APD Week 3 - Play and Object

Theme

For this week's theme, I found some hair balls I rolled while brushing my dog's hair, and a whole bag of toilet paper roll that I collected for recycling. Initially, I came up with ideas like hair ball pong, marble game, paper roll golf and a giant paper roll slide. In the end, I decided to create my own two-player game called 'Blind Chess'.

Context

As I randomly stack the paper roll up like a pile of concrete pipes, it reminded me of the classic board game Connect 4, where two players choose different coloured tokens, and take turns to drop them in a vertically suspended grid to form a line a four horizontally, vertically or diagonally. With the found objects I had, I thought, why not make it into a chess game but the players can't see each other's moves?

Method

To begin with, I prepared some more props by rolling more hair balls, stacked 15 paper rolls up in a pyramid shape with a mix of brown and white colour, then used tape and twine rope to secure the structure. On the top paper roll, I marked a spot on each side to indicate where the players should sit to leave them with just enough space to see one ball for each paper roll.

With everything all set, the game starts with two players sitting on the opposite side of the paper roll tower, close enough so that the two arrows on the top roll meet. Each of them has 20 balls, and they take turns to place a ball in any paper roll they choose, but are not allowed to see the opponent's move. To make the game more interesting, the players can ask each other which colour of paper roll they decided and only correct answers are allowed. To win the game, you need to either fill up a paper roll with 5 balls, or form a traffic in one roll where you fit more balls than the other player.

Besides this chess game that might take quite some time to finish, I also came up with a quicker arcade game. In this game with the same set up, two players starts with 10 balls each, and you take turns to throw a ball through the paper roll stack. Whoever has more balls successfully thrown to the other side wins.

Reflection

After experimenting with week's theme, I learned that play is a human instinct associated with the abilities of abstract reasoning and socializing (O'Connor, 2021). This inherited skill allows us to recognise patterns, but also think creatively to recontextualise objects and form new ideas. Small things like hair balls and paper roll that we usually take for granted, has been recycled and reused for entertainment. It's fun and exciting to redefine objects in a way we have never thought of before.

To improve the game for better experience, I think it's necessary to increase the length of the paper rolls to form a more comfortable play space between the two players. Alternatively, we can set up a curtain on top of the paper roll tower to ensure that players won't predict each other's moves.

References

O'Connor, P., 2021. The Craft and Science of Game Design : A Video Game Designer's Manual. 1st ed. Florida: CRC Press, pp.9-11.