This series of experimentations, served to the purpose of my Studio 2 Foliio, and ultimately build upon the notion of shifting materials or environment, and emotional response to a player's input.
For this week, I used observation to analyze how a city landscape constains a lot of interactions that we are unaware of. After my analyses, it occured to me that the city could be a stage for a game. And also to consider all the elements that are constantly changing and revolving along the landscape, like birds, cranes, airplanes, and smoke fumes.
This was the starting point to stablish my approach for my Studio 2 project, since it occured to me that my character in the game could be affected by interacting with all of these unexpected elements in the stage. Since I am working with a Flame, I pictured that the volatility in the shift of the material itself could be exploited to represent an idea. In my case, I decided to represent emotions or feelings.
Since tinkering is all about experimenting and letting ideas flow, I decided I would try to link the first Observation excercise in a non obvious manner. This is why I used after effects to create multiple shapes transitions, that would only attempt to represent a state of mind, in this case is was a headache. I also used Chrome Experiments to create interesting abstract effects that could also be linked to the representation of feeling, and the shifting of shapes. I also created a tune, that intends to build upon the headache sensation.
These experiments helped me clarify that I could be very abstract when trying to represent a concept through animation and interactivity.
For this week, I continued down the line of emotional representation, and decided to make a tiny stop-motion animation. I simply painted an emoji face in a mint. I then linked my idea of user interaction with the materials in order to affect the character, and make it change expression every time it is touched.
This gave me an insight that interaction with the character could be really simple. It also makes me reflect that objects can be given personality as well.
This week's excercise, had me thinking about a different kind of stage for my game. In the end I was inspired by terraria landscapes, and also though about the place where a flame could live. This is why I picked to transform a lantern into a house where all of the interactions would take place. Since this theme was about giving agency to the place, I also thought of different ways the place could interact with the character, and affect it's emotional state. This first iterarion led me to think about variations in the weather, which could end up shaking the lantern in different patterns, and ultimately leading to a shift in emotions.
By this week, my intention with this project was a bit clearer, that is why I used this space to detail a mechanic that involved object to object interactions. Giving objects the agency to affect and experiment emotions. I based myself on Plutchnik's chart of emotions. This object to object interaction made me think about how each of these objects could be given emotional atributes that contradict or build upon each other.
By Eliot Zambrano Barrera
Email Eliot Zambrano Barrera
Published On: 21/08/2018