#interaction and play

[sheenaatbct]

Interaction and Play

Week 1

Weekly Starter

Some notes I took from the readings and videos in the weekly starter:

Aesthetics of Play - Redefining Genres in Gaming - Extra Credits

This video was about the MDA framework, something I’ve become quite familiar with throughout uni. MDA stands for Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics.

Mechanics - The Rules and systems (the math)

Dynamics - Experiential play from the rules

Aesthetics - The reason we play/the feel of the game

A designer will look at the framework from left to right, focusing on the mechanics to help define the dynamics and aesthetics, while a player will go from left to right, playing a game for the aesthetics rather than the mechanics (although good mechanics are important too). 

The video defines 9 different aesthetics:

Sense Pleasure: Games which stimulate our senses

Fantasy: Things we can’t do in real life

Narrative: Drama

Challenge: Obstacles (Not difficulty)

Fellowship: Co-operative games

Competition: Superiority or dominance

Discovery: Uncovering/learning

Expression: To express oneself

Abnegation: as a past time/to disengage from real life

The Art of Game Design: Book of Lenses - Schell Games

This is a book which basically has a bunch of questions you can ask yourself/a group of game designers to help the design process along and make sure you’re achieving what you want with your game. There’s a handy little app which has all the lenses you can go through.

How to think like an Architect: The Design Process - Barry Berkus

I think what I’m taking away from this video is the amount of consideration a space needs in terms of everything and anything that will effect, or use that space. For an architect, he needs to consider where the sun will be at certain times of the day, the view of the water, how the wind will go through, and the noise that will be heard. He also considers how the people will navigate and interact with the space, and considers how the spaces themselves are located in consideration to each other. 

Aotea Square

With the brief focusing on Aotea Square as the installation space, and access to the big screen located there, I had a read through some information online about the space.

Making Connections: A Vibrant Central Civic Space - Auckland Design Manual

According to this design manual, the space is roughly 1.3Ha, with the central area capable of holding up to 20,000 people. Aotea Square, named after Motu Aotea which is the Maori name for Great Barrier Island, is located at the intersection of Queen Street and Greys Ave. It is also a Maori Heritage Site. 

What’s important to Auckland Council is creating a “Sense of Place” within the area.

Observations

I had a little mosey through Aotea Square to find any points of interest for me.

There’s about 4 entrances into Aotea Square; (From top left to right) one from Queen Street, one which extends out to Wellesley St West but also splits off and up to Mayoral Dr, two from Greys Ave, the first stretching out as a long alley way (below) directly to Queen St and the other from the opposite side which makes pedestrians walk through the central space. 

The screen is currently located in front of the large grass area. I believe it is mobile, and has sensors that could be used. The large grass area has a few benches, all located under trees for shelter from the sun. From walking past this place many times in the past, I know a lot of people like to rest in the grass during Summer, although it’s looking rather empty now being Winter. 

This space next to the grass area/screen is definitely a space I’ve seen used by many skateboarders (trust me, I know the picture doesn’t have any skaters). A few people walk past these guys as well, which I’ve always felt a little unsafe, wondering if someone was going to crash into me. 

The central space is a bit crowded currently, with the ice rink smack bang in the middle and also a “night” market occupying the rest of the space. The space is large though, which clearly has access to a lot of power to keep the food stalls and the giant ice rink running. There is a bit of seating spotted on the edges of the space, with a “stage like” space located at the front(?). This space I’ve seen used for protests and other large gatherings. 

The current populous of the space consists of families (especially so due to it being school holidays), people around my age (probably looking to get food), and older people, who generally just walk through the space. 

One note I considered was the large amount of food stores located in the general area. Aotea Square is a great place to sit down and eat food, so this could be something to work with potentially?

Other Readings

In terms of the readings that Ben has given us as an optional look through, I’ve actually read/listened/played most of it for Contexts of Game and Play, and my thoughts are all on these blogs here. I might have a look through to see if there is anything of interest that I missed but otherwise will probably just look through my old blogs to gather my thoughts.

Quick note from Chapter 3 of Salen and Zimmerman’s Rules of Play, Meaningful Play is described as the context and interaction the players have with the game, the decisions and actions they take, which affect the systems of the game, and the way the game communicates the results of their actions, both the instant and long term effect. 

References:

Auckland Council (n.d.). Making Connections: A Vibrant Central Civic Space [ebook] Auckland. Available at: http://content.aucklanddesignmanual.co.nz/resources/case-studies/aotea-square/Documents/Case%20study_Aotea%20Square.pdf [Accessed 20 Jul. 2019].

Barry Berkus (2011) How to think like an Architect: The Design Process [Video File], Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vmHoGicPQQQ

Extra Credits (2012), Aesthetics of Play - Redefining Genres in Gaming - Extra Credits [Video File], Retrieved from https://youtu.be/uepAJ-rqJKA

Salen, K., Tekinbaş, K. S., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. MIT press.

Schell Games (2014), The Art of Game Design - The Book of Lenses [Video File], Retrieved from https://youtu.be/AiSI8WGZokA

[hatthewmart]

Interaction & Play - Reflective Statement

Alleylight Interactive is a project about illuminating the dark alleyways around Aotea Square more specifically the one down the side of the Auckland Town Hall and by the entrance to the underground car park. During the evening, this area is essentially pitch black and there is a lot of foot traffic which could make it a potentially unsafe area. We wanted to make this part of Aotea Square less frightening and more accessible to people walking through at night. We want to achieve this by projecting onto the wall of the Town Hall with bright and friendly colours.

Concept

We wanted to make this project because we feel that the walkway is a dangerous area especially during the evening where it is nearly pitch black. We found that more illuminated walkways in urban areas make people feel safer (Sunderstrom,1996) as well as reducing crime rates in those areas (Loewen, 1993). The feelings of uneasiness are something we wish to alleviate with Alleylight as these feelings can cause stress and anxiety especially if you can’t see anything ahead of you (Grillon, 1997).

In my team, I was set at designing all of the art assets for the projection. We originally wanted the art to reflect the Waihorotiu stream which used to run underneath the square itself. Since Aotea square was a bog we could have reflected that by making all of the plant life bleak and muddy but that would conflict with the bright and bubbly theme we wanted to achieve. I also feel that that sort of art style wouldn’t draw many people in as it might not look too inviting and friendly. We decided to go with a colorful and tropical theme with tick borders and high contrast to make the images less busy and clearer when projected onto the textured wall.

Art

First vector designs of a shark and seaweed.

These were the first set of assets that we used for the project which were designed in Adobe Illustrator. The designs were intentionally simple as if they were too complex they would be more difficult to see against the textured wall of the Town Hall. There were some initial problems with the overall aesthetic and design of the objects and my art was different to James and Charles’ art assets. The inconsistency's included the stroke weight around the objects. Those numbers varied between all of the artists which made all of the objects look out of place when presented. The overall designs were well received as they were clear as to what they portrayed. 

Art style inspiration: Kingdom Rush (2011), Scribblenauts (2012), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017).

After the critique session, we decided to develop more of a clear art style so James and I researched certain video games which have clear and colourful graphics. We also made the art more consistent by using the same stroke weight in the assets. The art style was also heavily criticized but we wanted Alleylight to still have the crisp and coloruful aesthetic to make sure the dark alley is illuminated. The context of why we chose these objects was that a colourful tropical getaway theme could be more fitting for our idea of making people feel safer as they travel down the alleyway.  

Quinn's drawings of seaweed, bones, wood and fish.

The new objects were first drawn up by Quinn and then I used Adobe Illustrator to make them into vectors. The same sort of theme was decided by James and I because it was quick and simple to accomplish in a short space of time. We also don’t have the skills to make more complex images and we don’t have the funds to hire a professional artist so we made do. In the new images, the stroke weights of the lines across all of the vectors are the same (4 pt) so it is more consistent. The colours were also changed to be much more vibrant as you could hardly see them under the water overlay texture we used. I also made the smaller fish more colourful for the same reasons. The skull is the only image which I don’t really like as it could potentially make people walking by uneasy and that is the opposite of what we are trying to achieve. I could have made the skull more friendly and cartoonish to fit the mood of the project. 

Vectors made from Quinn's drawings.

Teamwork

Overall, the whole team worked well with each other. Using tools such as Facebook Messenger to communicate with each other and transfer files was super simple and helpful. I feel as if Messenger is an underutilized tool for team management as people mainly associate it with Facebook and how its seen as a time waster. But with Messenger, if used correctly as a communication tool you can communicate quicker with your team because everyone has Facebook. I found it useful transferring Adobe Illustrator files to the other members. We were all communicating with each other well which makes the project so much easier for everyone.

I think my skills with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop have improved over the space of this project. I have learnt a lot of key skills with both programs. There is a definite improvement in my ability from my very first vector designs earlier in the project compared to the newer assets. I played around with animating the fish briefly in a GIF format through Photoshop. I have never attempted this process before but it was intuitive in the end. If I had more time I would have liked to make cleaner animations for the fish and seaweed as I would think it would add more character to the project.

A quick GIF of one of the “cool” fish vectors.

There is quite a bit of room for development with this project as it can be expanded to other mediums such as interactive instillation's or for use in alleyways other than the Town Hall alleyway. The overall theme of what is being projected is very flexible and isn't bound to this tropical theme that we have chosen, so there is an amount of creative freedom that comes alongside using Alleylight.

Conclusion

Alleylight Interactive was overall a fun project to be a part of as well all worked coherently as a team and produced a really cool project that worked relativity true to what we wanted to achieve. 

References:

Waihorotiu Stream. (2017). En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 16 October 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waihorotiu_Stream

Sunderstrom, E., Bell, P. A., Busby, P. L. & Asmus, C (1996). ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. Annual Review of Psychology.   http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.47.1.485

Loewen, L., Steel, G., & Suedfeld, P. (1993). Perceived safety from crime in the urban environment. Journal Of Environmental Psychology, 13(4), 323-331. doi:10.1016/s0272-4944(05)80254-3

Grillon, C., Pellowski, M., Merikangas, K. R., & Davis, M. (1997). Darkness facilitates acoustic startle reflex in humans. Biological Psychiatry, 42, 453-460. Crossref, Medline

(2017). Ironhidegames.blob.core.windows.net. Retrieved 18 October 2017, from https://ironhidegames.blob.core.windows.net/upfiles/original/Games/751ffc46-cf39-4b01-ab82-39673627c11c.jpg

(2017). Wired.com. Retrieved 18 October 2017, from https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gamelife/2011/10/scribios.jpg

(2017). Blogs-images.forbes.com. Retrieved 18 October 2017, from https://blogs-images.forbes.com/olliebarder/files/2017/05/zelda_windwaker.jpg

How to Create an Animated .GIF in Photoshop CS5, CS6 & CC How to Create an Animated .GIF in Photoshop CS5, CS6 & CC. (2010). briandalessandro.com. Retrieved 16 October 2017, from http://www.briandalessandro.com/blog/create-an-animated-gif-in-photoshop-cs5/

Kenobi, B. Unpublished Lecture (2017)

[sheenaatbct]

Interaction and Play

Submission Blog

Link to blogs: https://sheenaatbct.tumblr.com/tagged/CTEC703

Link to first slide of presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1OslPwJysci7kltnolerA5stSqL_Ayx1AFvcQE-lp_hs/edit#slide=id.g5d31ec324e_0_0

[sheenaatbct]

Interaction and Play

Research on Collaboration

Here’s some notes from what I’ve read:

Conscious Collaboration

Collaboration is something which may occur spontaneously however it usually comes by with effort. To ensure a positive experience, there must a shared goal and understanding, which is held together with shared values. 

“It is through individual effort, something new is created, and that the glue is the shared vision.”

I thought this was neat to show the differences between work methods.

It’s almost natural for us to collaborate as social animals. 

Trust, courage, generosity and humility are important to have when collaborating. I believe collaboration would help to develop these skills and employ them in other contexts. 

Success from collaborating comes from surrounding ourselves with people who share the same purpose and support our goals. 

The book goes on to describe how to effectively collaborate, with some things like having the right mindset for working together, and beginning by planning the end goal. 

I think the skills described in this book would develop with collaboration and also develop other interpersonal skills.

Benefits of Collaborative Learning (Laal, & Ghodsi, 2012)

This paper discusses the benefits of using a collaborative learning style in the classroom, however the findings are quite relevant in any context.

Collaboration makes each person in a group responsible for their own actions and helps people to recognize and understand their peers’ strengths and abilities. 

In comparison to working competitively or individually, collaborating was shown to have higher achievement and productivity, make individuals more caring and supportive, allowing for more committed relationships and social competence, and gave individuals greater psychological health with greater self esteem. 

A lack of competition allows people to create healthier and more positive interactions with others and understand diversity. Individuals also develop critical thinking skills. 

For collaboration to work, there must be:

Clear positive interdependence

Promotive interaction

Personal responsibility

Relevant interpersonal skills

Work on improving group effectiveness

References:

Emmens, B. (2016). Conscious Collaboration: Re-thinking the Way We Work Together, For Good. Springer.

Laal, M., & Ghodsi, S. M. (2012). Benefits of collaborative learning. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 31, 486-490. 

[sheenaatbct]

Interaction and Play

Week 9

After presenting our project to the class, Ben gave us some solid criticism. Basically, our project has no real direction, or place in the world. It’s purpose is unclear. And I agree. We had been trying to come up with a clear target audience, or even an aesthetic to follow with little success. 

Anyways, we’ve chosen to focus on collaboration and have this following project description:

We are designing an interactive installation that presents a statement on the benefits of collaborating with others.

Andrew is going to continue looking into materials, as the fabrications man, Matthew is continuing on with sound research and I will be looking into collaboration and cooperation. 

This new direction is good for us, at least in terms of submission, but there is a lot of stuff I wish we had done with our previous idea and development process to have made it a worthwhile project.

No one really took charge as a leader in our group, which lead to each of us trying to follow our own process’s and trying to merge them all together. Which doesn’t work. I found it difficult to get heard and my team mates probably felt the same. 

I think next time, it would definitely be important to set a clear leader, even if it means that I have to step up. I need to believe in my own capabilities more. I need to assert my opinions more clearly even if they may be wrong. 

But for now, onto writing and researching.

[sheenaatbct]

Interaction and Play

Week 8

Over the break, we met up 3 times to work on our project. 

I was in charge of coding, however I was struggling a lot with Processing. I chose to use Processing as this program is particularly good with visual and pairs well with Arduino. My only problem is that I haven’t used Processing since year 1 and I really didn’t know what I was doing despite watching a bunch of tutorials. 

It finally hit me that I could be using Unity and still get the same results, except I would actually know how to achieve it. So I made the switch to Unity. 

Matthew had been working on making different sounds. These were a bunch of notes that were inspired from the examples from games and such that he had looked into. We also tried getting different beats that would work together, like in Musical Chairs by Simon Watts. This didn’t sound so great though, so I thought to just stick with the notes. 

Andrew had been working on the step pads, and wiring them up to the Arduino to get them working. 

I had to use some old code from a previous project to get the buttons to only register once when stood on.

We talked a lot about what the visuals would actually show, but nothing really came from it. There were discussions about the whole aesthetic, Andrew suggesting we have it resemble a big robot, where the visuals are it’s face, the step pads being its fingers. This would work well for a target audience of children. 

For now, I just used the particle effect on Unity to at least have something shown on screen.

We did some play testing with this all set up in our studio space. 

We had people coming over to test as individuals and as pairs. Overall, people enjoyed interacting with our project in pairs, and would spend longer playing with it. 

They figured this would be found in a public space. 

Other things that could be added into the project include having visuals which would grow flowers based on the step pads. 

[sheenaatbct]

Interaction and Play

Week 7

Not gonna lie, I’ve put off blogging for a while now so I don’t quite remember everything that’s happened.

So, as mentioned before, we discussed the user profiles for the people who engage, and do not engage, with the space. We however, did not pick any profiles to specifically look at and aim our project at (at least I don’t entirely know). 

Talking to Ben in class, he mentioned that we do need to pick our target audience. With a target audience in mind, it would help to pick the sounds that we wanted. And with the sounds in mind, we can also consider the types of interactions that would accompany that sound. For example, cartoons have very specific types of sounds that come from very specific types of actions. I think Andrew and I really liked the idea of playing with something that was cartoony (enforcing my thought on a target audience of parents and children). 

He also advised that perhaps we could fake parts of our prototype, although with three members and three tasks, I figured we wouldn’t have to. 

We asked Matthew to find examples of sounds that showcase what we wanted, as per Ben’s request.

I think at this point, Andrew had started on creating the pads to step on. I had to brush up on my Arduino coding skills again and got that rigged up.