APD Week#8 - Play and Body

Weekly Response

Response Link: https://youtu.be/Tq6u-LntK_g

• Theme

In response to the theme of Play and Body, I made a demonstration video of a motion-based rhythm game. In this game, the four keys represent four different postures: feet apart, hands raised, turning around and jumping. When the button reaches the edge of the screen, it’s time to do those postures by following the beats of the song! It tests players’ response capability.

• Method

Before starting to make this game, I found a piece of music that I want to play as the bgm. I freely danced following this song and saw what postures I would pose. Because I am very unfamiliar with dancing, I can only pose very simple posture. Then I drew these postures in simple strokes through Adobe Illustrator as buttons. I adjust their speed with the music pace through AE, and then finally recorded my playing video of this game.

• Context

“Tangible and embodied interaction” through physicality is very broad. Bodies of our own, materials, touches, feelings and so on (Eva, 2011). Breaking away from the screen or connecting the physical world with the screen may provide a strong motivation for the research of motion aesthetics.

I am inspired by Just Dance, a motion-based dance video game that requires players to dance following instructed actions with music with controllers in their hands to detect their motions. And the final scores depend on the completeness of their actions compared to the original postures. Thus, I drew some ideas from it and applied them to my games. Instead of doing complex dancing postures like a professional dancer, I replace complex postures with simpler postures that can be quickly achieved by their response capability and provide people who are not good at dancing with a chance to exercise with music.

Another inspiration is the JUMP JUMP ORCHESTRA designed by Helen Kwok from MAGI. He uses a jump detection system, and a beat generation system to realize a game based on musical jump ropes. Instead of jumps, I add more postures in my game to improve the interest.

http://magistudio.net/work/jump-jump-orchestra-prototype-studio-2-folio-1

• Reflection

As this week’s response is a demonstration video of a game concept, I think it is better to try it using AR systems or interactivity facilities in the future to make it feasible in reality. Besides, I realize that player feedback with “perfect’, “Good”, “Not bad” and “Miss” is required for such a game to let players know they are playing good or not. And also a scoring system for specific evaluation.