Final Prototypes

Hello readers, this is Gerrit reporting in on the progress of Memorial Day week.

Wednesday felt like a slow day. Everyone was given time to work on their projects and spent most of that time working on the final details of their game. Me and Josh Harris spent that time working on what type of topics we can use for our game Mosaic while Puzzle Defenders talked about the rules of their game. Things really got interesting when the Slug Races brought in their big wheels for painting. Everyone on their team and me got to try riding the bikes before they painted them. However, I did not regret changing to Josh's team that day, since Josh was really enthusiastic about his idea and I thought it was great.

When Friday came around, all the teams had a concrete idea of what their game would be. Me and Josh presented first with the core mechanics of Mosaic by letting everyone play the game. Everyone seem to like it, except they believed the topics were a little too hard. However, Josh told the group that the intent of this game was giving the players high level topics, producing a variety of drawings for one play session. Someone also came up with the idea of a kids version for the game, since most kids wouldn't understand some of the regular topics. Puzzle Defenders talked about how they were going to put puzzle pieces in balloons and place them around open studios. They seem to have a great idea, but they still require the materials for the game. Some of the students explained that they would be presenting the shadow block game designed a couple months back. However, instead of using one type of block, they would use some of the glued block and soft blocks, providing different game play and strategies. Finally, Slug Races explain that they were going to set up the track around or inside the building, depending on how open studios was set up. Since all the other teams would be set up outside the classroom, the class decided that the track would be inside the classroom. The rest of the time was spent working on the games. Puzzle Defenders set up a shopping list, Mosaic started writing down topics, and Slug Races continued to work on the big wheels.

Rock, Talk, and Concoct

Starting the week off, the final team for the Socially Conscious games presented their game.  The game was called "Life on the Rocks".  It involved one person playing against the clock (which in this instance was a makeshift hourglass that used water).  The objective of the game was to gather as much water as possible for the hourglass (in effect adding more time), and in the end of things have as much water in the hourglass as possible.

The mason jars of water were stowed away within bags strewn about the hillside.  There were also bags that contained rocks, resulting in rocks being attached to the harness the player wears.

The intention was that with enough rocks on the players harness, they would not be able to gather all of the water in the game.  The player that we had, however, managed to get all of the water along with all of the rocks.  He commented that it was less of a game, and more of a training exercise.  (Having been in football myself, I can understand this).  Spectators felt that the game was a pessimistic view of life, while others felt it was a good representation of being in debt.

After the playtest and follow-up discussion, the class proceeded to the classroom, where we had a guest speaker.  His name was Alexei, and he was quite intrigued with the games we were producing.  After introducing himself and his work in game design, he began discussing Alternate Reality Games (ARGs).  These games provide an experience for the player even though they are really just playing as themselves.  He talked about his ARG, Mystery Party, and noted that while it was successful, it would have been more successful if the game brought in people by itself, instead of him bringing players in.

The rest of the day and the rest of the week were dedicated to developing the big game/games we would be developing for play at Open Studio.  Initially the plan was to make one game that the whole class could work on.  The class ended up breaking into two groups by the end of Monday.  One group wanted to work on a game that involved racing with big wheels, and the other wanted a social game.  By the end of the week, there were four groups.

FiNAL GaME ExPERiMENT


Hey Everyone,


Just posting to take a walk down memory lane on the creation of a few of our final game experiments.. and the execution of my group: Slug Races!

Designin' with tha homies

After a few weeks of deliberating fervently, our studio started to fill with materials needed for each of the groups. Kiko seems to be doing all the heavy lifting needed for their: 


Puz Def :). 

• Open Studios: I got to actually help pass out some of the balloons for their game, and I found sole enjoyment of just walking up to unexpected people saying "Hey! Want a balloon? Protect it with your LIFE! " .. and I mean, come on, who wouldn't want a bubble of happiness ? I think this group chose PRIME parking right in the main middle courtyard of the Art Studios with a bunch of brilliantly blue balloons. Unfortunately it seemed that people took to tying off their balloons, but that just made more for the poppers popping balloons to snag free puzzle pieces.

             *Mosaic*

I only had the opportunity to play this game on the development stage, but even from there Josh & Gerrit had a pretty interesting take on an Apples to Apples/ Dix it/ some juices all their own. I really appreciated the creativeness the game sparked in not just an Artistic way, but in a though-process way as well. The subjects were up to the individuals interpretation and a voting process was initiated to enhance the 'stakes' on the game, adding a little competitiveness to the game. 

 *Open Studios - The presentation of their game was very inviting: they grouped two tables together, arranged chairs all around the square, and papered the table to give it a clean look. They also had smooth advertisement in the sign they made with the title.

SLUG RACES

I had the pleasure of riding a 2-4 year old's tricycle around open studios, drinking a Dr. Pepper, and automatically making people interested in why a college student is on a trike. It was great advertising as well, and I had a blast in process! 

1. Creation: Nick was CLUTCH with his job at Family Student Housing, because he was able to score us 5 tricycles that we could do with as we pleased. So we spray painted them to match our desired color scheme: BLUE&YELLOW. We took the spray painting so far as to spray a red bandanna blue and checker it with yellow duct tape to manufacture our start flag.  
2. Set Up: We cleared and swept the studio so we could have our race track inside. Then we strategically designed a curvy track using chalk at first and then taping it with duct tape. Dodgeballs were placed on the track as a diversion. 
3. Open Studios: Our Slug races was veryyy successful! I had so much fun racing and watching racers, especially the part watching college students squeeze themselves into toddler trikes. I would say our iteration of the velcro bandannas on the back of the trikes wasn't successful simply because people were too involved with racing to the dodgeballs or trying to stay on their trikes. But overall I thoroughly enjoyed our game.

PRESENTING

*one of our slug races in process

Filming: Hannah

Starring: Nick and David, and 4 Racers

Producing: iphone inc. 

Casting: Fine Arts Ucsc

Heather's Closing Words

And so our tale of ART 146 comes to an end. Heather made her final comments on our journals, as well as our grades, before she bid us farewell.

A lot was learned in 146, laughs were had, friends were made, tears were shed, alliances were broken. But in the end peace was restored and the future of the new arts movement was held strong by us well developed and motivated students. We have come to understand so much more about the importance of games, the need for art, and how colliboration and unity guide us all to be both better and stronger individuals. For life imitates art, and vice versa.
True story.

Socially Conscious Games; Gerrymandering

Experiment 5:

This experiment was all about socially conscious games with a focus on iteration. We were asked to tie the mechanics of the game we were making into the message we were trying to convey. We also had no limitations on the materials we could use or the type of game we could make.

At the beginning of the week the class had a discussion about what a socially conscious game is. Some examples of socially conscious games brought up in the discussion were Dafur is Dying and September 12th. The class talked about if a socially conscious game had to make as big a statement or be about such a big topic like these games and the answer was no. The socially conscious idea is different to everyone and pretty much any idea is or can be spun to be a socially conscious topic. Its up to you!

The group brainstormed ideas for a while. Everything from large scale ideas and world problems to make our games themed around to small nuances and interesting methods of implementing a game into a public, social environment.

Most teams got to work on coming up with their idea of what they wanted to convey. This took a while as many teams could not come up with a topic that was satisfactory to all the members or implementing the idea into a game was difficult. By the end of the day, most teams had settled on a rough form of their idea and had a game building around it.

Gerrymandering:

One team quickly got underway with their topic....Gerrymandering. The idea is to make a game where players attempt to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan or incumbent-protected districts. In other words: get land, watch your back. The game is played by having players draw their own boundaries to play in. Each player can claim up to half of the remaining play area as their own. After all players have picked a spot, they are each given a ball. The goal is to hit the other players with your ball, dodge theirs, take over over their land, and ultimately be the last district standing.

The game was fun and very fast. Some playtesters would play and say "Hey, its not fair", but thats the point. The game portrayed its idea and message well. The players, or districts with the largest area or support right out of the gate had the advantage and best positons in the beginning, but if a smaller district fought hard enough, they could claw there way to the top and eventually take over everyone.


The team iterated and made small changes between every round of play, each time making the game better. Small adjustments to how players define their districts and were allocated dodge balls were among the more important changes. The players changed how they played as well. During a game, some players would make agreements to not hit each other or to gang up on a larger district. This made the link to the gerrymandering idea even stronger and helped to reinforce the socially conscious aspect of the game. The team and overall class were well on their way to creating some great socially conscious games.