, which data they collect apart from the deliberately shared info on their profiles or as comments under the posts of friends, and what happens to them. The lack of transparency and the invasion of initially intimate spaces feel like the system is changing its rules to benefit revenues over people (Rainie and Duggan, 2016).

On the other hand, Facebook, as well as Twitter for example, suffer of the same phenomenon, called “context collapse” (Hoffmann, 2016). According to danah boyd, one of the first people to create the concept and subsequently help coin the term (boyd, 2002), context collapse occurs when the different audiences to the communication of an individual merge. E.g.: You are friends on Facebook with you real friends, your family, your colleagues, former fellow students from high school, people you met at a business fair, persons you met on vacation etc. Of course you can try and differentiate who you want to share which details with (parties or concerts visited, political affiliations, health, or sexual orientation), but can you be sure Facebook’s oversharing way of engaging users will not inform your father you are lesbian? (Fowler, 2012) In the end, these kinds of events prevent people from entrusting their valuable identities to SNSs, choosing to share videos and newspaper articles over private pictures or personal emotions.

In the first quarter of 2017, Facebook reinvested 23% of its 8 billion US$ in revenue into Research & Development (Facebook, 2017). Facebook’s own Research website gives a clear overview of their current R&D areas, e.g. applied machine learning, AI, language processing, VR (they own Oculus VR), and computer vision (Facebook, 2016). Computer vision is a perfect example of how Facebook creates new tools to increase user engagement. The tech market intelligence platform CB Insights published an article on Facebook’s emotion detecting technology, that, according to the dates the patents were filed, go back to 2014 (CB Insights, 2017). These tools are intended to create a better sense of the emotions a user has while engaging with content and provide them with more appropriate content. Also, Facebook wishes for this technology to fit a text post with the appropriate emoji based on the image the front camera of a smartphone detects of its user. Fantastic and powerful technologies, that cost millions to develop, were patented and will remain proprietary to Facebook for up to 20 years. Amazing tech, that will be heralded as a new updated gimmick, but will let corporations uncover the last remaining secrets humans can hide behind text.

Facebook has the monetary power to invest billions into the development of tools, that could be used for so much more than earning it more money. For people suffering of social-emotional agnosia, or the inability to read facial expressions, a tool like this would be invaluable.

Powerful tech corporations can create tools to advance culture and facilitate communication across borders of language or disability, and there are two projects illustrating this perfectly. One is the Noto font family, that Google commissioned, creating a typeface for every letter, symbol or sign that is known to humanity (Monotype, 2016). It is a free and open source project that can be used anyone for anything. The second free and accessible resource is the manual for Inclusive Design (Microsoft, 2016). Hopefully, this is not all that big corporations will have in store for its users, but it’s a start.

SNSs will not disappear off the face of the Earth and they won’t lose their relevance and influence anytime soon. The only thing we can hope for is that the R&D done by economically powerful tech companies such as Facebook become free to use and publicly accessible for others to bring value to society. Additionally, social networks have a responsibility for the data of their users and to protect them from harassment or involuntary outing. It would be a disgrace if something, that calls itself “social” terraforms society into an alienated mass of people, who may call each other Friends, but don’t speak the same language.

References

boyd, danah. 2002. “Faceted ID/Entity: Managing representation in a digital world.” M.Sc. Thesis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

boyd, danah. 2007. “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Learning – Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume (ed. David Buckingham). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

boyd, danah, and Nicole B. Ellison. 2007. “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship.” Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 13 (1)

boyd, danah. 2008. “Taken Out Of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics.” Phd Thesis. University of California-Berkeley, School of Information.

CB Insights. 2017. “Facebook’s Emotion Tech: Patents Show New Ways For Detecting And Responding To Users’ Feelings.” CB Insights. Accessed June 8th, 2017 at https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/facebook-emotion-patents-analysis/

Facebook. 2016. Research Areas. Accessed June 9th, 2017 at https://research.fb.com/research-areas/

Facebook. 2017. Q1/17 Earnings. Accessed June 9th, 2017 at https://investor.fb.com/financials/?section=quarterlyearnings

Fowler, Geoffrey A. 2012. “When the Most Personal Secrets Get Outed on Facebook.” The Wall Street Journal. Accessed June 8th, 2017 at http://w3.salemstate.edu/~pglasser/When_the_Most_Personal_Secrets_Get_Outed_on_Facebook_-_WSJ.pdf

Hill, Kashmir. 2013. “Facebook Joins Forces With Data Brokers To Gather More Intel About Users For Ads.” Forbes. Accessed June 9th, 2017 at https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/02/27/facebook-joins-forces-with-data-brokers-to-gather-more-intel-about-users-for-ads/#397db9cf2089

Hoffmann, Anna L. 2016. “Facebook is worried about users sharing less – but it only has itself to blame”. The Guardian. Accessed June 6th, 2017 at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/19/facebook-users-sharing-less-personal-data-zuckerberg

Huizinga, Johan. 1938. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture

Matsumoto, David, and Hyi Sung Hwang. 2011. “Reading facial expressions of emotion.” American Psychological Association. Accessed June 9th, 2017 at http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2011/05/facial-expressions.aspx

McMahon, Ciarán. 2015. “Why do we ‘like’ social media?” the psychologist. Accessed June 08th, 2017 at https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-28/september-2015/why-do-we-social-media

Microsoft. 2016. Inclusive Microsoft Design. Accessed June 08th, 2017 at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/design/inclusive

Monotype. 2016. Creating Noto for Google. Accessed June 08th, 2017 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16_NYHUZ1kM

Rainie, Lee, and Maeve Duggan. 2016. “Privacy and Information Sharing.” Pew Research Center. Accessed June 7th, 2017 at http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/01/14/privacy-and-information-sharing/

Tamir, Diana I., and Jason P. Mitchell. 2012. “Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding.” PNAS. Accessed June 7th, 2017 at http://www.pnas.org/content/109/21/8038.full

[ouiouiotoshi]

Two Nines Fine #7 - Writing and VO

[The game can be played here: https://monkeyotoshi.itch.io/two-nines-fine]

Today, the documentation of my creative process on Two Nines Fine culminates in the birth of the narrator and the creation of the script and the voice over.

During the beginning of crunch time, while I was still painting billboards (it was the cigarette one), our group had one of their, luckily frequent, meetings. We knew, that we needed to get our mind wrapped around the narrator, find a voice, a personality, a something to base a script on, that people would enjoy listening to. We were clear about a couple of facts:

The narrator brings in personal commentary, snarky remarks, might be occasionally condescending towards the political and socio-economic situations in the game (that, as we know, were meant to reflect real life.)

Some early draft I did before Christmas, trying to set a tone:

START MENU

Welcome to GAME TITLE! Thank you for choosing the original and fighting copyright infringement in the process of enjoying hours of sophisticated fun.

*clears throat*

Okay look, this is desparation right there. I even go to lengths to employ marketing strategies to make you play this game. I’m going to tell you how I think you are a unique and important individual, intelligent, driven and complex, with the potential to change the world.

Just bear with me, okay? Stop hovering over ESC and pick up your mouse to look around. We’ll spend some time together, so there’s no need to rush things.

I have to warn you, though: I’ll repeat these words to anyone who hits “start” and plays this game, because I don’t care about whether it’s you or the next person or the guy who played last week, who actually gets what I’m trying to say. Maybe you will understand, maybe you won’t. I’m used to disappointment, after all.

I was pleading additionally for a narrator, that doesn’t only point out the obvious (politicians are bad, corporations are evil, uneducated people are dangerous), but who wanted to bring in a personal side, show how people are more important than any of the above. Somebody to mentor you as a player. We were thinking about how to fit it all in a logically explicable game context (is it really that meta? how do we explain this meta-ness? does the rest of the game convey the feeling and impression, that this narrator, no matter HOW meta, is allowed to exist?)

Next to the narrator, we had the idea of having a PLEXOR voice: It is supposed to greet you in the mornings and give you daily updates on things changing. I got the job because I like to do shady things with my vocal chords such as this:

0_2_P_GoodMorningCitizens

(i love doing stupid robot voices that tell you to please hold the line.) (even though the subtle German accent makes me cringe. a little.) (i also enjoyed singing during production and allen, remus and i had a couple of glorious a-capella moments disney would’ve been proud of.)

Anyways, we saw ourselves confronted with the fact, that two weeks before shipping we neither had a script, nor a candidate for the job of our meta-narrator. Time was going to time and we were getting a little panicky.

We discussed and came to the conclusion, that the narrator doesn’t have to be an omniscient bystander, but could be part of the game world. Someone with an overview, somebody torn in their interests, a real character in the game, that guided you. What if they used to be part of the system, idealistically, what if their opinions changed, just as yours might, too?

What if they were still stuck in the system, unable to act without risking their life or that of a loved one? What if we didn’t need more than one voice in the game?

What if the narrator and the PLEXOR woman were the same person?

Being given the reins (and i still know how insecure, happy and proud i felt at the same time) I started laying down the basic outlines of what would happen in the game. I made up my mind about who this person is, what their affiliations with PLEXOR are, what type of oppression they played a part in. How much did they know about all the bad things PLEXOR did and does, when did they make up their mind about how wrong the system is and when did they finally choose to act?

Once I got my mind wrapped around it, I started writing. And just as I do with drawing and designing, the first draft was chaotic and a mess and unfinished before I started to work on the real deal. But since I, again, was slipping into the head of another person 100%, because everything I said would be my voice, my intonation, also partly my character, it felt like the most natural thing to do.

I spent three days on writing the script, revising it with the group and crafting the finished draft a night before our appointment with the chamber of asphyxiation and madness: The recording booth at KISD.

But before going into recording details, I want to list a couple of my favourite passages from the script. (<- Link to the pdf with the script, showing all triggers etc.)

DAY ONE

Why would you destroy our beloved park to build another mall instead of keeping a space people can use for recreation, socializing and culture?

Because we are being told, that our freedom only reaches as far as we can throw our money. Exercising your free will is reduced to deciding what brand of locally brewed beer you prefer for your get­-togethers with your friends ­­ and let me tell you, they’re all imported from beyond any border you’ve encountered while a horde of brand­-endorsed men is running around a stadium you’re too poor to afford a ticket to.

And I helped shaping this world.

DAY TWO — The Wall Monologue

It’s really hard to have such a one­sided conversation, so allow me to pose a new rhetorical question.

What are walls used for?

A wall is used to spatially divide lands and people, but also to separate individuals from ideas and the progress of their society. They’ve got a strong psychological influence, as they eliminate any horizon, cageing people into a canyon of hopelessness and lack of prospects.

A split society, that’s supposed to turn onto itself, won’t invest energy into considering the big picture, inspecting everything that happens in the world. It’s impossible to ask someone in fear for their lives or full of hate and envy for their neighbours to understand how there is a greater purpose to all of it. I mean, people get royally pissed when they’re treated unfairly. A wall is there to show you the only way out of your misery is to fight your peers.

And fighting your peers will earn some people a lot of money.

DAY TWO — Finale of Second Metaflash

But in the end, PLEXOR profited so much from that stunt, that they were able to establish their influence in the oil and chemical industry, as well as agriculture. People will always need food, and waste disposal. Mobility. Cosmetics. Stuff.

Apart from their own subsidiaries, they are shareholders for some other huge players in the technology and arms industries.

This is a perfect example of why governments all over the world have a soft spot for PLEXOR. They have enough economic power to throw money at problems, people and political ideals, until those are either converted or corrupted. *ca­ching sound*

DAY TWO — Conclusion & Euphemisms

A couple of months ago, I had been told about PLEXOR’s intention to acquire the National Railway Company (the one, that keeps us all on track, am I right?), and during the meeting at the end of the month, one of my direct superiors gave me a list with obscure words, that would be essential to rephrase negative statements. I actually can’t recall what words were on it, because I forced myself to learn and to use them as unstudied and self­confident as possible. By now, they have entered our vocabulary, and we can’t remember a time without pleasant and productive days.

[…]

I hope you’ll find an edge to your day, something to piss you off. Pleasantness will only get us this far.

DAY THREE — Spoiler Alert

I don’t have much time left, so let’s get this done quickly.

You have seen the connections. And you hopefully understand why I needed to share this with you. It has taken me many decades to wake up, and years to understand what we’re doing to each other and what we let others do to us.

The players in this game are relics of decaying generations of oppressors, that were told by their predecessors, that this is their world, and they have every right to change its rules as they see fit.

Those people have been megalomaniacs for too long. Test subjects, statistical values, reliability and reproducibility of experiments. They attempt to turn you into data sets, to analyze and simplify you, ignoring the fact, that you are human. That you are alive and free, that not one single cell in your body cares about the fabric it’s covered in or what car it is, that moves you from right to left. You are innately free and primitive and thereby impossible to stop.

[…]

The only question remaining is, how you exercise your freedom of choice, your free will. Will you let them tell you to hurt yourself or your peers?

[…]

Or are you going to stop them from treating you as their worthless possessions?

People proofreading the script generally liked it, but they also remarked it was not written to be performed. I’m with them on that, and I probably would have changed it, if I had done it early enough to allow changes. My approach for future encounters would have been to take it, let it stay for a week or more, reread it a couple of times, and do a test recording of freely spoken content, to see how much it would differ from what I actually wrote. I know that I express myself weirdly, sometimes, so I thought it was okay the way it ended up to be, because I was the one performing it.

Recording time.

The radio and the ifs were not able to help us (because we correctly assumed it was going to take us a couple of hours to get 2720 words recorded, especially when it comes down to being nervous and maybe a little insecure), so we needed to change plans and go to Südstadt to use the KISD recording studio. We got there at 10am, again correctly assuming we’d need time to set up stuff and get started. Recording started at 3pm. And went on till 11pm.

First we had trouble with Apples pretty trashcan. Then we had trouble with helpful employees. Afterwards we had trouble with mensa and at 6pm we were kicked out for an hour because of a vernisage in the building.

I would love to be a smart ass and to give you a scientifically accurate calculation about the volume of the booth, its oxygen contents, how much time it takes for two people to use it up and after what time we would have asphyxiated, if we tried to not leave the booth for the sake of productivity. But this post is already at exactly 1792 words, so I’ll spare you this.

Remus was working as director, producer and lucky charm of the entire event. Since the real setup for one person to sit in the booth speaking and the producer listening from the other room didn’t work, we squeezed into the booth together. It definitely helped with bonding. And with having a quota of >50% outtakes for you to enjoy, maybe, at some point.

It was easiest to record the passionate, idealist passages (most of them mentioned above), because I was in character and managed to do it in one take, most of the times. The small little nonchalant remarks, statements and sounds were much harder to make. An excited “oh, wait!” quickly sounded more sexual than necessary (uuuuh waaaait *batting lashes*), as well as kiosk visit number 1: “What do we have here?”, that was supposed to be just normal. Nope. We had to do so many takes for little sentences, it was annoying. And whenever the amount of bullshit increased, we knew that it was time to step out of the cave, aerate it and take some deep breaths.

At 1045pm Remus pulled me from the booth, while I was shouting my final line.

Applause.

Bow.

Exit THE NARRATOR.

****

It’s time for selected outtakes. Rated M for mature: graphic language. Probably. Definitely.

ZOOM0008 (starts at 00:13) ZOOM0010 uh stop, i warned you ZOOM0039 ZOOM0049 ZOOM0055 ZOOM0058 Hm, what do we have here…

Don’t listen to it via headphones. You might get deaf. Sorry. Second hand embarrassment ensued.

[ouiouiotoshi]

Two Nines Fine #5 – Journalism for everyone

[The game can be played here: https://monkeyotoshi.itch.io/two-nines-fine]

Similar to the advertisement, the other print media, namely newspapers and magazines, were supposed to convey that they were created in our game universe, but still reflect their counterparts in our world.

Let’s look at the different newspapers I chose to create:

The Daily Statement: A Times / Süddeutsche Zeitung kind of newspaper Frame Today: Weekly magazine, probably mostly related to the German Focus or SternThe Condition: Satiric daily paper, Le Figaro (French), but more anti-capitalist. The Diamond: Boobs, polemics, BILD Niveau. Picture Perfect: COSMO.

Again, general doodle and colour frenzy.

The real content on the different covers appeared in parallel to the creation of the script, since it needed the development of the narrator to be clear about what type of commentary would be made, as well as how and what development in the game world was supposed to be mentioned on the front pages of the newspapers, mirroring the opinions of the different editors, their politic affiliations and so on.

First the general textures for the newspaper models at the kiosk (the how to is very simple — create a dummy front page for each newspaper or scale the existing ones down, plaster it onto the UV map of the model Lena created and voilà):

And now onto the covers for each day, including the commentary of the narrator.

DAY ONE

“The Banana­Gun­Incident” ­­ I’ll give [The Condition] this: They know how to phrase crazy headlines. Wait, that actually reminds me of something…

Luckily this sexist piece of consumerist propaganda only gets released once every two weeks. [Picture Perfect]​, more like utter bullshit.

Aha, here we have the [Frame Today]​, and you’ll see this document of PLEXOR glorification today, tomorrow, till the end of the week. But, we gotta admit, that the articles sound quite interesting… I should nick an issue from our lounge.

[The Daily Statement] tries to sell us an “alternative” perspective on the blatantly obvious reason why City 16 needs a mall in the city centre. “International financial instability” my ass.

Honestly, skip [The Diamond]​.

DAY TWO

Just… don’t. Please.

The Second Conflict. If the word “freedom” didn’t exist, they wouldn’t be able to hide the truth behind it.

*laughs* That’s harsh. And so true.

Frame Today: Really bland issue. Although I have to admit they did a good job contextualizing PLEXOR’s skeletons in the closet.

Picture Perfect: ​20 ways of driving me crazy and not even in a good way ­­ this magazine.

DAY THREE

​This is really, really bad.

Picture Perfect: This is ridiculous.

Frame Today: Frame Today ​is completely sold out. I have never before seen such a thing.

The Condition: What the… where is The Condition?

At Day Three The Condition is taken out of the shelves because of their open criticism towards the government and PLEXOR. The Diamond displays polemic headlines, that, starting at Day Two, are meant to create fear among the population.

I have to admit, it was hardest for me to come up with bullshit headlines for The Diamond. I was finishing the newspapers sometime in the night, completely drained, and just then I felt dumb enough to pull off tit pics and horrible typography. Maybe this is how the BILD and Express do it, too. Though I dare to assume there is a lot more brainpower behind those types of newspapers, than I want to accept.

Thank you for feeding the cat.

[ouiouiotoshi]

Two Nines Fine #4 – Advertisement aka Give me all ya money

[[The game can be played here: https://monkeyotoshi.itch.io/two-nines-fine]]

We remember from Post #2 on Corporate Identities, that I like to do concepts in rough, dirty base sketches. For the advertisements in our game world I created a document, drew a couple of frames, some portrait, some landscape format, and started doodling.

I enjoy this process a lot, especially when it comes to create meta-art: What I mean by that is art or a product or something, that represents the work someone in the world you created, has done. It is as if you were writing a novel about a poet. You, as an author, still need to come up with the poems this fictional character created at some point. I oftentimes think it’s a really challenging creative process, but it can give you a great feeling for the narrative of the world, when done well. At least I appreciate it in whatever media I “consume”.

Basically, I needed to repeat the steps from post #2, creating a corporate identity for many more brands in our game universe. Luckily enough I can look back on 25 years of advertisement research (just walk down the street with analytic eyes and enjoy the marketing tricks performed on you on a daily basis.) I decided on a couple of things I wanted to present, such as music concerts and album releases, cigarettes, cars, all the sex sales. To sustain my ideas and to get some fresh influences as well as an impulse on well done corporate branding through advertisement, I did a quick research for good billboards and found these:

Ben & Jerry’s have this charming, crafty feel to their ads, the play on words is cute and fun and conveys exactly what my taste buds and I found to be true: Their ice is just… just good, okay. Don’t judge me. For all non-Germans: “den Löffel abgeben” (to pass the spoon) means the same as the English “to kick the bucket”, “bite the dust”, “die.” So the white text says: “Who passes the spoon (to someone else), won’t get it back.” Small yellow: “Life isn’t always fair — Ben & Jerry’s is.” It’s such a clever play on words, that I silently applauded the person who came up with it.

The other ad is from IKEA, that really cleverly not only writes how smart IKEA uses spaces, but also SHOWS it on this billboard. It is printed in magenta, yellow, cyan and unveils it’s secret message in RGB light respectively. It states “Do it like this billboard (magenta) Use space cleverly (yellow) With the storage solutions from IKEA.” Internal screaming and heart-eyes.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of ads. But come one, big companies invest millions of money on marketing campaigns, so please, just give me stuff that is cleverly done. Don’t waste my attention with cliché slogans, pictures etc.

Counter example:

No matter how much I like Scarlett Johansson, this is such a blunt ad, aesthetically pleasing, but not really innovative.

And this is what I doodled for our in-game ads:

I usually do a simple linework sketch for proportions and composition and then experiment with colours for maximum impact.

Find the matching pairs.

Some ideas changed, some weren’t done at all. Mostly I had base images I painted over, simplified or changed (that Waybach used to be an Audi A3, methinks.) The front man of the Silent Songbirds is Hozier, and HER is Rihanna, obviously. Mostly I took this task as an opportunity to experiment a lot in terms of composition, colour madness and typography. Imagining to be the marketing division of 6-8 different brands and products was fun, too.

Of course my main intention was to craft ads, that remind the player of their IRL counterparts. The army billboard obviously is a satiric homage to the current Bundeswehr campaign,  that has a really strong content marketing game.

Looking at it, I think that bloody car took me longest. I spent 3 days painting only the values. Don’t tell anyone, especially not my team mates.

Thanks for reading, if you do.

[ouiouiotoshi]

Two Nines Fine #2 - Corporate Identities

[The game can be played here: https://monkeyotoshi.itch.io/two-nines-fine]

Apart from you and the narrator, there is a third important component to the conflict we attempt to depict in Two Nines Fine: The grand multinational conglomerate PLEXOR. In this post I will show you, how this company came to be, which real corporations and events inspired me to create its history and influence in such a way, and what its identity as a brand looks like.

THE IDEA Before there was a name or a logo or anything similar, we had an idea. Our company should be huge, widely branched, ever present, economically powerful, and anxious to present itself with a sustainable and humanitarian face. Since the time before CGL, during my Voluntary Biological Year and seminars in my Biology studies, I held a grudge against Nestlé.

Here’s why. Everyone, say hi to Peter Brabeck.

Water Part I Water Part II

I hope you get the idea. I hope you also realized from the Nestlé wiki entry, that the company doesn’t only own its ~30 brands, but it’s also shareholder for L’Oreal (Because we’re worth it). Food/Beverages feat. Cosmetics. A match made in heaven. (On a sidenote: L’Oreal owns The Body Shop. We’re usually told how our behaviour as consumers influences sustainability. If you thought that by buying fair, organic stuff from The Body Shop you were supporting fair and organic stuff, you are kind of right. But in the end it’s L’Oreal profiting from it.)

Since this topic is huge and worth a PhD thesis and an encyclopedia, I’ll try to keep it short and give you an overview over the thoughts that went through my head, based on hours of documentaries I watched in my past, books and articles I read (Thilo Bode — Die Essensfälscher, Al Gore — An Inconvenient Truth) and seminars in my past life as scientist (Environment and Health, Sustainability and Water Management, both taught by a Professor who used to work for the WHO, Dr. Günter Klein).

Inspirational war Scandals and influences from and on other industries:

Herbert Quandt & and his half-brother Harald Bayer AG Grünenthal GmbH

So, our still nameless company is supposed to be complex — and of course not everything about a or the company is bad.

THE NAME Since there can’t be a brand without a name, this part had a very special priority. I really like names with a certain melody to it, that speak to the listener on an intuitive level. I did it last semester with ido in Paris (it was supposed to convey the impression of flow), and now I was looking for something, that sounded like it had 100 years of history behind it. Something western, something conservative, powerful, influential.

I used Google Translate in every possible language at first, to find something that sounded good (you never know, maybe a random letter combination gives you the next perfect brand name, or a game name, or whatever). Then, having decided to stick to either Latin or Greek, I tried words, that conveyed the influence, the intention or the character of our company.

I looked up words like “darkness”, “fog”, “mist”, “everything”, “shadow” and ended up with three candidates: caligo (lat.), perplexor (lat.), panta (gr.). I knew the company was supposed to be an S.A., so I was aiming for something, that sounded nice being a “something S.A.”, if you talked about the corporation in any official context.

As you might have noticed by now, I decided to deviate from a real word and to shorten perplexor to form plexor, which had this feel of development while being rooted in tradition. I am well aware, that this name is already used for other products and brands, but there is none comparable to our context.

THE LOOK PLEXOR S.A. is supposed to have sleek, elegant look. A font that is clear, readable, perfect, an appearance that is airy and open, light and welcoming, offering space to put in your ideas! (insert PLEXOR ingame voice for marketing purposes.)

To pick the corporate font, I did the following:

PLEXOR Fonts .pdf

All of them are license free. I was not sure whether to exclude serifs or not, so I ended up with that list. And picked Sawasdee in the end, which I thought was very beautiful due to the perfect O and the wonderful balance between regular and bold font weight, which we came to use very often for many different things.

THE LOGO In some earlier concept, the population of City 16 (which wasn’t yet City 16) was supposed to reflect their state of rage through graffiti based on the corporate logo. It was logical, that we needed something that was again recognizable and easily readable from a distance, with a certain metaphor or meaning to it, that could be changed by some pissed off citizens.

Additionally, keeping in mind that PLEXOR had different subsidiaries and spheres of influence, the logos should be similar, yet distinct and easily differentiable.

I picked the hexagon as the base, because of the molecular structure of benzene. The wonderful thing about hexagons is, that you can stick them together and form this very pleasing honeycomb pattern. En plus, I’m a sucker for geometry.

This was the basic logo finding mess around file:

This is how I like to do things in the beginning of everything. Messy, crooked, wild and unfinished, as one can see. After I got a hang of what I wanted to do and the group approved, I switched to doing the proper logos for each department.

And now for the finished logo presentation and the introduction of the branch names of PLEXOR S.A.:

The basic hexagon shape was created in Inkscape, the rest was done in Krita. Adding the font and the lines for the final corporate design we see above happened again in Inkscape.

And here is a collection of other PLEXOR related things done for Two Nines Fine:

Thank you for reading.

[ouiouiotoshi]

Two Nines Fine #1 – On How I Fell in Love With Coda*

[The game can be played here: https://monkeyotoshi.itch.io/two-nines-fine]

[Again, we will succumb to recycling game dev posts I had to write for the semester project in my third semester. Enjoy, hopefully. Spoiler alert: Less self-consciousness, more stuff!]

Since this will probably be the first post of our group, I will start by giving an update on the development of our project, before diving into my own part in more detail.

Allen, Lena, Remus and I are working on a narrative-driven game about our industrial world, our implicit responsibilities and choices and how these influence states of war and peace all over the planet. Our approach was inspired by games such as The Stanley Parable, The Beginner's Guide, and Dr. Langeskov, the Tiger and the Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist (please, play it). Concerning design decisions and programming, Remus and Allen will give you a more detailed overview than I am authorized (or able) to.

Lena and I came to terms with the fact, that we need 3D environments. After some discussions over as how to approach the visuals, in which we mentioned other games with purpose such as Outcasted, we considered creating contrasts through textures and forms, intricate designs and blank space. My approach to creating the game world with respect to the small amount of time and my self-consciousness concerning 3D modeling is, that I prefer to create as few assets as possible and thereby invest a lot of time in putting an emphasis on their value in the game and the narrative -- preferable to cluttering the world with stuff only to keep us artists occupied. Since we attempt to criticize consumerism and economical propaganda with our game, it would be treachery to our message to try to create purposeless eyecandy.

One thought went towards static scenes with little animations, useable as hints to the player or for simply keeping the eye engaged. Reminiscent of cinemagraphs (http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/cinemagraph/), but explorable, creating tension and contrasts, toying with the player's expectations.

Last meeting led us to think about how we could create an abstract world with an implied narrative through the materials used. Thinking about lowpoly with handpainted textures in the beginning of the project brought us to consider a world made of paper as a strong enough metaphor to show the hollowness of the world we live in, the lies we tell eachother or are being told and told to believe. The moment of recognition for the player is supposed to be the uncovering of the duplicity of the game world. And let's quickly think about what the implications of paper are for our culture:

Paper means education, art and culture. Paper is artwork, holds art and is a medium. Paper is canvas for pigments and ideas. Paper has always been the vessel of a culture's soul.

And eradicating a culture has always been attempted by burning, stealing or falsifying art, books or documents.

So it happens that we are now living in an abundance of visual media, papers of no cultural value, supposed to attract our attention for the span of time it needs for you to press the "buy" button. There are billboards the size of Jacques-Louis David's "Coronation of Napoléon" (10 meters by 6 meters, exhibited at Musée du Louvre, Paris), posters, pamphlets, advertisements.

Long story short, paper is power.

One approach is to set the scene in a popup book way with little retractable latches that allow further exploration and trigger lots of remarks from the narrator. Another one I found while researching popup books and paper crafting, is Japanese kirigami with its potential to geometric, pure architecture.

*(Coda is the name of the fictional game designer in "The Beginner's Guide". Interestingly enough Twitter has been ablaze with a dispute about how "The Beginner's Guide" wrongly claimed to be a medley of another person's work, that Davey Wreden used to point out what the artistic work of a person might tell the player, reader, audience about the artist. I myself haven't finished the game yet and wasn't able to invest as much time into it as I would have liked (let me climb that stairs without pressing Enter), but the 20 minutes we, as a group, played on our third meeting over a week ago, were both enlightening and cathartic.)

[ouiouiotoshi]

ido & GLASS 2015 — Trial, Error, Summary, Reflection

Since I fought my demons by submitting the documentation, I will be able to finalize this dev blog by summing up my work on ido, as well as the overall experience in Paris. I don’t know whether that’s necessary or not, but I feel it needs to be done.

My part in ido was setting the visual tone of the game, creating the graphics and throwing in ideas for the game design by planning the juice aspects. I spent the entire first week of the project, which had started on July 6th, studying videos, tutorials and my own ability to learn 3D to contribute to the aesthetic I was aiming for. I scribbled crappy doodles to clarify what I was talking about. Which meant, that for the final production I was left with 2.5 weeks, in which I actually needed to create a whole lot of stuff, which, to make a really long and tedious story short, I didn’t manage. I studied Blender and made two avatars: the first one, its name was Trial, was based off of a prism with an octagonal base, from which I extruded neck, torso, hips and arms, mirroring the entire thing by applying the mirror modifier. I quickly noticed legs and feet to be a pain modeling, but by extruding those from the hips I did the feat and had a slightly humanoid shape.

It looked like this:

Mhm, yeah, I thought the same. I finished the feat by rigging, weight painting and UV mapping it and deciding I needed to do another one, cause this didn’t live up to my ideals (should scratch that word from my vocabulary for good.) Especially since now I knew at least some parts of Blender much better, I felt like I could do the other one quicker and better.

Let me introduce you to the second avatar, Error, that was done entirely using planes, which felt much more organic, drawing like, fluent.

I liked its head, its waist, the feet were horrible in any case, but it was kind of pretty and less clumsy than Trial. Rigging and weight painting were a pleasure, since I kept in mind how joints are supposed to be created and did it accordingly (three (parallel) loops for each joint), working with the mirror modifier and watching it all assemble. I checked the axes of each bone, tried moving it, watched it bend and almost fell in love with it, when I was done.

Then we imported it into UE4. Plugged in the Kinect. And ended up with a yarn ball made of human.

Julian invested two sleepless nights in tweaking the plug in, the rig, everything, slightly improving the outcome, but it was nowhere near presentable. So I offered to mess around with the default avatar, that looked like one of those artists puppets with balls for joints etc. I needed to cut down on the polygons and vertexes and learned how to not do a 3D model by disassembling this train wreck. But it had the rig I needed, so I went to lengths, the last night before presenting the game at Cité des Sciences. A colleague helped my by creating the cave in the background, I chipped in an island that the avatar was supposed to stand on and sadly had to call it a day.

Now you will ask yourself, how I wasn’t able to finish a working avatar in two weeks time or at least do a nice GUI or… something.

Among others, we were supposed to write a blog on our progress, as well as create a scientific poster for the presentation, come up with an idea for the installation e.g. setup of our game exhibition at Cité des Sciences, organize play tests and attend lectures we had throughout the project phase.

And once we were setup and headed towards the final presentation, I had no time to really reflect on what I had been doing the last 2.5 weeks. I was supposed to explain two of my projects (yes, I even showcased SolarRace) in four languages (there were Germans as well as a Romanian family visiting our exhibition), talk about the scientific purpose and educational value of ido, spent time promoting the other games and personal projects of some of the people I got to meet at the CRI. And I got the opportunity to speak to young people interested in making games, handing out my email address and information on what I learned Game Dev to be about.

I know this doesn’t directly relate to what the collaborative project in itself is about and I’m surprised I cannot simply transpose my experience and contribution into a similar context, since everything I did felt related to everything else. And telling children “Dude, you can make your own games! Check out itch.io, Twine, Construct or Game Maker, check out Unity and Blender and use libre software. And don’t believe that only AAA is valid game material. Btw, have you ever heard of game jams?”

Why should we share what we do with others?

Because our games are dead if no one plays them. Because a game is meant to be interacted with. One of my happiest moments so far was watching this bunch of children play SolarRace. It’s the lamest, most buggy game in the entire world (let’s assume so for the sake of drama). But these kids stood in front of the telly and played approximately 2 hours straight. Once their parents worked out I was responsible they came asking me if I knew how to get the detached from it. They had already started teaching other kids to play and had a blast, were laughing and mashed the poor space bar for restarting into unconsciousness. I handed the parents the link to download the game on my itch.io and told them it was for free and omg how happy i was to see their children enjoying it so much. There was a group of four elderly people who came checking out SolarRace and never before had touched a controller. And after some doubt, they enjoyed themselves to no end.

It still fuels me to think, that really chic mothers were moving in front of the Kinect to break the highscore, or fathers joined their kids playing a really terrible racing game. But these were the moments that gave me the feeling, that it doesn’t matter if my art for both games wasn’t great, or I cannot present tons of cool shit, I learned what the art in this medium is all about by watching people play it.

Gaaad, this is so cheesy. But I found it to be true.

So, in the end, what did I do in Paris?

The only souvenirs I brought back are a bunch of project ideas, a couple of dozen really good conversations and discussions I can still draw a lot from, the wish to return for my 5th semester (I might have a project for that in mind). I was able to deepen my understanding of learning, science and art and how everything fits together. And I was intrigued by finding people twice my age that have already been fighting for and believe in the same things I do. If Paris has given me anything, it’s the consciousness of what we can achieve if we deeply understand things and, most of all, ourselves.

Thanks for reading.

PS: The poster is set in Book Antiqua, a beautiful typeface with serifs that I found to be perfect, because typing capitals (surnames, that’s what French LOVE to do) looks really good in it and it is readable and clean.

[ouiouiotoshi]

idō – a tool for rhythmic training and dyslexia research

[The following is the post I’ve written for the official CRI dev blog we needed to do throughout the project phase.]

idō (jap. for move) is an editing tool for the development of motor skills in virtual reality using the Kinect motion capture device. It allows the user to edit, view, share and easily play rhythmic sequences of structured movements by positioning targets in time and space.

A tutorial and multiple courses will allow players to use idō to gradually learn coordination and dissociation, as well as temporally and spatially structured movement.

The game is made by: Julien LUSSIEZ, Game Design, Coding, Music & Sound Guillaume DUQUESNE, Coding, Game Design Denis TRIBOUILLOIS, Coding, Game Design Barbara SEDDERZ, Art, Game Design

Under the scientific supervision of: Joanna IACOVIDES, University College London

And with artistic help by: Ryan SHEARER Thoughts on Game Design

idō is composed of two major parts: the game and the editor.

The main intention for the handling and feel of the game is ease and relaxation. For this, we decided on few and clear gameplay elements. These consist of

Avatar: It represents the player and allows them to interact with the virtual environment by following their physical movements through motion capture via Kinect.

Targets: These are the main gameplay elements by which the player interacts with their environment; the right moment for interaction is indicated through a circle around the target, zooming onto the target outline. If touched at the appropriate time, it switches colours from red to green, gives a textual feedback, and adds to the score.

Score: It allows comparisons between playthroughs and is an indicator for how well the player timed their interactions with the targets. The obtainable scores range from 0 to 100 and represent the percentage of interaction accuracy (time deviating from the rhythm: 0 s deviation from rhythm = 100 points, 0.5 s = 0 points, linear scale)

Rhythm & Sounds: These are both essential indicators for timing as well as audio feedback upon interaction. When targets are touched too soon or too late or not at all, they give a drooping sound, in contrast to the scaled notes playing upon correct touching.

Scenery: The game backdrop that allows for a large amount of visual feedback upon playing.

Furthermore, the editor is supposed to provide clarity and intuitive usability. We work on achieving this by implementing easily editable parameters as well as an understandable user interface. The interactive parts of the editor are

bpm & Duration: Speed and duration are the basic editable properties of a track Timelines (overview and zoomed for editing): They allow the player to modify the duration of a target and are essential for the timed planning of a choreography Targets: There are so far two different targets implemented. The first one is triggered by a simple touch right on time, the second needs the player’s limb to remain on it for a certain amount of time. On Coding

idō was created in Unreal Engine 4 with a Kinect plugin. The coding was done in Blueprint. Guillaume was mainly responsible for the editor, whereas Denis did the programming for the game which was based on Julien’s prototype. Artistic Conception

The style is supposed to mirror the weightlessness of the game play and is conceptualized in such a way to not distract from the experience itself. It should reflect the simplicity of the gameplay and reward the player visually for their effort and good work.

We picked a low polygon style (this results in angular and abstract shapes), created a clear and bright colour palette and thought about using reflecting surfaces as well as particles to lighten the surroundings around the avatar with every correct target interaction. The game is set in a low poly cave and starts out in darkness, only one spotlight illuminating the avatar in the middle and the spawning targets emitting light as well. Upon each good hit (one that makes you score points, too) particles spawn, that brighten the ceiling and back of the cave.

Different settings are planned and still wait for implementation such as caves, that display a starry sky after a finished level, or one that has fluorescent mushrooms.

Apart from these to do’s there is one other thing almost left untouched for the prototype people played at the Carrefour Numerique: The graphic user interface (GUI). Basic ideas exist, but both the main menu as well as the editor need an aesthetically fitting interface. Also, the ingame interfaces need some polishing.

On another note, is was the personal ambition of the visual designer to do as many visuals as possible using exclusively open softwares such as Blender, Krita and Inkscape.

You can check out our GitHub Project, if you like =) If you want to contribute or have ideas, don’t forget to get in touch with me via [email protected].

https://github.com/SamuraiGeckos/Ido

[ouiouiotoshi]

PROJECT TYPE | Game Lab Summer School 2015 at CRI Paris, Games in Citizen Science

PRODUCTION YEAR  | 2015

PLATFORM | Prototype in UE4 on PC

GENRE | Rhythm-based Movement Training

TAGLINE | a tool for rhythmic training and dyslexia research

TEAM

Julien Lussiez, Game Design, Music & Sound | Denis Tribouillois, Programming & Game Design | Guillaume Duquesne, Programming & Game Design | Barbara Sedderz, Art & Game Design

ABOUT

idō (the Japanese word for movement) is a therapeutic and meditative rhythm game intended primarily for the improvement of motor skills in neurodivergent people, as well as athletes, dancers, and everyone in between. The player controls an avatar via Kinect and uses her body to interact with symbols and shapes on screen, tapping and moving to the rhythm of the track playing in the background. The intention is to implement a level editor to allow an individual adjustment to the needs of the player (bpm, amount of gameplay elements etc.) and can thereby be used by a wide range of people.

LINKS

PROJECT | GitHub GAMEPLAY | YouTube

[ouiouiotoshi]

idō #1 - Le Hype Train est parti

(Brace yourself, long post is coming.)

Starting on a side note: I'm confident that the best relationships are between student and teacher (notice me, senpai!), so I constantly aim to find the cleverest, most inspiring people in da hood to learn stuff from them. One particular cool senpai of mine used a neat trick to find neat people to work with, and that's what I did, too.

I pitched work ethics, world views, and a nice and shiny "fuck you" to all who want to implement science explaining robots in their game (readable here and on this blog ofc), which probably ended in me stepping on a couple of toes and in any case hooking up with a really cool guy, who liked my Science Game Manifesto on tumblr and who I liked for his music and overall attitude. On Monday morning I decided to ask him if he wanted to work with me; he said yes, and we boarded the Hype Train. We had a clear approach in mind as to what to achieve with our science game. We both wanted something accurate, something beautiful. Clear graphics, colours, beautiful music (this.), something eerie and inspiring and placing science on the artistic pedestal it deserves.

We were introduced to our scientific supervisors that morning, and were suggested to pick one of their projects to a) be sure it's a science game we're working on, b) help them advance their research. Julien and I couldn't warm towards any of the topics (the only one or two options wanted us to use RedWire and build circuits and bricks in the process, to start setting up a library, and we were like "nope.") During the supervisor pitches we had to shortly state what we would like working on this month. Apart from clarifying that Julien and I worked together, he mentioned the project he would have liked to work on: A rhythmic movement game to help people develop their motor skills and -- based on numerous papers (hopefully readable here) -- assist neurodivergent persons (people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD etc.) with learning, since studies prove that moving ones body in space and according to rhythm helps creating the necessary networks of neurons and synapses to be able to concentrate and pick up (social) skills. Julien wanted to use this game for his PhD thesis and do studies with children.

Even though we had considered some biological art game, I felt hooked for the rhythm game. Indeed, I didn't care what I was working on, as long as it fit my definition of science game. It did. I was in. He was happy. Shortly after that we were joined by two programmers, Denis and Guillaume. They decided to use Unreal Engine 4 and work with Blueprint, tweaking a prototype Julien had started a while ago.

FF.

[I will try to give info on the technical aspects as good as I can. But I'll skip this part, because I've still got tons to tell. Anyway here's Wonderwall.]

Shortly after deciding that the rhythm game was a brilliant idea, I had a clear view on the visual style and production design on my mind.

I wanted bright colours, clear low-poly shapes for the avatars (in an ideal world I would like to offer different body shapes to pick bc y not.), a dark to black background, a mirroring ground surface to spatially distinguish the targets. The targets should emit a low glow, that would increase when touched, pulled, moved in arcs. I want this game to look and feel beautiful, to be meditative, recreational, and simply satisfying to play. (And, if possible, evade the necessity to do 3D modelling, because I'm a coward.)

First mock up:

And then came Anirudh.

Anirudh, who's been working on a huge project on autism, apps for autistic people, websites with information, tips and life hacks, was positive about the importance this game could have for the autistic community in terms of teaching motor and communication skills. He introduced me to his project in our third week, and I was mind-blown about the work he put into it and the relevance it would have for autistic people and their families, if he managed to reach his target audience and promote it. Being in close contact with tons of leading researchers, he totally knows what he's talking about and offered his expertise concerning the implementation of the game for autistic persons. As one can see in our Trello board, one of the important parts for the artist (that'd be me) is doing research before starting to work on the mockups, designs, or even getting to invested with the idea I already had on my mind. I asked Anirudh if there were things to keep in mind when creating art for autistic people. His eyes instantly got huge with excitement, "Yeah, there is so much you need to pay attention to...!" Since he was involved with his group at the time, I decided to do my own research. Looked for "autism sense of aesthetics", "autism creativity", "autism art" and found almost exclusively charitable projects and competitions and whatnot, or papers on known autistic artists. Yeah, but no.

So in one of the cleverer moments this week, I decided to look for "autism/autistic children Monument Valley game", because a) Monument Valley felt perfect for the impression I had of people with autism due to the pure graphics and Escheresque architecture, geometry and mechanics; b) it was the degree of purity I wanted for our game and I wanted to make sure it was valid for autistic persons.

And the pagan gods of visual design were gracious and led me to this blog post.

Design for Autism

It fit. All of it fit. When Anirudh came by, I showed him the page, explained my ideas and impressions and what I thought should be crucial for the game:

Visual clarity between avatar, icons, and background

A solid amount of juice, without overloading the game. It just has to feel right and good (hahaha, "just")

There are two things that shall separate our game from all the dancing games out there: the level editor to tweak the game for each player individually, and the lack of trippy visuals, that drive everyone nuts, and would be a terrible feat for many autistic children and adults.

Tl;dr

[ouiouiotoshi]

Playgrounds of the Mind: How Art Arises from Boredom

[The following is an essay I wrote for my Games & Media Studies Course for University.]

Introduction

Boredom has been present throughout the history of mankind, in our personal lives, and has led to occurrences with both catastrophic, as well as compelling and inspiring outcomes. Analysing academic works from both natural and cultural sciences, written by Freud, Hegel and Huizinga amongst others, I try to find a common denominator to explain the relationship between boredom as a neuropsychological phenomenon, the fantastic works of art that result from it, and the impact it has on cultural and societal development, through play.

Why Are We Bored and How Does It Lead to Art?

Attempting to explain the feeling of boredom and its frequency by comparing it to taking a breath, or crossing the street, puts it into a weird perspective. We all know that experiencing boredom is the last thing any of us is looking forward to, but there seems to be a reason it plays such an important role in our lives. We can NOT cross streets, but we can not NOT be bored at some point in time.

We can name situations, in which we experienced boredom. Tedious tasks, repetitive tasks, tasks with no personal meaning or purpose. Whenever we know something more interesting to be out there to do, than what we are – usually – forced to do, we get bored. Boredom can not be observed outside the context of a certain goal. It is a negative feeling intertwined with the present status of dissatisfaction, and is meant to indicate if the cause for a certain goal is lost. In these cases, our minds feel the urge to abandon the cognitive sinking ship, because we as animals actively pursue new stimuli, new experiences and new goals with greater rewards.

The abandonment of the boring task has two possible outcomes: We either let our minds wander or we change our preoccupation altogether. Since the latter could both result in a short-term fix through procrastination, as well as a prolonged change of objective (moving, quitting a job, etc.) or the taking of unplanned risks, we will focus on the former, mind wanderings. These are neurologically and culturally related to playing and lead to different approaches for distracting ourselves from or improving boring situations. Their most essential aspect is, that they consciously imprint meaning upon this otherwise »purposeless« task.

The first possibility we have, to make it more interesting, is by looking for means of play in it. Eastwood and his colleagues state in their paper »The Unengaged Mind«:

»Furthermore, imagination that is related to the task may improve task performance by promoting successful engagement with the current task. Task-relevant imagination could thus facilitate absorption and thereby attenuate the experience of attentional failure and effort, as well as,  by extension, levels of boredom.«

Emotional investment and immersion is key to creating the opposite feeling to boredom: Fun. Whenever fun is involved, our brain provides us with a mixture of dopamine, autologous opiates and various neuropeptides, which influence different parts of the brain and the limbic system in the »reward pathway«. We experience pleasure, and since we can think of ourselves as highly evolved as much as we want, we are and will always remain susceptible to classical conditioning, one of the most powerful influences nature has over our primitive bodies; this is the reason for motivational behaviour (such as appetite and the drive towards attaining a goal) in the first place.

By applying systems of play on work, we consider one of the two relations between work and play. On the one hand, play brings meaning to the otherwise boring task. On the other, play has always been an essential aspect of work itself. In his chapter on »Play-Forms in Art«, Huizinga mentions Aristotle's view on art and play as means of recreation and its importance, »because Nature requires us not only to be able to work well but also to idle well«.

The second option of shifting the attention lies, according to Freud, in fantasying over »unsatisfied wishes«. Many people have these day-dreams, engage in mental cinema and are glad most of the time, that no one can read their minds. These thoughts revolve around a hero-like version of themselves, are most of the times nothing, but a safe haven for the unengaged mind, not necessarily pursued for a transition to actually become this person. They still hold a great value if placed in a different context – art.

The close relationship between proneness towards boredom and distractibility, ability to create, and attraction towards aesthetics is worth mentioning. It is, in varying forms, characteristic to mania, one of the faces of bipolar disorder, a mental disorder many famous and influential artists are known, were known, or have been diagnosed post-mortem to suffer or have suffered from. Statistics prove a high percentage of creative people to express symptoms of bipolar disorder. Especially when encountering boredom during manic episodes, individuals show a tendency to take risky decisions, hoping to obtain the kind stimulus routine does not offer any more. Additionally, they display a tendency towards divergent thinking, which is associated with creativity.

Creativity and ideas don't value much, if not combined with the necessary set of skills to convey the intended content. Freud explains, that even though many of the fantasies are of disturbing nature for people not inside the dreamer's head, they can turn into pleasing stories to share, if treated with artistry and care.

In his »Lectures on the Aesthetics«, Hegel points out, how the approach of an artist towards their art is reminiscent of the evolution we know from biology. On the one hand, the development of the artist is characterized by imitation, trial and error, up to mastery. On the other, a similar process happens to the art-forms and the styles themselves, evolving from a content-prone, low-skill version towards the ideal aesthetic, until a plateau of pleasure is reached, that forgets about content and becomes decor.

»Should we not look for the first traces of imaginative activity as early as in childhood? The child's best-loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games«, says Freud. Fascinatingly, this does not only hold true for the offspring of Homo sapiens, but for a large amount of animals. One of the first observations we can make, when remembering how we used to play and how other children play, is that children are imitating the life of the grown-ups – which holds true for animals, too. Hunting, defending themselves and the territory, all of this can be learned by playing. In most cases, children create a reality different from the real world of the grown-ups. Still, these worlds follow certain rules and are played in with a definite seriousness and importance.

Similar to the relevance of imitation in earliest play is the one of art for the development of cultures and societies. At this point, we don't regard the influence Shakespeare had on poetry, or a Michelangelo on fine arts. We inspect the primordial relation between art (out of boredom?) and cultural evolution.

Science describes three major brain theories of art:

»(1) The localized brain regions and pathways theory links art to multiple neural regions. (2) The display of art and its aesthetics theory is tied to the biological motivation of courtship signals and mate selection strategies in animals. (3) The evolutionary theory links the symbolic nature of art to critical pivotal brain changes in Homo sapiens supporting increased development of language and hierarchical social grouping.«

The first theory relates to the biochemical pathways we considered earlier in this essay. The second theory, though, places a new piece onto the board. To quote Zaidel's review paper »Art and Brain«:

»The classic example is that of the peacock's tail. It is too elaborate to be used effectively to escape predators or to fly and yet it serves as an instrument for advertising the various fitness qualities (and, possibly, beauty). Mate selection strategies, in both animals and humans, reflect the brain of the organism with all of its capabilities and limitations. The inference with art is that the display signals the intelligence, cognition, physical strength, skill, creativity and talent of the artist.«

We are attracted to art and artistry due to our brain being capable of understanding its value. What if this relates to the third major brain theory on art, which states, that the symbolic components in art derive from the basic structures, upon which first societies were once founded? An example from Koster's »A Theory of Fun for Game Design« supports this idea of the primal drive of our species towards communication and exchange – on more than a genetic level:

»Consider how hard it is to learn a language, and yet children all over the world do it routinely. […] Much attention has been paid to some very special deaf kids in Nicaragua, who have managed to invent a fully functional sign language in just a few generations. Many believe this shows language is built into the brain, and that there's something in our wiring that guides us inexorably towards language.«

It looks like the step from instinctive imitation play towards language and up to art as we know and consider it, happened because all over the planet, in all ages, people were bored. Many people search their novel stimuli in drugs or alcohol – and even though these are not mutually exclusively, some find a way of creating. Creating something that gives new impulses to another person.

Conclusion

One of the fascinating observations about interdisciplinary approaches to topics that are usually only illuminated from one side or the other, is that correlations become evident on a very simplistic scale. The more simplistic this connection, the stronger it seems to be, and the more relevance it will continue to posses for whatever times may come.

Even if we try to see insensible amounts of spirituality, the spark of genius, and talent in everything related to art, it all boils down to a simple, yet powerful principle of the universe:

Evolution.

We play to evolve as individuals, we create to evolve as a civilization, and for attraction, we evolve our art. If we accept that play and art are an inseparable part of nature like growth and equilibrium, and that aesthetic, neurological and psychological approaches take their part in the process, we will realize, that everything is related and important in equal measures.

References

Bench, S. W.; Lench, H. C. On the Function of Boredom. Behav. Sci. [online] 2013, 3, 459–472.

Eastwood, J. D.; Frischen, A.; Fenske, M. J.; Smilek, D. The Unengaged Mind: Defining Boredom in Terms of Attention. Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (5) 482–495.

Freud, Sigmund (1908). Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1818-1829). Lectures on the Aesthetics. Part III: The System of the Individual Arts.

Huizinga, Johan (1938). Homo Ludens – A Study of the Play-Element in Culture: 2, 161-162

Johnson, S. L.; Murray, G.; Fredrickson, B.; Youngstrom, E. A.; Hinshaw, S.; Malbrancq Bass, J.; Deckersbach, T.; Schooler, J.; Salloum, I. Creativity and bipolar disorder: Touched by fire or burning with questions? Clin Psychol Rev. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2013 Feb 1.

Koster, Raph (2013). A Theory of Fun for Game Design, 2nd Edition. USA: O'Reilly Media, Inc.: 2, 112-129

Zaidel, D. W. Art and brain: insights from neuropsychology, biology and evolution. J Anat [online]. 2010 Feb; 216(2): 177–183.

[ouiouiotoshi]

This is what a broken game looks like

And this is what a broken student writes like. I was taught proteins denature at > 42°C.

Anyways, the game.

http://redwire.io/game/0246fe139c5d6b7e/play

It does things. That’s good. We still got the bar moving in the course of 5 seconds and FINALLY the lights are switching!

But my crazy quick fingers deleted the part about the button, that finally managed to a) appear and b) change sprite when pushed.

Don’t ask me when that happened. I had managed to use RedWire’s Sprite Processor, that you can also use for animation, and could implement an end to the game. No more clicking after the time is over by using an If Switch, that does things while the time’s still running, otherwise displays the score. Bam.

Simple.

Effective.

Additionally, I managed to make the lights switch by creating If Switches for each light, and changing the sprites accordingly. The most tedious part was determining the position by trial and error.

There are still To Dos left, though...

For example, I didn’t manage to implement the dependencies of both lights lit and the click to be counted as an additional point.

Hm. Apart from the ghosting button, I managed to implement all the other things. I’m still glad I picked such a primitive idea -- luckily, my frustration is really low ;)

[ouiouiotoshi]

Game Design Homeopathy: THIS IS NOT SCIENCE!

Science in entertainment media — or at least media known for their frequent entertainment value — is often treated like the “awkward know-it-all kid”. Like so:

Science: Hey guys, I found an interesting correlation between the genetics of dinosaurs and birds.

The other kid: Whoa! Tell me more!

S: It seems like birds are evolutionary descending from dinosaurs.

TOK: This is THE SHIT!

S: But it also seems like…

TOK: So we can totally clone dinosaurs?!

S: Theoretically, yes.

TOK: Like, if we fill the DNA we extracted from dino blood with the DNA of frogs?!

S: N… wait, what?

TOK: Wait here, while I’m creating a franchise about it.

S: G… guys?

My point is: Science is often abstracted and changed to increase the appeal to the audience, but thereby falsified to an unbearable degree. Similar to the misuse of scientific words such as “proof”, “theory” or “evolution” in everyday conversations, misused scientific topics offer the audience the possibility to say “I have a vague idea about something” without further looking into it (honestly, how many of us return home after having been to the cinema or finishing a game and directly start researching topics such as psychology or genetics?). And this is even worse than total ignorance. Bc bliss ‘n’ all.

In my second week I’ve been confronted with a common emotion among my fellow students towards science (in this case biology):

Fear.

We were doing this workshop on bio games, talked about the usual suspects such as FoldIt and Spore and were meant to create our own ideas for a game. Randomly assigned groups headed out to come up with an aspect of biology they were interested in and how to apply it to a game. I ended up with three people I like a lot, but who stated without exception, how they didn’t know anything about biology and really hated it in school and how they would like to do a gardening game with Mendel’s crossbreeding of plants to create as many different plants as possible. My inner biologist and player screamed in despair and instantly tried to persuade the group of the many fantastic possibilities biology offered in terms of mechanics, game play, and worlds. I had been thinking about a Journey-like exploratory immunology game for a while now, in which the player is an immunologic cell, bumping into fellow cells and acquiring antibodies and molecules and information on the organism (the idea I actually applied with for the summer school). Or a puzzle game on histologic specimen, all about tissues and colours and the marvelous shapes our own bodies offer (honestly, ain’t this beautiful?).

Long story short: They didn’t seem interested and we managed to come up with an “entertaining” and “deep” idea, that still featured ridiculous aspects, such as a robo-bee (since, you know, bees are all extinct at the time our game is set and the humans now have armies of mechanical bees with different stats they use to manually pollinate every flower in the whole fucking world.) Whatevs. In the end, this post is not about the idea for this workshop, but about the discussion I would have liked to have with my team members as well as our teacher.

Why isn’t science sufficient for creating games that appeal to people?

How did we get as far as this, that people flinch whenever you try to go into a scientifically accurate direction on this medium we all love so much?

What people don’t seem to get is, that all we are is science. That all the physics we use in our engines, all the accurate behavior of rain and sound and shit is due to the implementation of science into programs we use to create worlds. But I would love to see science become the art, the means by which we explore the world inside a game, not only decor. Because science is so much more.

I assume part of this aversion is a) due to the school system we all went through, that wasn’t able to cater our interests. And b) due to the endless mistakes that have been made during the tedious Crusade for science games the last bunch of decades.

As long as we continue to propagate science to be something awful, not awesome — something against our nature and not being our nature, we will only find works pandering to please people who hate what they’re confronted with — and will thereby solve nothing.

[ouiouiotoshi]

The Hardest Button to Button

“Hey kids, you gonna make a game tout seul using RedWire! Topic’s ‘machines’, so have fun.”

*starts hyperventilating*

*but not in the good way*

Code. Tout seul. Even though RedWire is all about cannibalizing other people’s games, if you just can’t get your head around what is syntactically possible in code, no amount of drag and drop may help you.

My pessimistic self is adorable.

In the end I decided not to aim for a game with a) exaggeratedly nice graphics, since this would have been nothing but high quality procrastination, b) complex gameplay. First, I wouldn’t know how to do it, secondly, it would have lead to robots. And c) I totally didn’t want to make a robot game.

After some thinking I found the perfect primitive candidate for this game. It even involves a machine. It has two lights, red and green, that flash on/off, in random order. The player has to button the only button of the machine (see what I did there?), whenever both lights are lit. As often and as accurate as possible throughout a set amount of time.

Amaze. Such complexity.

I will aim for pixel art once more, since I’ve got a crush on them square cuties and I want to level up my game. I need two animated lights (red and green, both on and off) and one animated button (idle and pushed). I want to add a machinery kind of background, but this will be the treat once the coding is done. Otherwise I’ll spend my days pushing pixels instead of fighting the real fight. Concerning sounds, I will probably -- if time allows it -- just make stupid sounds and tune them using Audacity. Simple. Primitive. Beautiful.

Now for the fun part. Not.

CODING.

With help from the RedWire authorities I obtained the secret power to randomize the light switching. The Boolean values for light on/off depend on the randomly determined values

lightA (red): Math.random() > 0.5 lightB (green): Math.random() < 0.5

and are switched every 600 ms (for now) via Limit Rate, saved as lastRefreshTime in RedWire’s memory.

Now for the even funnier To Do part.

I need to relate the Boolean values to the right sprites (false = off, true = on) for both lights and display them according to their values

I additionally want to create an output after the time runs out to give player feedback on clicking accuracy (kinda like a high score, since a friend of mine is very insistent about high scores and how they improve every game 8947581%)

FRANKENSTEINING YOUR GAME.

(aka “Parts I stole from others”. Long live open source.)

I’ve got a counter that adds 1 to the score on each mouse up. Eaaaaand I’ve got a timer, that counts down for a number of undetermined seconds (atm it's 20 s, might be less in the end)

Of course I still have a couple of To Dos for these hijacked body parts, too.

I need to tweak the score counter to only count, if the winning conditions (lightA = true && lightB = true) are fulfilled, otherwise it shall not increase the score. Though my basic idea included to count the wrong clicks, too, to determine a percentage of reflexes, attention and perfect clicking.

And I would like the countdown to result in displaying some panicky "Badaaaammm! YOUR TIME IS OVER!" (relevance level 0.63)

Nah, well. At least I managed to change the colour of both score board and timer to the same blue the button has (yeah, that's how good I am.)

THE ART.

Booyah.

THE GAME SO FAR.

The Hardest Button to Button on RedWire

[ouiouiotoshi]

Le sourir of madness

June 6th, 2015, Paris. I don’t know why wetter.com is lying so fervently, but lemme tell you, it’s warmer than those 20°C. Like, 13°C warmer (also, there is no fucking cloud in the sky, shame on you). At least the French weather forecaster was honest with me.

I went out into the wide world of 1 km² around my guest mom’s place and fulfilled my first two side quests: acquire a French prepaid card, and a baguette for lunch. I somehow missed the postal office I was sent to for a prepaid card and had to detour by asking multiple very nice people for an alternative place to obtain that thing. All went well, I got loads of XP and two compliments: one person liked my smile, and another said my French was okay. Let’s believe them.

Je besoin d’un plan de metro. I will need to find a RATP place to obtain one. So far, I hope I found out how to get to the CRI for the main quest of this summer: Science Games.