APD Week11 Play and Stillness

Theme

Play and Stillness

Link:https://youtu.be/Bznn7a2fdro

My response this week is a platformer exploring the transition between rapid movement and stillness. In this platformer, players need to control a sphere avoiding obstacles like usual but when the background becomes green, instead of moving they should do nothing to avoid “die”. When they are avoiding obstacles they are forming a habit of rapid movement. But in this game, they are also required to fight against this habit. The stillness is used as a mechanic working as a opposite status of active and rapid moving.

Context

In this week’s lecture lots of slow games are mentioned including zen games, farming games and gardens. The stillness is explained as a status of slow which is opposite to rapid in those examples. In the article “A Case for Slow Play in Video Games” (2014) mentioned video games rewarding rapid movement.

https://www.museumofplay.org/2014/05/13/a-case-for-slow-play-in-video-games/

Instead of exploring slow games, I am interested in exploring the transition between rapid movement and stillness. A children game red light, green light inspired me on transition between stillness and movement. I decided to make a game about transiting between moving and do nothing.

Method

The game is coding in Unity by few 3d objects and using a random value to decide status.

Reflection

This game could be refined by adding a transition time between stillness and movement. Also when the safetime ended, there will be a situation of inside obstacles which should be fixed. In terms of game play, players do not need to constantly control the sphere. More mechanics could be add in order to make players have to constantly control their character instead of only moving left and right. Then the difference between stillness and movement will be more distinctive