#interaction&play

(1) Interaction & Play - The Brief  https://matthewblandnz.tumblr.com/post/186390323884/interaction-play-the-brief

(2) Musical Squares  https://matthewblandnz.tumblr.com/post/186581231039/musical-squares

(3) IP: Playtest 1 & 2 https://matthewblandnz.tumblr.com/post/186998277974/ip-playtest-1-2

(4) Interaction & Play: Prototype Playtest https://matthewblandnz.tumblr.com/post/188101318874/interaction-play-prototype-playtest

(5) IP: Ben Feedback https://matthewblandnz.tumblr.com/post/187892243504/ip-ben-feedback

Forgot to finish this one.

Throughout the break, Andrew, Sheena and I came in to build our pressure plate playtest, as we were looking to test overall engagement as well as the viability of having our installation interactable by walking on (and in many cases jumping on) the plates. 

Andrew put together our test plates making clever use of a wooden platform, rubber supports which compressed when under load and separated wires that would complete a circuit when the rubber was compressed (forcing them together).

Sheena seemed to initially have trouble with coding our playtest in Processing, though she slowly found solutions to individual issues within the code she decided that it was far too tedious when instead we could simply use Unity which she had far more experience with and worked just as well if not better than Processing.

I put together several sound files for us, I made a series of high and low, long and short notes that we could use for playtesting, these sounds were made from personal recordings and edited using Adobe Premiere Pro. 

I also put together a few chiptune tracks using Bosca Ceoil (Cavanagh, n.d) an open-source music software themed around 8-16bit game music. Chiptune music is far from desirable for our project theme and target audience however it was very quick and easy to put together and it immediately highlighted some technical issues with our idea of having our pressure-plates merge full audio tracks together.

Today we ran our pressure-plate playtest and received a variety of feedback. We ran 2 sets of tests, with solo users and pairs of users. Solo users tended to play around on the pads for a while and grow disinterested after exhausting the pads combinations and playing a few patterns. Pairs were far more interesting as they seemed to enjoy playing for much longer, working together to create more interesting combinations and patterns. Pairs expressed more engagement and generally responded more positively during feedback.

Bosca Ceoil

Andrew, Sheena and I had a discussion this week and we concluded that a tighter, more easily described project derived from a component of our playtesting would give it a proper direction, as well as help retain some relevance to our original concept. We decided to continue with the collaborative side of our playtesting, and our project finally has a definitive description: 

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

We set up a game plan for the coming week and gave ourselves each a job to do, along with progress meetups to help stay on track, like before but more regularly. Andrew is looking into viable materials and construction methodology, Sheena is researching collaborative experiences and cooperation, and I am working on designing the actual installation as well as its functionality.

Some quick sketches I made when designing the installation that is currently untitled

To represent the benefits of collaboration, my idea was to have an installation that is impossible to experience fully without multiple users, yet can still give a partial experience to a solo user. Essentially the installation is a series of panels in several square layers that illuminate when one of the buttons is pressed, much like the Nanoleaf Light Panels (Nanoleaf, 2019). When a button is pressed individually there is an audio response and a visual response from the respective layer side (Audio output location is flexible yet unsure).  However when 2 buttons from different sides are pressed simultaneously the somewhat mundane sound from each button changes into a more prolonged and intense one, with more simultaneous side activations increasing this intensity along with adding additional effects and backing audio. These enhancements last a predetermined amount of time at the moment however perhaps the length of activation could influence the duration of the enhancement. I have put together an extremely rudimentary video below to help explain the concept further. 

(Something happened to the sound while exporting that created strange popping, it’s annoying but serviceable for explaining) 

This means that when more users are interacting with the installations and simultaneously activating each layer as they desire, the experience enhances, which would be impossible from a single user. 

Reference for more on Light Panels

Quick Reflection.

Today each team presented what they had done, and discussed the direction of their projects. Most of them felt well defined in intention and investigation however ours was not one of them.

Our project has been centered around the concept of turning Aotea Square into a playful and collaborative space through audio installations, however, this definition is very broad. Ben pointed out that our project was lacking in direction which I feel is a fair assessment of our position, in hindsight I would say we got lost in the questions “What kind of people occupy the square?” and “Who is our target audience?” when we really should have been focusing on an area of interest rather than trying to discern it through an audience.

A video edited Andrew edited together of our first and second playtest.

Bit of Context

Earlier this week Andrew, Sheena and I sat down to figure out where we wanted to take our project for Interaction and Play. This was mainly due to the requiring a conceptual slide the following week for presentation and while I think that the faster pace of this semester is interesting and refreshing, It does put noticeable pressure on the design process.

The Lenses

Sheena noted (and rightly so) that our lecturer Ben wanted us to begin by taking the space into consideration and to choose at least 5 lenses from the ‘Game Design: A Deck of Lenses app’.

The lenses we ended up choosing were: 

Spectation

The venue

Physical interface

The toy

Skill

Freedom

These lenses were mostly focused around our initially weak concept of building an installation in the square with some unconventional aesthetics, however, choosing them did help us build from there and develop our concept. The process’ value becoming rather apparent.

The Concept

Turning Aotea Square into an instrument by setting up installations around the square that allow users to play instruments through a single pair of speakers. Collectively they can collaborate to play music in the square.

Developed from one of Sheena's ideas, we found the concept of turning the entire square into an interactive installation interesting. The idea of people being able to approach an unintrusive installation (like a table) and pass the time while eating or waiting through solo or collaborative music is extremely appealing to me. There are of course easy to point out and discuss issues with the idea, however refining this idea past these issues seems promising to me.

References

Schell, J. (n.d.). The art of game design: A book of lenses [Computer software].

“Propose a meaningful play experience that creates engagement with Auckland’s Aotea Square.”

The first thing that struck me about the brief was the odd concept of meaningful play, there are plenty of easy to make assumptions on what it could mean and I’m sure almost any kind of play (even poorly designed play) can have meaning. So in class, I asked our lecturer Ben what the concept referred to and he told me I can find it in the aptly named book “Meaningful Play” by Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman. 

“Meaningful play occurs when the relationships between actions and outcomes in a game are both discernable and integrated into the larger context of the game.” - (Salen & Zimmerman, 2010) 

From reading this, I believe that that meaningful play relates to user communication/feedback, and how that communication affects the overall play experience. As an example, you are playing a 3rd-Person action game when your character is shot by an arrow, the character flinches or stumbles with a small blood particle. This has communicated to the player that they have been hit and have taken damage, this then gives context to the rest of the play experience as it is plausible that enough of these hits will kill the player and they may attempt to avoid further damage, this is what I believe meaningful play refers to.

Now that I have an understanding of meaningful play, the brief comes into a little more clarity keeping in mind the secondary requirements:

• Personal critical evaluation of relevant precedents, • Prototype user testing, • Displaying an understanding of play and technology’s role in society, • Chosen interaction and play research topic(s) and concept.

My teammate Andrew took some notes and made a blog post covering Aotea Square, its functionality as well as relative information about the site. https://dinomightofficial.tumblr.com/post/186289236490/aotea-square

With this information and clarity, my team and I have begun brainstorming ideas and searching online for inspiration for our project.

References

Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2010). Rules of play: Game design fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.