Helium Hoop

HELIUM HOOP

1. DESIGN BRIEF/ABSTRACT/SCOPE
For our anti-technology interaction, we plan on creating a game that will challenge players to work as a team, and coordinate their actions to achieve a common goal. This activity will inspire teamwork, and communication skills. For our game, some influences are the game Twister, and the activity known as “the helium stick.” The basis of our game comes from the concept of the helium stick, where players are instructed to lower a light-weight rod to the floor, only making contact with the rod using both of their outstretched index fingers. This task becomes very difficult because the players are all lowering the rod at different speeds and times, and the overall upwards pressure is generally greater than the mass of the rod itself. The game works best with anywhere from 4 players or more. In our interaction we plan on taking the idea of a Twister board, and combining it with the helium stick activity. Our game will take place on a board that has a ring of circles situated around an outline of a hula-hoop. Players will each stand on a pair of circles, and have to lower the hula-hoop to the floor before an egg timer goes off. If the timer goes off they will have to rotate on the board, which will break their flow and make this task even more difficult. Some spots on the board will have certain challenges that the players will have to engage in if they land on that spot. Another possibility in game-play is a spinner that dictates which circles you move to. Our interaction is meant to focus all of the players on a single task, and make them communicate and work together to achieve the goal before the timer goes off.

2. SKETCHES

STRUCTURE
It has been decided the game will begin with 5 players on adjacent pairs of circles (appropriately colored differently from each). Two feet stand on each circle. The hoop is raised to an appropriate level of everyone's chest, with two fingers balancing the hoop with each hand only. The player on the orange circle will begin by setting the timer for 30 seconds and from there the players will have to begin lowering the hoop towards the place marker (circle) in the center. After 30 seconds, all players must rotate ONE circle clockwise. The same player who began the clock will restart it at 30 and repeat the process again. On the 2nd rotation, the next player on the orange circle assumes the job of the timer. This resumes until the hoop is fully lowered and placed in the circle. After a full rotation with all players and feet on their assumed color, the game is over and they have lost.
The problems that are met in this game is the fact that the hoop is hard to balance and players must rotate during this task.

PROCESS & METHOD: We began this piece by looking at camp games involving teamwork. The diagrams show some notes of how we began with games such as Twister, Helium Stick and Connect Four. From there it became obvious that when combining two games such as Twister and Helium Stick we would have to simplify each other to accomodate the extra game strategeme. From there we decided that a hoop allows us to encircle the players onto a board. We found the gameplay structure was strong enough between lowering a hoop and rotating of the players. This creates a process of X and Y movement and rotation that creates a space on the board for the players to interact and control the hoop with. This led to the final game concept being on a timed notion to allow players a span with which they can lower the hoop to create tension in an otherwise simplistic game.

COMING SOON : PHOTOS OF BETA TESTING STAGES IN CLASS _ BLUETOOTH ON COMPUTER ISN'T WORKING, TRYING TO EXTRACT THEM

finally working link - sorry Tina!

http://a.parsons.edu/~lamorte/chris/hw2.html
Still no FTP on my end. trying to fix this.

HW for 10/12 - Day in the Life

a.parsons.edu/~tlines/chris/hw2.html
HeyHey

Assosciative Words

Graphics
Film
Bars
New York
Punk
Beer
Purple



Graphics -> hi-def, edge, attitude, pixel, meticulous, grafika, flow, visual, large, style, laser, beat, color, line, position,

Review of Interactive Piece

I was chosen to review Fred's piece.
For those who missed it, Fred brought in an interactive piece which involved the use of objects that he has interacted with himself within the past month. The objects lie inside a box which had 2 holes on either adjacent ends with which we would place our hands and feel around to identify as best we could the objects.
I found it to fairly hillarious. I've played a similiar object orientation game in elementary school so it was reminiscent of this action. As far as the interaction it was a GLORIOUS experience albeit simple. However I am not quite sure of Fred's intended interaction with the user (as in what these objects meant this month in the grander scheme of things). I do enjoy how there were two holes however. It allows for a better 3-Dimensional understanding of the objects with two hands are involved; this is because of our spatial comprehension when two hands are used as modifiers for distance and touch.

Core 3 Project

Here is my workflow including a link to my project at the very bottom.










List of Words (subject related/no order):
SLAP
HANGNAIL
BEAT
BEATBOX
SKIN
TENTACLES
DIGIT
GROPE
DISTORT
FUN
EXTENSION
EVOLUTION
DEVISE
DEVICE
UTENSIL
TEXTURE


Categories of Words (subject related):
1. TENTACLES/SKIN/HANGNAIL/GROPE/DISTORT/TEXTURE/BEAT/DEVISE

2. EVOLUTION/DIGITS/UTENSIL/EXTENSION/BEATBOX/FUN/DEVICE

3. SLAP/BEAT/DISTORT/DEVISE



Founded Connections:
FINGERS AS A DEVICE -> HELPS TO DEVISE , STRANGE CREATIVITY

HANDS AS A DEVICE -> HELPS TO DESTROY, SLAP BEAT DISTORY AND CREATE BACK TO STRANGE CREATIVITY

2 LEADS TO 3 TO 1
or
2 LEADS TO 1 LEADS TO 3


A SERIES OF EXTENSIONS FUNCTION AS DIGITS. THESE TENTACLES ARE
CLEARLY USED AS A DEVISE TO CREATE AND DESTROY.


http://a.parsons.edu/~tlines/chris/main.html

Response for Game Design Article: Death to the Games Industry

I found the 'Death to the Games Industry' a very interesting read. I had not realized the full extent of the current business model's situation in the industry. I believed those knock-off movie-title games were reeling in big bucks and were paralleled by more creative releases. Alas, I have not kept up in the game market for many years now and it seems that the game industry has fallen into a sort of Hollywood-limbo. It also made me a bit happy because I had wanted to be a game designer as a child but chose not to. Sounds a lil risqué at this point in the game. I particularly enjoyed the comments about sports titles and the endless drones who purchase them. I've always wondered what the need was that drove so many of my friends to constantly buy Madden NFL 97,98,99,2000 as if something was totally different between them. I did enjoy NFL Blitz however but that game took zero cues from reality. I believe due to awareness of people these days however these game-spaces will find more peaks and leverage in better titles. I don't think this can last as such. Even Hollywood has taken cues from the Indie film movement and has been producing some excellent films as of late. I believe now is just a dryspell for the industry.

Myron W. Krueger

He envisioned the art of interactivity, as opposed to art that happens to be interactive. That is, the idea that exploring the space of interactions between humans and computers was interesting. The focus was on the possibilities of interaction itself, rather than on an art project, which happens to have some response to the user. Though his work was somewhat unheralded in mainstream VR thinking for many years as it moved down a path that culminated in the "goggle's n' gloves" archetype



Major work:
In the mid-1970s, Myron Krueger established an artificial reality laboratory called the Videoplace. His idea with the Videoplace was the creation of an artificial reality that surrounded the users, and responded to their movements and actions, without being encumbered by the use of goggles or gloves. The work done in the lab would form the basis of his much cited 1983 book Artificial Reality. The Videoplace (or VIDEOPLACE as Krueger would have it), was the culmination of several iterations of artificial reality systems: GOFLOW, METAPLAY, and PSYCHIC SPACE; each offering improvements over the previous installation until VIDEOPLACE was a full blown artificial reality lab at the University of Connecticut.



The Videoplace used projectors, video cameras, special purpose hardware, and onscreen silhouettes of the users to place the users within an interactive environment. Users in separate rooms in the lab were able to interact with one another through this technology. The movements of the users recorded on video were analyzed and transferred to the silhouette representations of the users in the Artificial Reality environment. By the users being able to visually see the results of their actions on screen, through the use of the crude but effective colored silhouettes, the users had a sense of presence while interacting with onscreen objects and other users even though there was no direct tactile feedback available. The sense of presence was enough that users pulled away when their silhouettes intersected with those of other users. (Kalawsky 1993; Rheingold 1992). The Videoplace is now on permanent display at the State Museum of Natural History located at the University of Connecticut. (Sturman and Zeltzer 1994).


Krueger later used the hardware from Videoplace for another piece, Small Planet. In this work, participants are able to fly over a small, computer-generated, 3D planet. Flying is done by holding one's arms out, like a child pretending to fly, and leaning left or right and moving up or down. Small Planet was shown at SIGGRAPH '93, Interaction '97 (Ogaki, Japan), Mediartech '98 (Florence, Italy).

Back to Basics: Interfaces of the Past and Present

Video games have come a long way since their initial release in 1981 [a crude tennis game made on a variety of large computers - http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/history/higinbotham.asp ] (debatable). However their influence can be seen in culture from various incarnations to the UI (User Interfaces).
The first real game I played was probably Pitfall for Atari. This crude game had you play a jungle explorer whose objective was to cross various pits, crocodiles, quicksand and water-holes using mainly large vines. Due to the crude barbaric pixels of your character one could only deduce he was some form of an explorer. Back then video game covers and pamphlets were really your only form of reference with which to apply your concepts to the pixels; Pitfall merely had a silhouette of a man swinging on a vine (at least we can tell its not Tarzan). The User Interface in this game was broken down into two primary functions: score and time elapsed. This was not the first user interface I'm sure but it certainly helped set the precedent for future interfaces which were to be placed on the top or bottom of screens (like a sports broadcast).
As games have progressed further and further games like Pitfall have become archaic. The processing time required to even reproduce a game such as Pitfall is exponentially smaller than its new cousins who utilize millions of polygons and colors rendered in full 3D simulation. It is amazing (if not fundamentally crucial) for games to utilize a good User Interface to allow proper control and awareness within these further enveloping hyper-realms. The UI of many modern games, namely Grand Theft Auto has not changed much since the days of Pitfall. This game still uses a simple score and time function (with the exception of your arsenal displayed with the current weapon of choice). Many games use further complex interfaces but it should be noted that GTA was a smash hit and goes to show that simplicity is a staple of video game success history. Grand Theft Auto uses a simple interface to allow the user more concentration in rampaging, destroying, looting and killing. However far these interfaces takes us cannot deny the fact that some things are best left untouched when it comes to blowing things up or jumping over a croc's head.

Homework

Here is my selected pieces for the readings of the first week

bustin the blogger cherry

Well my Blog is now a real woman. I have just transferred my very essence into electronic form and now I will show the world my potent potential.