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Research
(info and precedents for our project)

Ideating
(brainstorming and such)

Game development
(behind the scenes stuff)

Prototyping
(testing set up and getting feedback)

Reports
(write ups of the markets)

Survey Responses

Abandon Materials ....

Decorations ....

Immaterial Labours (Our Market Reflection)

Immaterial labours is the concept of exchanging work or experience without exchanging physical goods. For the overall market, our class decided on having no currency exchanged, and emphasising experience over handing out products. For our stall specifically, we went with an "exchange of information and knowledges", as defined by Michael Hardt (1999). Our stall was an interactive story designed to give the player an assessment of their personality as well as entertaining them. The stall also included mini games to make the player physically interact for the ending they wanted. In return, we asked players to fill out a survey and tell us what they thought we were like based on how we presented ourselves at the stall.

The game ran rather smoothly, with one person behind the computer controlling the choices and one upfront narrating and running the games. We had buttons that let the controller quickly know the choices and click links accordingly. Lots of people were happy to get invested in the story and fill out the survey afterwards. Having two set ups allowed us to let more people play without having to wait around or us having to hurry them. It did mean that we needed all 4 of us at the stall at all times, so we didn’t get to experience the rest of the market.

We did have a few technical issues on the day; the monitors the organizational group gave to us were stuck in place on the table and did not come with the correct wires, and there were some missed typos in our script. However, we managed to get the monitors working for us and participants were understanding of our other small issues. 

If we did this again, it would be good to test the game more with people outside the group to get more feedback about the choices and story direction. Some of the mini games we had set aside never got used at all simply because no one made the choices that led to them. Our set up was solid, but it would have been helpful to know more about how people would interact with the story so we could make the experience more fitting.

We also could have made the games and story more interwoven than they were. Trying to split the work of writing one story between multiple people proved challenging in itself, especially when having to keep track of multiple pathways. Working relevant mini games into this process added another step of difficulty to the process.

Abandoned Materials - Participant Analysis

As participants of the Abandoned Materials Market, our understanding of this concept overall was us as consumers being educated about means of conservation and the alternative use of abandoned things such as general house waste.  

The initial atmosphere and pace of the market was very friendly and controlled with accompanied music playing at the markets entrance and each booth displaying great aesthetics. One aspect that really stood out was how tangible all of the market booths were; everything required us to engage.

Another theme that stood out throughout most of the stalls was the message of the market as a cohesive whole. Most of the markets were set up so that the market runners would give every participant a quick rundown of their booth and voice their awareness for waste and means to manage and utilize this daily as consumers.  

Regarding the system of exchange, every group executed a very physical approach to providing the participants with something to take away for their individual markets. Examples of this were, recycled seeds, wallets made of paper and fresh juices made from scraps.  

Overall the Market addressed the theme of abandoned materials to a very articulate degree by educating the participants as to how to deal with waste with conservation in mind.

Market Day

Our Final Story

Above is the structure of out story,  the structure involves some set up at the start, and as the choices flow downwards, we start introducing mini games.

There are multiple endings regarding fighting the giant creature at the end, which all link to the stat points section at the end which lets the player know their dominant traits.

The ending links to our market in a clever way in which when the player is handed a card in the story, we hand them are card during the market also.

Last prototyping and practice

We all got together again to get everything together and do some final texts before the market tomorrow. We didn't get to pre-set up our stall as the room was still quite busy even as we left, but our set up is fairly simple and we'll be arriving early to get it sorted.

I ran the cards and survey by everyone else, then printed and cut them.

We timed and tested some of the mini games.

• The memory cards need to be backed on card or similar to make them easier to flip and also ensure they don't get messed up from so many people using them.
• The exact number of points/time needed for the ball bounce.
• The method used for the final target game (we're going by ammo rather than time given.)
• Also timed out the story overall to make sure we didn't need to trim it down. (It should take roughly 5 minutes, which is a good length.)

We also did a quick run through of the story with Sam as the player to see if this was all fair. We'll probably do a couple more of these tomorrow morning with the full set up if there's time.

More decorations from Kajal:

Story Files

Story (Kezia side finished)

Story (Michael side finished)

I finished up my part, then Michael gave me his, which I spell checked, coded, and made other small changes to, then I sent it back to him so he can touch up his side some more.

Final story file

Mini Games

Here are the final mini games for our story:

Memory Game (Kezia):

[add current image]

Maze (Kajal):

Ball Bounce (Sam):

[img]

Target Shooting (Michael and Kezia):

[Illustration by Kezia; guns provided by Michael]

Test Set Up

We got together outside of class to do a better test set up of our stall.

Original set up plan: cellophane on table, buttons on either side. Laptop and display screen will go back to back. (Also a divider made by Michael so the two players won't get distracted by each other.)

Testing it again, we're now looking at having the cellophane draping down the front. This lets us have a smooth, solid surface for mini games, and also hides the table feet, making things look a bit more put together. Downside is that the buttons make a loud clack on the bare table, but the market will likely be loud anyway, or we could find something else to put under them. Also gets a bit in the way of the legs, but people shouldn't be sitting for long enough for this to be too much of a bother.

Half draped; looks nice, but ends up only covering the one part of the table we actually /need/ for mini games, so probably a no go.

Memory mini game (paper needs to be thicker/backed by something; cards are see through currently which breaks the game!)

We'll be meeting up again on Tuesday for our final prep and testing. Looking on track for now!

Market of Impossible Things Critique

Impossible Things Market Critique
by Group 30

“Each theme provided another layer of complexity in the construction of this “true” story while recognizing the elusiveness, if not impossibility, of absolute truth.”
“Image as text: Truth and Memory in Family History” Elizabeth Suda

The Impossible Things market based itself on the concept of time, split into three sections; past, present and future. Time itself can be considered an ‘impossible thing’, particularly as something you can buy/sell at a market.

The market ran on a charity/experience system; none of the stalls charged any concrete currency. One stall in particular charged in time, making players give up 60 seconds by waiting before giving them this time back as play time. This itself is a good example of ‘impossible things’ as nothing tangible was every exchanged.

There was a wealth of variety across the stalls, aided by the three section theme. The stalls in the ‘past’ section all felt very similar, as they based off the shared nostalgia of New Zealand childhood. They provided just enough context for the participant, then inviting them to “construct meaning … based on what they know and believe”. (Suda)

The present and future sections were much more varied. This made these sections feel less cohesive in theme, but did allow for a broader range of activities. The use of dark space in the future section created a good mood, but not all of the stalls fit in with it.

Player Survey

A last minute addition, but I had a thought of how we could make our stall more of a two way exchange, which is something we've struggled with from the beginning.

After the game, we give the player a survey to fill out rating their experience. This way, we get a judgement of our own character based on how we presented the game they just played.

These answers are very silly. Possibly too silly. But, like the story, we want to survey to be funnyand interesting so it doesn't feel like a chore to the participants.

Result Card WIP

Initial design for the result card we'll be handing out to players.

Keeping it simple b/w to keep printing costs down. One the day, we'll look at the results page from the player's game and fill in the numbers based on their actions. The 'Assessment' section is for whatever comment we feel like giving to the player, like "nice hat" or "bad at memory games". Just to make it more personal for everyone.

Story File WIP

An updated version of our story file, in preparation for our test run tomorrow.

New:

• Image background
• Stat counter
• End card

Still to be added:

• Final fight (Kezia and Michael side)
• More route options (Michael side)
• Possible changes to accommodate new mini games (Kezia and Michael side)

[DOWNLOAD HERE]

Game Mechanics Update

I've been working on a different organization method. We didn't want to have any choices end up being useless/unimportant, which meant keeping track of them all.

Originally I was doing this manually:

[hell.png]

This very quickly became a mess and waaaay more work than I could do (3 choices x 3 choices x 3 choices etc = thousands of boxes).

The new method is taking advantage of some coding Twine has built in, which allows you to keep track of characteristics, so the game can have a money system, keep track of if you've picked up certain items, etc, and change dialogue based on this.

This allows me to keep track of personality traits and give a more personalized end result while keeping the behind the scenes tidier and easy to work with. (It looks the same to the player, but with less of a chance of mistakes since I don't have to spell check 10000 passages.) The traits I'm using are Passive, Aggressive, Curious, Cautious, Fun, and Serious.

[new structure]

I've also been working on the style sheet to make the game more interesting to look at than black text on a white background. I'll look at adding more once I've got all of the technical side sorted.

Week 9 Update

This week was the Impossible Things market, which we attended as critiques. It was a lot of fun, and definitely set a standard to live up to. We each got around to nearly all the stalls, and took a lot of notes we now need to put together into a 200 word report.

[Waiting room selfie ✌]

Our market is next! We've been making good progress on our stall over this week.

• Sam is working on a title sign for our stall
• Kajal is sorting out decoration
• Michael has gotten a stand display for our stall as well as buttons.
• Kezia has been working on finishing up the story and game mechanics.

We've also each been woking on mini games for the final. We'll be having a meet up on Saturday to test out the whole set up and games before the market on Wednesday.

Story WIP

Kezia's half:
Download here

Michael's half:
Download here

Together! (Still in progress)

Game progress

I'm still progressing on writing my part of the story. I have it all planned, now I just need to get it written up and linked together.

One issue I'm running into is, as shown in the above image, there's a lot to keep track of in terms of choices and their outcomes. The plan is to make sure every decision counts and is counted on the card. Doing this in Twine will mean we won't have to be keeping tallies on the day, along with everything else we're taking care of. However, it does mean a spaghetti junction of boxes to wrangle with.

The other thing I'm worried about is whether the story is going to be too long, which will hold up lines and potentially get boring for players, but this can be tested tomorrow at the proto-market.

Cuba Street in the rain

Some photos I took on Cuba Street in the rain the other day. Fitting for our game illustrations.

Also some quick sketches based around our idea:

Finalising Ideas for the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Story

The Narrative - Further Thoughts and Ideas (planning)