APD week9play and abstraction

APD Week 9 
Create by Bingqian Guo (s3622056）
Theme : play and abstract 
Youtube video link: https://youtu.be/nPyU_7n6pQ4
 
With the rapid development of computer technology, human beings have become faster and faster in dealing with problems, but this has inevitably resulted in complicating simple things, and even human relationships are less pure than they were many years ago. While people use complex thinking to solve problems, I believe that simplifying problems is the most effective way to solve them. I remember when I was a child learning English sentence structure, there were a series of ways to make complex and long sentences easy to understand. With this in mind and in line with this week's theme of 'play and abstract', I decided to design an interactive game that incorporates the characteristics of abstract expressions to make it more fun for players.
 
Context:
Picasso's famous painting 'Guernica' (an allegory of the devastation caused to civilians by the German bombing of the city in World War II).
Abstraction has its own unique benefits, and these are not limited to the realm of art. Abstraction can be used to express emotion through association, using a variety of senses and emotions.
 
Similar pieces such as Chinese whispers, often played as a child, are used in order to convey a phrase from the beginning of the team through whispering or body language to the end of the team, with the initial phrase usually becoming disfigured at the end of the game.
 
 
Response:
 
I tested the game first and received feedback from the participants and found some problems.
At first I tried to have players connect dots on white paper and have them form a prescribed picture of what the animal would look like. And let a third person make a guess.
In practice, however, I found that dots could be linked vertically or horizontally, and providing a limited number of points for players to scramble and connect them did not limit the lines very well. Because two points would be able to make a straight line.
 I then refined the scheme by trying to use the name of the song as the title and having one player create a random composition around the rhythm of the song or the mood it conveys or a direct expression of the name of the song and having one player guess. The results showed that it was very difficult for one person's creation to make another person guess the name of the song. But if you add another player, you can have two players collaborate on the painting. As in the video: dance ghost, at first one player simply breaks down the word dance and soul and makes a drawing around it. The guesser just thought it was a little girl. But then a second artist added a more emotive expression of high heels. It was then easier for the guessers to take inspiration and hints from this abstract painting and guess the action of dancing.
 
Due to the fact that most of the players involved in the test came from Chinese backgrounds and bad painting skills, the direct translation of the English phrase did not associate well with the painted effect to the name of the song. For example, in testing Jay Chou's Love Before the BC. The player tries to point west with directions, ahead rather than trying to draw a whole history.
This led to a new way of expressing the second phrase in my video, Diamonds, which in Chinese can be broken down into an action, that of a digger chiselling a rock in the picture. The painter therefore works around this abstract interpretation, and the guesser can quickly figure out the character of the expression and guess the song title. This approach eschews the emotion of the song and instead chooses another abstract working process to convey the meaning, thus arriving at the same result. (the same words).
 
Method:
In order to develop the player's abstract thinking I have designed the following game:
1. The player has to draw the name of a song.
2. The player has to draw a picture of the song in the time limit.
3. Give another player a chance to guess the name of the song 
 
 
After a few more attempts and a few comments, a number of changes have been made:
1. More than one player faces a lyric at the same time
2. Players have to work together to draw on a piece of paper within a time limit based on the phrase
3. After the time is up, the players will be judged by a judge. If they guess the word, they win. If they don't, they lose.
 
 
Reflection:
First of all, the game was designed based on the feedback from the players:
1. For players who are not very good at drawing, the game experience is very poor, I hope that the game can be changed from competition mode to cooperation mode.
2. I hope the timer will be more tense
3. The judge's level of judgement will depend on the judge's own level, whether there is a possibility of a more scientific way of judgement
Secondly, the game has been adapted several times after collecting comments.
4. there is a clear difference in the success rate of expression between the Chinese and English words chosen, and the cultural background of the participants needs to be taken into account more in the design of the game
This is the first time I have come across the subject of abstraction, but in the process of designing the game I have also gained a good understanding of how abstract expressions work and improved my abstract thinking
Abstraction is a way of explaining and changing the way the game is played from a different perspective, so I changed the figurative to abstract descriptions so that the player can communicate his ideas to another player in an unexpected way in this game.
Implications for the promotion of this type of game: to help people solve problems in a simpler and clearer way, to improve interpersonal relationships and cooperation