200 Drawings Mindmap & Reflective Pitch (Studio 2)

View the full presentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xC7lBKqBqqBfRcbalwQo2yetQzdEql4B/view?usp=sharing

Inquiry & Motivations:

For my Studio 2 project, I want to explore how street and playground games can be recontextualised to inspire social interaction in digitally-enabled physical games.

As a child, I really enjoyed playing street and playground games with my neighbours, friends and family. I loved the social interaction and the movement around a physical space. However, a recent study shows that children nowadays only spend half as much time playing outside as their parents did. Taking inspiration from traditional street and playground games, I want to investigate whether I can capture that social interaction and physical movement in an interactive, physical experience enabled by digital technologies.

Context:

• Fit In by Vincent Trinel - great example of a low-budget, projected experience that highlights cooperative play
• Ninja Shadow Warrior by Kaho Abe - requires a group of people to form shapes with their bodies, designed with an emphasis on physicality and social interaction
• GRiD by Moment Factory - bringing Pong to life; requires teams of two to move the paddle around in a physical space
• Taiko no Tatsujin (Switch Version) by Nintendo - inspired by Red Light, Green Light playground game; requires physical movement of controllers to move characters
• Three Folk Games to Inspire Radical New Video Games by Doug Wilson - amazing talk about how folk games can inspire new video games

Significance / Value:

There has been a lot of work in the interactive and physical space which is grand in scale and requires a lot of equipment, technologies and big budget to set up - like those of teamLab and Moment Factory. I want to focus on a smaller-scale, low budget and intimate experience, with an emphasis on social interaction and simple gestures so that anyone can join in and play.

There has also been many digital video games created that were inspired by playground and street games, but with player interactions limited to keyboard/mouse/traditional console controller input. For my project, I'd like to focus on using physical / body movements as player input, as a way to tie back to the physicality of street and playground games.

Challenges:

This project will involve technologies which I haven't used before, such as Unity or Processing on the software side, and using the Kinect or webcam to do motion sensing. I'm also super aware of scope, and what's achievable in twelve weeks. Playtesting will also be a challenge, as I need to figure out how to prototype the physicality and game feel.