tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27328547102709410282024-03-10T19:13:40.360+00:00Alistair Aitcheson GamesGame developer specialising in playful performance and installations - creator and host of The Incredible Playable ShowAlistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-48871878542247515972021-02-16T12:46:00.001+00:002021-02-16T23:09:28.814+00:00The Incredible Playable Podcast!<p>I've recorded the very first episode of my new podcast - <i>The Incredible Playable Podcast </i>- and it's now online and available for your listening pleasure!</p><p>The podcast is me looking at esoteric topics from outside video games, as a springboard to exploring my own creative process and what I've learnt from making interactive shows and alternative controllers.</p>
<iframe data-name="pb-iframe-player" height="122" scrolling="no" src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/7k23q-fad1e2?from=pb6admin&download=1&version=1&auto=0&share=1&download=1&rtl=0&fonts=Helvetica&skin=1&pfauth=&btn-skin=107" style="border: none;" title="Clowns, Humility and Games for the Stage" width="100%"></iframe>
<p>In the first episode I look at <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25357369-clowns" target="_blank">a book of interviews with clowns</a> and the recurring theme of <b>humility</b> in the interviews that clicked with me. I talk about how humility has been an important part of creating <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i>, <i>Codex Bash</i> and <i>The Book Ritual</i>.</p><p>The podcast also contains a playable adventure with food for you to play along with at home!</p><p>I hope you enjoy the show and I look forward to sharing new episodes.</p><p>For future episodes you can:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Subscribe to the RSS feed in your podcast app (<a href="https://feed.podbean.com/agaitcheson/feed.xml">https://feed.podbean.com/agaitcheson/feed.xml</a>)</li><li>Find the podcast in Apple Podcasts or iTunes at <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-incredible-playable-podcast/id1553821484">https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-incredible-playable-podcast/id1553821484</a></li><li>Search for <i>The Incredible Playable Podcast</i> in the podcast app of your choice - it may not be up in all of them yet but I'm in the process of setting up as many as I can</li></ul><p></p>Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-27420803043097312202020-08-06T21:37:00.001+01:002020-08-06T21:38:05.559+01:00Making the Second ShowBefore I dive in, the reason I’m writing this is for documentation. Part of the nature of interactive installations and playable shows is that they exist for brief moments in time before disappearing. The long-lasting mark they leave behind does not take the form of a finished object, like a printed cartridge or downloadable app, but in the form of lessons learned and questions raised.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbFi3GytUHb0RhAOND-7HVYYDsJaAP8VC2aIfSAemmmAfl8TAgOpW7b3PcK5QHbeFe2JrWFThQ3447oxMRCOsFZj2dbglhUqsnVdFOzjyqNnsS6WDcbqKjaYCIaZ0XSuW0d3mIX3Dl1fon/s1600/45343167_1880011285423186_173912580253810688_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbFi3GytUHb0RhAOND-7HVYYDsJaAP8VC2aIfSAemmmAfl8TAgOpW7b3PcK5QHbeFe2JrWFThQ3447oxMRCOsFZj2dbglhUqsnVdFOzjyqNnsS6WDcbqKjaYCIaZ0XSuW0d3mIX3Dl1fon/s400/45343167_1880011285423186_173912580253810688_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taking to the stage in the very first <i>Scrambled Eggman Show</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The reason I point this out is just to flag up that I don’t expect this to be a gripping narrative! As I re-read this all for editing I see how I get stuck in the weeds over minute details. But I don't want to trim that all out because - as a bit of documentation - it's useful to keep the weeds in. Who knows what I may see in them when I look back in future?<br />
<br />
Within these weeds is the story of a project I am very proud of, a show that I've had a lot of fun performing and which was an invigorating challenge to create. I hope you enjoy it!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-3aTKMQsrtIOl5Bgamz-0fRzsMT8Qf1b_xFD1a13oOxMuWgnJMFzXBHcM-wqKny_hq9tYZPQQ6HvdH939WiTz_PFhS1qEPNr4e5vdeYoV9hlLw5z-0WO11WRzxhH525zRubOO0cSLZ3T/s1600/eggman_1-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-3aTKMQsrtIOl5Bgamz-0fRzsMT8Qf1b_xFD1a13oOxMuWgnJMFzXBHcM-wqKny_hq9tYZPQQ6HvdH939WiTz_PFhS1qEPNr4e5vdeYoV9hlLw5z-0WO11WRzxhH525zRubOO0cSLZ3T/s400/eggman_1-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The winners of the very first <i>Scrambled Eggman Show</i>, at <i>PLAY18</i> in Hamburg</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The show is <i><a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/eggmanshow.html">The Scrambled Eggman Show</a>.</i> It's the second interactive stage show I’ve put together. For context, my first show is <i><a href="https://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a></i> which I've been developing and performing since 2016.<br />
<br />
Making <i>The Scrambled Eggman Show</i> was a creative challenge rather than a commercial enterprise. If I were to try and make it a tourable show out of it I'd need to make significant changes, particularly to stop it leaning so hard on an existing IP, which would be another creative challenge in itself!<br />
<br />
As such it's only been performed at a handful of play-and-culture events, enough to take it from concept, to proof-of-concept, to a working show that audiences have really enjoyed and I've loved performing. So it feels like now is the time to look back on what I actually did to make it happen.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
What is <i>The Scrambled Eggman Show</i>?</span></h2>
<br />
In <i>The Scrambled Eggman Show</i> I perform as Doctor Eggman, villain from the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog">Sonic the Hedgehog</a> </i>games, and take players through a series of challenges made using these games and a specially-modified Genesis emulator.<br />
<br />
The emulator (my own modification of an open-source emulator called GenesisPlus) can read and write to a fake console's RAM, writing new data into the games while they're running, and sending out network messages when specific values in RAM change.<br />
<br />
As host, I invite players to the stage to compete in challenges. The audience is split into two teams and the team that wins is awarded points, with the team who has most points at the end winning a prize.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMBfuLD_X-5KzeQAQzIChrJ3Q_mwKyLS6xn5f4TD3OLKKTU4Rl-A5BRm9WyPoyTcBStJzD8mSPOtUEOXerRaaj7Y5vbexJ_ukN2piDHnjvJ89E5EVWpKkMPNR63dYRcgvhR2HOCTTaHGa/s1600/Sonic+1+gameplay+still.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbMBfuLD_X-5KzeQAQzIChrJ3Q_mwKyLS6xn5f4TD3OLKKTU4Rl-A5BRm9WyPoyTcBStJzD8mSPOtUEOXerRaaj7Y5vbexJ_ukN2piDHnjvJ89E5EVWpKkMPNR63dYRcgvhR2HOCTTaHGa/s400/Sonic+1+gameplay+still.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view the audience sees on the projector, with two instances of <i>Sonic the Hedgehog </i>running side-by-side</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
In the first, the teams must get to the end of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Hill_Zone">Green Hill Zone</a> in Sonic 1, modified so that every time Sonic gets a ring he gets faster. The team who gets to the end fastest wins.<br />
<br />
The second challenge uses the <a href="https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Marble_Zone">Marble Zone</a> level from the same game. The players can move Sonic left and right, but he’ll only jump if the audience shouts loud enough to trigger a microphone. The mic makes no distinction between which team is shouting, so if it picks up noise both Sonics will jump at the same time.<br />
<br />
The third challenge takes place in <a href="https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Emerald_Hill_zone">Emerald Hill Zone</a> from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_2">Sonic the Hedgehog 2</a>. In this variant, every time the player collects a ring random data will be written into their opponent’s level layout. As such, walls will appear out of nowhere and holes will appear where there used to be platforms.<br />
<br />
The final challenge uses the <a href="https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Mushroom_Hill_Zone">Mushroom Hill</a> level from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_%26_Knuckles">Sonic & Knuckles</a>. Four volunteers from each team must cooperate by sharing a four-button controller between them. Nobody knows what each button does so they can only find out by pressing their button. And every 30 seconds the buttons all swap around.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZM1kNNf6QNCz0Yl27YCzYk_5Fib6_byQ8KZqaqPlz7zcPgsZdPzNtOTS7lnP89Dgl8ygEpdx5nuqbtapyioPogb2uai7hV_ddVtsZIIdmS0iyhN4SfebAfs2V0E6E3T1tmO4DaXS8Z276/s1600/31838273158_1efb4d7002_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZM1kNNf6QNCz0Yl27YCzYk_5Fib6_byQ8KZqaqPlz7zcPgsZdPzNtOTS7lnP89Dgl8ygEpdx5nuqbtapyioPogb2uai7hV_ddVtsZIIdmS0iyhN4SfebAfs2V0E6E3T1tmO4DaXS8Z276/s400/31838273158_1efb4d7002_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A team of 4 shares a 4-button controller in Hamburg</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In its entirety the whole show lasts about 1 hour. The final challenge always awards however many points the losing team would need to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat, so that there's always a sense of jeopardy.<br />
<br />
Winners are given prizes in the form of vegetables I buy before the show: a trophy so that winners get to feel a sense of permanence to their achievement, but cheap enough that nobody actually minds losing. And yes, the prizes are vegetables rather than eggs - I like the fact that an audience member will usually point this out at some point in the show and I get to improvise a horrified response.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Creating the concept</span></h2>
<br />
The show began life as part of the <a href="https://play18.playfestival.de/en/">PLAY Festival</a> in Hamburg in 2018. I’d performed <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> there the previous year and they asked if I could put something together for their awards night. I may have been a little overambitious - I’m not sure they were looking for a 1-hour show and honestly I wasn’t expecting to last that long either!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmV5LpWWJC0Xv_RuUBLYjZG4cneu5tvYb2zx5cALwKNGOCq6niI-YJwhBC83o8bb86BHxJC8oKTQWBiDEqINokRKSRpDQDkLACkI5PlW7S3IcAJfq92QxlM1Q-H-JzlofY48-qtXb5URT/s1600/45552087_1880013452089636_6362302898591760384_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmV5LpWWJC0Xv_RuUBLYjZG4cneu5tvYb2zx5cALwKNGOCq6niI-YJwhBC83o8bb86BHxJC8oKTQWBiDEqINokRKSRpDQDkLACkI5PlW7S3IcAJfq92QxlM1Q-H-JzlofY48-qtXb5URT/s400/45552087_1880013452089636_6362302898591760384_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eggman chatting with the crowd at the <i>PLAY18</i> awards show. I had a giant cardboard moustache but it fell off within seconds of me appearing on-stage</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I’d been wrestling with the question of what a second show would look like since I started doing <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> but at that point nothing had solidified. I always believed that a "playable show" was a format in itself and not just the one show. However, it was hard to come up with new games that moved significantly away from what was already in the show I had. To make a new show I needed to look in another direction.<br />
<br />
I’d been <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/07/breaking-sonic-2-marathon.html">playing around with modifying emulators and making unusual and collaborative experiences</a> but hadn’t quite figured out what to turn them into. Were they <a href="https://youtu.be/Kwj1XTB0nlE?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">videos</a>? Were they <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-mega-cooperator-teamwork-fuelled.html">installations</a>? The video below shows the results of one of these - a really fun way to play that I just hadn't figured out how to bring to an audience beyond my close friends.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hmsh__wezcE" width="400"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
This particular modification, where four players shared a controller, appeared in early versions of <i>The Incredible Playable Show,</i> as did a version where a microphone makes Sonic jump, but at that point there was no competitive aspect to them. As <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> developed I replaced these with new games that had a lot more physical movement. But I still remembered how popular these segments had been and thought about revisiting them to find them a new home.<br />
<br />
Back in 2016 I'd <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/03/building-glitchable-mega-drive-emulator.html">modified an emulator</a> to allow me to write glitches into games while they were being played, writing random numbers into RAM based on specific player actions. I’d played around with a lot of games, particularly on Game Boy and Sega Genesis, and I'd found the Sonic games were particularly good for these weird experiments.<br />
<br />
Classic Sonic games are incredibly forgiving. Because of this the games stay surprisingly playable even with the wildest glitches and the most awkward of controllers. There was something about the unique spectacles created by glitches that I was hungry to explore, and maybe PLAY Hamburg - a festival which would open by smashing a PS4 with a hammer - would be receptive to something glitchy and experimental.<br />
<br />
When I started planning the show for <i>PLAY18</i> (the name given to that year's festival) I thought about adding glitches to a variety of classic games. I realised that using a set of games with identical controls and mechanics would stop the audience having to learn and re-learn too many games, so they could focus on the wild glitchy changes.<br />
<br />
However, the glitchy Sonic variants I’d come up with so far betrayed the core ethos of <i>The Incredible Playable Show.</i> That is, most of them didn’t involve the whole room being a part of the action.<br />
<br />
That core ethos of <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> is something I really believe in. If you're going to put games on the stage, what is that stage adding that couldn't be done at home or in a Let's Play video? <i>The Incredible Playable Show </i>asked players to run around in the aisles and climb over seats. All these Sonic games had players holding a controller, facing a screen, while the audience just watched. Isn't that, like, literally the opposite of what I'm about?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6uViUSq8CDEv4E8n8aRi2xek-OMCgFZQa7pOfbssjLiKwEUnDFsbE5GWkZGnHO3R0eSqGyfpzFaedRFmTufrqjn8F4XADeMJn4oBi15UIknxk3GPKdY0O_osMnI0hxqF4kjoXQvDp7-Bf/s1600/play_02-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6uViUSq8CDEv4E8n8aRi2xek-OMCgFZQa7pOfbssjLiKwEUnDFsbE5GWkZGnHO3R0eSqGyfpzFaedRFmTufrqjn8F4XADeMJn4oBi15UIknxk3GPKdY0O_osMnI0hxqF4kjoXQvDp7-Bf/s400/play_02-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For contrast, <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> got players running around with buttons attached to their bellies </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
But these hacked Sonic games have an ethos of their own. They’re about taking games that are supposed to be finished objects, breaking them and finding something totally new in them. They’re about making slapstick comedy out of playing games wrong. The whole design of <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> is designed to answer the question “why theatre?” but I realised my need to answer this question was blocking me from making new shows. I had notes scribbled on scraps of paper, in notebooks, on my phone, all half-finished ideas where I'd never been able to answer "why theatre?"<br />
<br />
I had enough Sonic mods to fill a show, and I was convinced they were entertaining to simply watch. Why don’t I just make the show now, and figure out “why theatre” later?<br />
<br />
Incidentally, the answer to the question of “why theatre” is that having someone hands-on to help new players through the games is really inviting to non-gamers and people who’ve never played Sonic before. I only realise that as I write this now. Maybe there's a lesson in that. Sometimes we need to reject our assumptions about what makes a piece of work good, and make that work anyway despite the flaws in the concept. Sometimes you'll only realise what works about something after you've made it.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Figuring out the flow and staging</span></h2>
<br />
I needed a reason for players to remain invested even if they weren’t on-stage playing the game, and that’s where splitting the audience into teams and framing it as a gameshow with prizes made sense.<br />
<br />
I’ve always felt a certain reluctance among designers of physical play towards having points, teams, winners and losers, and I can understand where that reluctance comes from.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless I’ve found that competition can be really useful tools to get an audience on-board. I don’t really need to explain "why you should care" if you’re on a team and your team stands to win a point. Even if the points don’t matter the audience knows how to <i>pretend</i> as if the points do matter.<br />
<br />
If some audience members find competition off-putting it’s the host’s job to create a vibe of inclusiveness, earn their trust and make them feel welcome to go along with it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihadpJtW499tyA-iHX22CDFgeil7Z2tW9KfHbRBPIbR77gk7VP-dFBCmmbtJdToAREtJSO5RKFKb8XdrH3pkDR_WB1u5v1_v_iuCMu1Jj_xSc4FYFGCswZ0XdpKcmRhrWYrCQ8mJ7a_9kz/s1600/45312085_1880011522089829_1522633784095145984_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihadpJtW499tyA-iHX22CDFgeil7Z2tW9KfHbRBPIbR77gk7VP-dFBCmmbtJdToAREtJSO5RKFKb8XdrH3pkDR_WB1u5v1_v_iuCMu1Jj_xSc4FYFGCswZ0XdpKcmRhrWYrCQ8mJ7a_9kz/s400/45312085_1880011522089829_1522633784095145984_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Doctor Eggman shows off the"vegan egg" that will be awarded to this game's winner</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Another key idea that needed to be developed was “who is the host?” Instinctively I wanted to dress up as Doctor Eggman - it’s fun to play a villain after all - and the personality that seemed the best fit was honestly the same as the one I take on in <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i>. After all, the whole point of The Incredible Playable Man is to be inviting, to reassure players that they will not be embarrassed by coming onto the stage.<br />
<br />
Scroll down to the section titled "The Incredible Playable Man" <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-incredible-playable-show-everything.html">in this article</a> for a breakdown of what I mean by that.<br />
<br />
In this new show my audience would need to be reassured that they can play these complex-looking games. Those of us who grew up with Sonic may see it as quite a straightforward game. However, using Sonic in early versions of <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> revealed that Sonic can be quite intimidating both to adults who didn't grow up with it, and to kids who've never used a gamepad.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hjGvHtfcGks" width="400"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
So my Doctor Eggman took on the same energetic egotistical fall-guy persona I'm used to performing. I think being a villain gave me permission to play up his delusions of grandeur, and the bald wig suited a clumsier, more scatterbrained vibe. The promo video above is for an event I performed at in Germany, and shows me in-costume, but bear in mind I was playing up the villainousness for the recording. In real life he's much less intimidating!<br />
<br />
Originally I had plans to play him more fiendish, and I had a loose explanation for why Eggman had modded all these Sonic games, but these got jettisoned as soon as I took to the stage. They simply weren’t necessary.<br />
<br />
What <i>was</i> necessary was some kind of explanation of what Sonic games are, and what exactly I'd done to change them. This explanation needed to be digestible to people who don’t know what an emulator is, don’t know who Sonic is, and maybe only have a limited grasp of English (by virtue of the PLAY Hamburg show most of my subsequent performances have been in Germany).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hxCfnf9KOCnkSdLo-4ND2G7U5fgVk3Z1Rkgt4y3i5mX8pg2Vu8TUcDfXBnqWdK9TwGS82ficjGx4_bSZ_CVI7eMJy8bHH1ImYVNzJELjRxAV6AOZslqGtSSx08m7lJ1m5ymQKohvzRKV/s1600/Screenshot+2020-07-30+at+17.14.09.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="957" data-original-width="1600" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-hxCfnf9KOCnkSdLo-4ND2G7U5fgVk3Z1Rkgt4y3i5mX8pg2Vu8TUcDfXBnqWdK9TwGS82ficjGx4_bSZ_CVI7eMJy8bHH1ImYVNzJELjRxAV6AOZslqGtSSx08m7lJ1m5ymQKohvzRKV/s400/Screenshot+2020-07-30+at+17.14.09.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A still from one of the intro videos, showing moving video, annotated text and pictures. All this information would also be delivered by me talking and holding up props.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
My best solution so far has been to put together videos and slideshows that I can talk over the top of. There's a slideshow to start the show, and a video for each game.<br />
<br />
First they explain what the original game is, what the original controls are, what the core mechanics are, with plenty of pictures and me present to hold up the real-world props the players will use. Then the videos explain what I have changed - the new controls or the extra glitches - again with plenty of pictures and me holding up the real-world props.<br />
<br />
These intros have been through revisions every single time I have done the show, and honestly it’s only in the most recent performance (November 2019, Enschede NL) that I felt like they were actually good enough.<br />
<br />
The hard part with these kinds of explanations is the only way to figure them out is to take them into the real world and get them wrong in as many different ways as possible! The biggest lesson behind the videos is that audiences need text, pictures, gameplay footage, <i>and</i> a talking human to understand the basics.<br />
<br />
Different audience members will get their information best from a different one of these elements, so in a good explanation every point that needs to be explained needs to be made by pictures, <i>and</i> by annotations, <i>and</i> by gameplay footage, <i>and</i> by the host.<br />
<br />
There's nothing wrong with over-labouring an explanation: those audiences who understood the mechanics, upon hearing information they've already figured out, see it as proof that they've understood everything and can feel confident. I'd suggest that this approach isn't necessarily translatable to games played in the home, as the problem I'm solving here is to do with instilling the confidence to play a game in front of a crowd.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Rehearsals, the first show, and the tech overhaul</span></h2>
<br />
Before the <i>PLAY18</i> debut of the show I did a number of rehearsal shows. Some were with friends in my flat, and some were with colleagues after-hours at the company I do contract work for - with permission, of course!<br />
<br />
I wanted to make sure I had each game figured out before the big awards night. How do I stage it? What needs to be explained? Where do players get stuck? Where does it crash? How easy is it for me to operate my own UI? I'd made myself a dashboard that ran off of an Android tablet to allow me to switch between games, award points, and help stuck players, without touching the computer. However, I didn’t know what functions I’d actually need, so these sessions were quite informative in terms of what I needed to add new and what could be relegated to a second “in case of emergency” screen.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0k_WuZC6zBz7Q6U2xIbK1-A-dR1KsmX8rCr1FLa-mdBl2MTbH0XfzlQXVF0EyGt6nqJIeYpMKI9UCQxQii4WZKqvpz-qsWa0MK4eTJn0jbRt32MOZOlxu8iLfHqLf9DBRYTq4J8f37mt0/s1600/Screenshot+2020-07-30+at+17.22.20.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1192" data-original-width="1284" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0k_WuZC6zBz7Q6U2xIbK1-A-dR1KsmX8rCr1FLa-mdBl2MTbH0XfzlQXVF0EyGt6nqJIeYpMKI9UCQxQii4WZKqvpz-qsWa0MK4eTJn0jbRt32MOZOlxu8iLfHqLf9DBRYTq4J8f37mt0/s400/Screenshot+2020-07-30+at+17.22.20.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mobile dashboard is very simple and built out of Unity's standard GUI components</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
One thing the rehearsals didn’t show was how much the show would overrun! The Hamburg show went way beyond the half-hour I'd originally pitched. I can be very energetic on-stage, and I spent considerably longer warming up the crowd and doing between-game chit-chat than I did at home. <br />
<br />
When I reflected afterwards I noticed something else was causing the show to drag longer than I wanted it to. In this first version the teams took turns to play the games, and the pacing was not-quite-right in a way that hadn't made itself obvious in rehearsals, perhaps because my friends were all equally-matched. With the teams taking turns, audiences would have to watch the same bit of level twice. If the second team to play was worse than the first the audience is just watching someone slowly lose - not fun.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9pYZTTTzY2L2OCFFoY65lFiKbyf1nXO9sUuEfmWjV3yIKpY8dG22kfDN2LgbvtE1ulQzouu5dQ8KAL_AEUE7js2UVHPt4n5Pbq0yzqXBik4IBOm6GNQs1DT8Yb8eLeiL8tcfKkzhx-fq/s1600/43892519640_d0436b8606_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9pYZTTTzY2L2OCFFoY65lFiKbyf1nXO9sUuEfmWjV3yIKpY8dG22kfDN2LgbvtE1ulQzouu5dQ8KAL_AEUE7js2UVHPt4n5Pbq0yzqXBik4IBOm6GNQs1DT8Yb8eLeiL8tcfKkzhx-fq/s400/43892519640_d0436b8606_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Volunteers stepping up to the plate! The audience had a lot of fun and I got a lot of excited feedback, but the fact that they were all standing made me feel particularly awkward about the show overrunning!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
If both teams were playing at the same time the same amount of action would be squeezed into half the time. The audience’s attention would be on the spectacle of the winner playing well rather than the disappointment of the loser playing badly.<br />
<br />
So if I was going to do this show again I’d need both teams to play at the same time. This was actually quite a complicated technical challenge. I needed to run two instances of the emulator simultaneously (itself a complicated task in MacOS). These emulators run in the background but appear on top of all other windows. A separate UI app made in Unity receives inputs from the controllers and sends corresponding signals over an HTTP server. These signals are picked up and interpreted by the emulators as button presses. To stop the music from the two game sessions competing with each other I made new ROMs for each game with the music removed, and I play music from the UI app instead.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NTnuOSPoijNEFSkbrx8sEqP5rTNJ0-CMfMF5ZbMeil4MSVW7EgFmC9Lqq-8d_k8AW8rKRVZ2Ajwx2Ih3Czs0mKY63XM_cCjsF5D5V2RCvrm-Jn5HY0WRQ4bcgZCi3jqxCWJxSXRAjyc1/s1600/Sonic+2+gameplay+still.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NTnuOSPoijNEFSkbrx8sEqP5rTNJ0-CMfMF5ZbMeil4MSVW7EgFmC9Lqq-8d_k8AW8rKRVZ2Ajwx2Ih3Czs0mKY63XM_cCjsF5D5V2RCvrm-Jn5HY0WRQ4bcgZCi3jqxCWJxSXRAjyc1/s400/Sonic+2+gameplay+still.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The updated UI shows two teams competing simultaneously. Button inputs are shown on the top of the screen (so I can check it's working), and the metrics at the bottom are pulled from the emulator's RAM.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The tech challenge was worth pursuing. Not only did it totally transform the feel and pacing of the show, but it allowed me to make some really fun bits of UX. In particular, when the emulator detects that a player has died I make it send a signal over the HTTP server. When the UI app receives this signal it responds by changing the music track that's playing in the background. This way players can tell how their opponent is doing without looking: if the music is changing often their opponent is doing badly.<br />
<br />
Of course, having made such such a big change, I needed more rehearsals before any future shows, so there were more after-hours tests in the office and another dress rehearsal in my flat, followed by running two of the games at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1943342235960194/">a stand-up night in Bristol</a>. Honestly, I was surprised at how well the stand-up show worked, and it made me excited to try out some more prop-light games at stand-up nights in future.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbd8gCXRrUYHGKPxd7Bt9sGe6FwyDTsX2znogEreM5wFZcORcuoj4rZq5-s1gyTGAlq3ov8EQgxixxYtY1CGOSHUZpE8Y8MEEq5ivSkyihx5JHce3fo-UPUre3cQ4gMIdz2dGSZ3vzeXa6/s1600/eggman_remscheid_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="467" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbd8gCXRrUYHGKPxd7Bt9sGe6FwyDTsX2znogEreM5wFZcORcuoj4rZq5-s1gyTGAlq3ov8EQgxixxYtY1CGOSHUZpE8Y8MEEq5ivSkyihx5JHce3fo-UPUre3cQ4gMIdz2dGSZ3vzeXa6/s400/eggman_remscheid_1.jpg" width="338" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A player in Remscheid takes over the role of the jump button because the microphone was acting up</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In February 2019 I went to Remscheid in Germany as part of a play festival aimed at trainee teachers. I wasn’t expecting them to be as receptive as a games-industry audience but they really sunk their teeth into it, and it was a resounding success! I honestly wasn’t expecting the show to click as well as it did so early in its journey. That was followed by Game Days in Osnabrück in August, and then <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/445856342699025/">Overkill Festival</a> in Enschede, Netherlands, in November. There were surprisingly few changes between these shows.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOpqJwOeJ9DsKcM6q-fvRMZsI5FsPrexUIl_f-iClAMgqb9-3GZJAPftcyh51Un3b0umuqri2ZRSru38aiFc_HPUyo4OeA3pasmxg4_O7pEtkcpMBz8sfDj1GPZbior8Rx1lxFXt3RzP5/s1600/91369078_3168224659878166_9076936123330068480_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOpqJwOeJ9DsKcM6q-fvRMZsI5FsPrexUIl_f-iClAMgqb9-3GZJAPftcyh51Un3b0umuqri2ZRSru38aiFc_HPUyo4OeA3pasmxg4_O7pEtkcpMBz8sfDj1GPZbior8Rx1lxFXt3RzP5/s400/91369078_3168224659878166_9076936123330068480_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Overkill Festival took place in a natural history museum, which was a pretty cool setting to run the show in!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
While the <i>Incredible Playable Show</i> games were designed from-the-ground-up to be learnt by watching them, the Sonic games don’t have that luxury built-in. I was so used to forgetting important bits of explanation-and-context that for the Enschede shows I took a to-do list with me on a big board and kept referring back to it during the show. Because part of the persona is “overambitious bumbler” it’s actually quite an effective prop and was fodder for some self-deprecating humour from Eggman.<br />
<br />
In the second Enschede show I performed for a largely family audience, where many of the Dutch children had limited English and it was hard to build a rapport with them. This prompted a late-night overhaul of all the explanation videos so that they worked with limited language. The goal was not to make the explanation language-free, but to give English-speaking parents enough images, understanding and time to pass my message on to their kids.<br />
<br />
With parents able to take on the role of information-explainers, I could focus my entire attention on building a fun spirit of interaction with the children. Drawing on some of what I'd learnt at <a href="https://www.hollystoppit.com/">Holly Stoppit's clown school</a>, improvising play with the kids helped them warm to me and made them feel comfortable taking part in the games, even if they couldn't understand what I was saying.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">What’s next</span></h2>
<br />
All this leads me to where we are now. I made the <b>Difficult Second Show</b>, and I’m very happy with it. Like I say, I didn’t make<i> The Scrambled Eggman Show</i> as a commercial exercise. If I wanted to turn it into something I could tour I’d need to make some significant changes to ensure all the IP is my own. At best, right now what I have is a prototype of a possible future show. A proof-of-concept I made because I wanted to see if I could do it: to take the "playable show" concept beyond a single show, and find what these weird glitchy emulator mods wanted to become. So what next?<br />
<br />
There’s a lot of small lessons I’ve taken from making the show, small enough to be hard to pick out and put on paper. By that I mean experience as a developer and a performer and as a clown. Little things like how to make tech that's easy to put back together when it falls apart. Little things like how to convey game mechanics to an audience who don't share your language. Little things like making a cardboard moustache that actually stays attached to my face.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix4u91lmFdGFcBh5nokvk3VqR2w_fZNYK5fsx_hVue2Zw8j52tFM-3qkOpeTB4VbJnpdZXpwnWSdxx90pT3CGJvEjX7gidL2yXwA8JF-DIU7IO0kW6M_92RyKS9YZY8MkhanxAJEKhoCdH/s1600/eggman_closeup_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="895" data-original-width="1598" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix4u91lmFdGFcBh5nokvk3VqR2w_fZNYK5fsx_hVue2Zw8j52tFM-3qkOpeTB4VbJnpdZXpwnWSdxx90pT3CGJvEjX7gidL2yXwA8JF-DIU7IO0kW6M_92RyKS9YZY8MkhanxAJEKhoCdH/s400/eggman_closeup_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Version three of the moustache stays attached for an entire hour</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Perhaps the biggest lesson is about moving away from old ideas of "how it should be done". What had stopped me making a second show for so long was a feeling that it needed to serve the same purpose as the first. That idea that a <i>playable show</i> must meaningfully involve everyone in the room. It was a worthwhile goal to prove that out when making my first show. When making the second, to ask that it meaningfully involve everyone in the room <i>and</i> do something conceptually new was too big a hurdle.<br />
<br />
<i>The Scrambled Eggman Show</i> does not meaningfully involve everyone in the room, but the spectacle is good enough that it doesn't matter. It's enough to be on a team, even if it's with a bunch of strangers, because you're connected to that team by sharing a unique spectacle. And glitches give you unique spectacles just by being there.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtnZFK7p1Bmq1UeMKvdxlzlmO9mH101CK1vij0PZEP2YvUQ7W7chOJ3iXPYTs3n_IX1YEPZNEkR222i4mQqHo-oK86Ke4wOfQCqoFNcytJEDFK_HUp6RNsQcwXp4o7yU1fdxZWr6x-EaJ/s1600/31838279048_4029a2c396_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtnZFK7p1Bmq1UeMKvdxlzlmO9mH101CK1vij0PZEP2YvUQ7W7chOJ3iXPYTs3n_IX1YEPZNEkR222i4mQqHo-oK86Ke4wOfQCqoFNcytJEDFK_HUp6RNsQcwXp4o7yU1fdxZWr6x-EaJ/s400/31838279048_4029a2c396_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The audience at <i>PLAY18</i> in Hamburg</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
To make <i>The Scrambled Eggman Show</i> I needed to accept that maybe it would not fit my artistic message - of physicality and mass involvement - so that it could find a voice of its own. I needed to accept betraying the same message I’ve been preaching for the past four years.<br />
<br />
And maybe that’s all in the true spirit of <i>The Scrambled Eggman Show</i>.<br />
<br />
I made a show that rejected the idea of video games as perfect finished objects.<br />
<br />
In doing so I learnt to stop looking at my own creative ethos as a perfect finished object.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-8889529044720489812020-07-29T15:24:00.004+01:002020-07-29T15:24:43.823+01:00Interview on So Many Bits PodcastA few weeks ago I was interviewed by Bill Nielsen of the <a href="https://www.nerdologues.com/podcasts/so-many-bits">So Many Bits</a> podcast.<br />
<br />
It was a really fun interview to do and it was great to be able to talk about my work and my perspectives in-depth. I talk about <i><a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/thebookritual.html">The Book Ritual</a></i>, and how destroying books works as a way to get players to engage with difficult emotions. I also talk about <a href="https://playable.show/">my shows</a>, their origins in improv, and whether competitive play pushes audiences away or draws them in.<br />
<br />
The interview can be downloaded from here: <a href="https://www.nerdologues.com/podcasts/so-many-bits/episodes/244-book-ritual-w-alistair-aitcheson">https://www.nerdologues.com/podcasts/so-many-bits/episodes/244-book-ritual-w-alistair-aitcheson</a><br />
<br />
Or, of course, look for <i>So Many Bits</i> on your favourite podcast app. I'm in Episode 244 and the interview's at the 39:55 mark.Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-40579134611898098992020-05-01T17:10:00.004+01:002020-05-01T17:11:05.104+01:00Counting to One MillionWhat is the value of counting to one million? As in, if one person were to count all the way to one million, and you put a dollar value on them doing that, what would that dollar value be?<br />
<br />
Counting to one million a totally pointless act. Nothing is gained by having someone count to one million.<br />
<br />
So the answer is zero dollars, right? But then, a lot of work goes into counting to one million. Surely that work has to be worth something.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, we need not speculate. In 2007 <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20071012025641/http://millioncount.com:80/blog.aspx?id=114">a man named Jeremy Harper counted to one million</a>. He counted for 16 hours every day for 89 days. He live-streamed the whole thing.<br />
<br />
I’ve been thinking about the value of pointless acts. About things like counting to a million: what their value is and why we do them.<br />
<br />
I was looking back over the work I’d produced over the last year, planning to document the pieces I’d not written up, and realised this was a pretty consistent thread through all of them: pointless acts done simply to see what would happen if I did them.<br />
<br />
Games that are unfeasible to play. Videos that are too long to watch. I like to see if they take on a life and meaning of their own with enough size, or enough time. I like sticking with an idea even when it’s going nowhere, simply to see what that nowhere looks like when you’re eyeball-deep in it.<br />
<br />
Here’s what I’ve been up to.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Hourglasses</span></h2>
<br />
A combination with my fascination with futile acts and a sense of being lost in time culminated in this alternative-controller prototype.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vmyPouT-SQE" width="420"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Three hourglasses control a clock: one for minutes, one for tens-of-minutes, and one for hours.<br />
<br />
To add a minute to the timer, you must wait a minute before turning the minutes glass. To add a tens-of-minutes, you must wait ten minutes, and have turned the minutes glass ten times.<br />
<br />
The installation measures the amount of time that has been spent <i>paying attention to time</i>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>I made a video demonstrating<i> Hourglasses</i> in action, but didn’t really take the piece beyond this. I liked it, but there were a couple of things missing. I wanted the hourglasses to be a consistent size, to be bigger, and of a better quality as objects - in particular I didn’t like the trailing wires getting tangled up. I also wanted the clock face itself to be a physical object rather than an animation on a screen.<br />
<br />
I also wasn’t sure what I’d do with it after it was finished. Where do you exhibit something like this? Is it worth polishing it up even if I don’t know where it would go? In the end, I decided to put this one on ice until I had good answers for these questions.<br />
<br />
But it got me thinking about video as a way to exhibit experiments like this - for people to engage with the idea without needing to be on-location with the object. I don’t expect anyone to watch the full 90-minute video from start to finish, but the fact that it is <i>possible</i> to… well, there’s something interesting in that I wanted to explore.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Journey to Lavender Town</span></h2>
<br />
<a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2019/09/a-journey-to-lavender-town.html">I’ve written about this one in detail previously</a>, but the premise is that I took a copy of <i>Pokémon Red</i> for Game Boy, and had the emulator write random data to the cartridge while it was being played. Core to the idea was that the player’s actions would infect the cartridge with bad data. The data defining the creatures would be used to corrupt the data for other creatures, as if contagion was spreading through the digital ecosystem.<br />
<br />
I played through this modification of the game as a 27-hour long piece of video art.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="237" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jy6Wz6P-dXo" width="420"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
I liked the strange effects that started to appear as the game fell apart. In the first hour or so you’d get all these surprising effects, but over time the experience would just become slow and murky. Against a game world that is already corrupted beyond recognition any further glitches cease to be surprising.<br />
<br />
There was something beautiful, after the first few hours, about this world that had succumbed to slowness, incomprehensibility and decay.<br />
<br />
I put the video up on YouTube, and never expected anybody to watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOtJR9EV2Xcct8bsGfkvm9XUBNIqCN_6I">the entire 27-hour piece</a>. I liked imagining that you could pick out any moment from it, out of time, and it would be this weird sequence of incomprehensible sounds and images… but a sequence of sounds and images unique to you. Anyone else picking a random moment would see something different.<br />
<br />
<i>Journey to Lavender Town</i> was exhibited in full at the <a href="https://www.theoverkill.nl/">Overkill Festival</a> - of digital art, music and games - in Enschede, NL. Watching how people interacted with it prompted me to think about what it was doing and what it wasn’t doing. I say “how people interacted with it,” but the biggest problem was that they didn’t, and on reflection I can see why.<br />
<br />
If you walk past Journey to Lavender Town it will probably be doing <i>nothing</i>. A static screen of unreadable pixels with garbled noise over the top. There’s not really anything in there to stoke your curiosity, to make you stop and look. It doesn’t invite you in to explore it, figure out what’s going on, to ask you what you see in it.<br />
<br />
So what if you watch a moment unique to you? Unless you have something to talk about with someone else, a way to describe your moment and see how it’s different from theirs, and a reason to want to find out what someone else saw, does it even matter that your moment is unique?<br />
<br />
This is something I’ve tried to explore with subsequent pieces.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Pawns</span></h3>
<br />
A giant 44-by-44 chessboard with 87 pawns and one king on each side. Beyond that the rules are the same as standard chess.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC208Iu9zRUIcEfiYv7mjLG_aiLV_LOhOEAZ2_OhCMqvzB3mAYmjn7SFEHwXmDLGdueT4C1xFs3XJSXWXoqdBc10yVJs3J3PC4j_Z3vFBfL2WLSjDxUdz4vcVkjYrzAzrSgjgatcVR-zZE/s1600/pawns01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="850" data-original-width="1600" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC208Iu9zRUIcEfiYv7mjLG_aiLV_LOhOEAZ2_OhCMqvzB3mAYmjn7SFEHwXmDLGdueT4C1xFs3XJSXWXoqdBc10yVJs3J3PC4j_Z3vFBfL2WLSjDxUdz4vcVkjYrzAzrSgjgatcVR-zZE/s400/pawns01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
This was another piece trying to capture that sense of being lost in time. It also came from a sense of futility in UK politics, where I felt that those in government were <i>technically</i> adhering to the rules, but not acting in honesty or good faith.<br />
<br />
To capture that feeling I wanted to create a game that was deliberately boring and uninviting. A game where no individual piece, no individual action, is of consequence. A game which expects you to adhere to its rules but has nothing to offer in return. A game about feeling small.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_vUDJA9D218" width="420"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
To exhibit it I made a couple of video sessions with the board. One against a human opponent, and one against an internet chat room on Twitch. The human-vs-human game went as I was expecting: a long, drawn-out, obvious stalemate. However, it was surprisingly fun to bump off pawn after pawn once you’d figured out a strategy for doing so. Despite a tie-game being inevitable, it was entertaining to find our own mini-objectives and put them into practice.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="237" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G-nXU3T5zuc" width="420"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Playing against Twitch, the game took on a life of its own in an unexpected way: the pawns gained lives and backstories. Many moves were accompanied by little snippets of storyline, giving each pawn a name and a motivation for moving. “Jeremy steps one space forwards, not to go to battle but to get some eggs.” I tried to police the rules as much as possible, but given the effort the players were putting in to tell the story I felt it would be mean not to let them wreak a bit of havoc.<br />
<br />
At roughly 4 hours into the stream, Jeremy became an egg, and we collegtively figured out how the egg should move on the board. At 5 hours, the stalemate was resolved by dropping an egg on the two kings. Both survived.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="237" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2GlQ2K6Vv20" width="420"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<i>Pawns</i> was selected to be part of the <i>Now Play This</i> exhibition at Somerset House in April 2020, which was unfortunately closed due to the Covid-19 lockdown. In its stead I was invited to run another online <i>Pawns</i> session. This time I decided that the audience would play against other members of the audience, and I would merely facilitate it. Without bringing attention to the fact, I decided that I would execute any moves given by the audience, regardless of whether they were legal or not.<br />
<br />
When the audience grew wise to this, they first started cheating, but then started coming up with new moves that didn’t really fit the bounds of cheating or fairness at all: moves simply for experimentation, for storytelling, or to turn the game world upside down.<br />
<br />
The kings were replaced with unionised pawn collectives. Some pawns went into isolation to avoid the pandemic. Some pawns went to prison, and other pawns teamed up to break them out. Bits of the board got removed and replaced with equipment from other games. This collective storytelling escalated in weirdness but retained a kind of heart and a spirit of goodwill. Uncountable viewers added ideas which were incorporated into the story, and everybody got to add a little piece to this narrative.<br />
<br />
The session was documented in more detail here: <a href="https://northeastofnorth.com/twitch-plays-pawns/">https://northeastofnorth.com/twitch-plays-pawns/</a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBpmRDmaN0Jj09cP1H2IixSb1wtrhzB2usm1rOLEnfuKXb9a_ymazLNfB6xr3dLPtW1Zua1BpyAL4uuO48ROq9XB4X1zjcSyM7hrE7ldTyaQ20svEuXN4WDwzbwp-GMsd_H0ebzxmneIn/s1600/IMG_20200405_162425.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBpmRDmaN0Jj09cP1H2IixSb1wtrhzB2usm1rOLEnfuKXb9a_ymazLNfB6xr3dLPtW1Zua1BpyAL4uuO48ROq9XB4X1zjcSyM7hrE7ldTyaQ20svEuXN4WDwzbwp-GMsd_H0ebzxmneIn/s400/IMG_20200405_162425.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The transformation of <i>Pawns</i> into this wacky storytelling world was totally unprompted, and an absolute joy to facilitate. I’m not sure where it came from, beyond the improvisational spirit of everyone saying “yes, and” to each other’s ideas. It seemed to emerge out of nowhere, and I loved it.<br />
<br />
There was this other little element that I never really considered in the moment but I see as I watch the footage back. It wasn’t just the game that was being played with; it was me, the host. The aerial view makes it feel like watching a lab rat in a Skinner box experiment, and while some audience suggestions poked at the boundaries of what could be done within the game board, others asked “what can we get away with asking <i>this guy</i> to do?”<br />
<br />
Having the rules and objectives of chess acted as a grounding that each improvised suggestion could bounce off of. Nobody needed to be scared to chip in because, if they had no ideas, they could always just type a legal chess move. Meanwhile, every unusual command, such as “drink a glass of water filled with pawns” was that much funnier because it was <i>supposed</i> to be a chess move.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyCKK3ycYMj1unYrTLVLxWOsOi7iGHzYq961es_UH8yqGR6jkqyQjsY2SqNUMB-y90ZMn16H39c4NY2FByvJUud8KU34OSDmKc_UAhoHogXRrFQ-dHNeuIEvfFKe2Zbm4cvD-sEXOlWdqz/s1600/IMG_20200405_162403.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyCKK3ycYMj1unYrTLVLxWOsOi7iGHzYq961es_UH8yqGR6jkqyQjsY2SqNUMB-y90ZMn16H39c4NY2FByvJUud8KU34OSDmKc_UAhoHogXRrFQ-dHNeuIEvfFKe2Zbm4cvD-sEXOlWdqz/s400/IMG_20200405_162403.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The hunger to explore the boundaries of what would happen was perhaps more a result of the human element than the rules of the game. The human host adds a certain unpredictability to the spectacle. “How will the guy carry out the move, if he agrees to do it at all?”<br />
<br />
I keep on thinking about how much this piece transformed based on its context. It had been po-faced and serious when it was inert, unplayed and only seen in photographs. It gained a totally new personality when handed to an audience who were free to use it as they saw fit.<br />
<br />
Perhaps this is the nature of playful art: serious or silly, it can be both. An unplayed game is just a provocation, but that provocation is still meaningful. Once it’s interacted with it becomes something new, defined by its players: a force the artist can nudge but not control.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Alice in Wonderland</span></h3>
<br />
This one’s pretty simple: I shuffled all the words in the novel <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>, but kept the punctuation in the same places. Then I had it printed as a book. I plan to do a dramatic reading of it at some point, but I haven’t got round to it.<br />
<br />
Reading it aloud I like the fact that mixing random words with the intonation in the vocabulary makes it all sound like Shakespeare. But I’m fully expecting to find something new in it once I’ve been reading nonsense continuously for several chapters!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8j_0rFzGJy0Q2jCUKGos9qSzveFNWMdJAfCdQF6l2CPem_8Toea3zgJR9cIKd9MoNcIdm2g7gpxhKywFFrNLb6BmVu4aJ62FeDcbioZp-j7IaIQfnYSM5ObV-G1SYcN4py6bNScEp7UUb/s1600/IMG_20200407_101105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8j_0rFzGJy0Q2jCUKGos9qSzveFNWMdJAfCdQF6l2CPem_8Toea3zgJR9cIKd9MoNcIdm2g7gpxhKywFFrNLb6BmVu4aJ62FeDcbioZp-j7IaIQfnYSM5ObV-G1SYcN4py6bNScEp7UUb/s400/IMG_20200407_101105.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">1001 Game Ideas</span></h2>
<br />
My plan was to come up with 1001 game ideas, in front of a camera, over the course of 8 hours. I managed 502 in 9 hours, which is still pretty good!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="237" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e_eZ7ESDXVA" width="420"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The idea came from looking back on <i>Journey to Lavender Town</i>. I liked the idea that stopping to watch for a minute would be your own personal little fragment of the spectacle, but in practice if you stopped and watched for a minute there wasn’t really anything to see. I wondered if a person talking into a camera for an unfeasibly long period of time would better capture what I was going for.<br />
<br />
If you stop and watch you should get a little fragment: the idea that you are hearing right now, which you could perhaps describe to someone else who had seen the video. That fragment is part of an ongoing narrative that is much easier to parse than the one in <i>Lavender Town</i>: how tired and delirious is the man on the camera? How will he have changed when you come back after an hour?<br />
<br />
Before filming I expected that the ideas would get increasingly repetitive and derivative as I got more tired. In reality this did not happen. I stayed very keen for these to be “good” or at least “interesting” ideas throughout. As I grew exhausted each individual idea would take longer to come out, and that goal of 1001 ideas seemed more and more impossible.<br />
<br />
My favourite moments looking back are those spent staring, with total horror, at a word that I was getting zero inspiration from.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">One Hundred Symbols</span></h3>
<br />
One hundred books, each one unique. Each book has one hundred pages, and on each page is one of one hundred symbols. Each of these symbols is rendered as a collection of smaller copies of these hundred symbols.<br />
<br />
There is one symbol that appears exactly once in the entire book.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY8PgNiC746SidDHn18iG_SFXK32p63PlVpwMriCrCejtOOmuDWa4kuod9IsXU6yALVKysfECG8kqMYQkKAK9aRMJObnhMy33DSSD7glwyS53gJBURPmPoeBHECL_UUs8h4NcKxV2Yq6-P/s1600/hundred_objects_set_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY8PgNiC746SidDHn18iG_SFXK32p63PlVpwMriCrCejtOOmuDWa4kuod9IsXU6yALVKysfECG8kqMYQkKAK9aRMJObnhMy33DSSD7glwyS53gJBURPmPoeBHECL_UUs8h4NcKxV2Yq6-P/s400/hundred_objects_set_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Computers are really good at dealing with extremely large numbers, and dealing with randomness in a way that is almost alien. If you ask a human to do something random they’ll do something within the limits of their imagination, prior influences and desires. When you ask a computer to do something random it really <i>is</i> random. That is, it follows a logic you’d never be able to follow.<br />
<br />
I liked the way digitally generating these arrangements of symbols created something that looked like an alien artefact: incomprehensible, but also like something that is <i>supposed</i> to be understood.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJB5eVJX9JrAAY04hut14QqoUzQDuMqvP9kKdEIFLZfKY2YnlS1nkjNvZLbzzi9FWbdxsAVwcNm-Mt8o7QzX8UY63PbU65qM1M0kDyda9lGJgZzyWmrrIxB29450KaDlLbNUua8YKBQ9n/s1600/hundred_objects_5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJB5eVJX9JrAAY04hut14QqoUzQDuMqvP9kKdEIFLZfKY2YnlS1nkjNvZLbzzi9FWbdxsAVwcNm-Mt8o7QzX8UY63PbU65qM1M0kDyda9lGJgZzyWmrrIxB29450KaDlLbNUua8YKBQ9n/s400/hundred_objects_5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Having one symbol in the entire book implies an objective, a game, a task: find that symbol. But the scope of the problem is so large, with far too many symbols to check through to make this even remotely doable. For a human, that is. The puzzle is there, existing in the book, and when you open it you have something you want from it beyond just looking at it. Nevertheless, this is a desire that cannot be fulfilled.<br />
<br />
As I write this I realise that it has something in common with <i>Pawns</i>: that a certain part of the experience is had not through interacting with it, but in seeing it in its motionless state and knowing how it <i>should</i> be interacted with.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEite0Ccf5qqZ4YkjC1_ilU4ZiPD5l1aAqGuXd93LvyqC00_G89QwM61LGedeuoU8dT-xj1RN8kLU-NAPFfDK6MILSlfPxWmobgDiJLOj6vTvrRxxn7IG8vYR2UkoW8hVuah7Ve5xg1gWBdM/s1600/hundred_objects_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEite0Ccf5qqZ4YkjC1_ilU4ZiPD5l1aAqGuXd93LvyqC00_G89QwM61LGedeuoU8dT-xj1RN8kLU-NAPFfDK6MILSlfPxWmobgDiJLOj6vTvrRxxn7IG8vYR2UkoW8hVuah7Ve5xg1gWBdM/s400/hundred_objects_3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Finding something in nothingness</span></h2>
<br />
So, it turns out you can put a price on counting to one million. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Harper">According to his Wikipedia page</a>, Jeremy Harper’s live-stream raised $10,000 for charity.<br />
<br />
I wonder if counting to a million would have been as valuable if the money had gone, not to charity, but to Jeremy Harper’s back pocket. I wonder how Jeremy Harper looks back on counting to one million.<br />
<br />
Did he learn something from it? How does it feel to be the guy who did it? Is that more valuable than money ever could be?<br />
<br />
Maybe it’s the whole world who benefits from his work. Now that Jeremy Harper has counted to one million none of the rest of us have to.<br />
<br />
I’m looking back on these things, pieces of work I made simply to see what would happen if I made them. Each of them did, in the end, have something to say to me. Some of them didn’t work, some were simply boring, and I learnt something from examining what didn’t click. Some of them transformed into beautiful colourful things that would never have happened if the initial proposal wasn’t so oppressively dull.<br />
<br />
Some of them taught me the value of the <i>proposal</i> to interact, even when interacting is impossible.<br />
<br />
Some of them got me one step closer to the feeling of counting to one million. Not there yet, but closer. Closer to the sheer, beautiful pointlessness of counting to one million.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-18591372721694158412019-09-17T21:26:00.001+01:002019-09-17T21:26:43.027+01:00A Journey to Lavender Town<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy6Wz6P-dXo&t=26662s">Journey To Lavender Town (2019)</a> is a 27-hour piece of video art I made earlier this year. It is footage of a game of Pokémon Red, where the game is gradually corrupted as the player plays the game.<br />
<br />
As the player’s journey through the game continues, entropy plays a bigger and bigger role. The screen becomes less readable and simple actions take longer and longer to perform.<br />
<br />
The video is below, split into four separate parts.<br />
<br />
My vision is for it to be installed at an exhibition, playing on a loop. The viewer will be able to witness a part of the journey, but no individual can feasibly witness the entire thing. Everyone who spends time watching it will see a different fragment of time.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="230" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jy6Wz6P-dXo" width="400"></iframe><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="230" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GCqCIhhqJKo" width="400"></iframe></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="230" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SemhzGW6KfE" width="400"></iframe><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="230" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ikS8tq64-8" width="400"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
<br />
This article is about how this video piece came to be.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Over the past few years I've been playing around with modifying classic game emulators in order to create strange glitchy effects. I used this the basis for some experiments with Sega Mega Drive games, <a href="https://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/03/building-glitchable-mega-drive-emulator.html">which I documented here</a>, and as the bases of <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/eggmanshow.html">a new live show</a>.<br />
<br />
I really like the effects that get created. There's something about taking something that is supposed to be a finished object, and transforming it into a brand new experience, that fascinates me. As part of a recent experiment I modified a Game Boy emulator so that it could write random data to the device’s ROM and RAM while a game was running.<br />
<br />
I knew there was an expressive use for this that I wanted to tap into. Finding joy in breaking something felt rich with potential.<br />
<br />
The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Red_and_Blue">original Pokémon games</a> in particular struck me as artistically interesting. These games emulate a living breathing world with its own flora and fauna. I liked imagining that this was an ecosystem that could be changed in the same way as the real world. How would the world of Pokémon be affected by environmental concerns such as climate change, invasive species, and the cross-pollination with GM crops?<br />
<br />
Pokémon themselves are defined by a set of bytes representing how they are drawn on-screen and how they should act in battle: a digital DNA. So I came up with the idea of propagating the data for the player’s team of Pokémon into the data for wild Pokémon.<br />
<br />
Every Pokémon the player caught would spread genetic contagion into the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">How it works</span></h2>
<br />
When two Pokémon fight, the emulator will edit the cartridge, swapping the values for the player’s Pokémon and their opponent. These changes will not just effect that individual instance of that Pokémon, but all similar Pokémon in the game. So if a <a href="https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pikachu_(Pok%C3%A9mon)">Pikachu</a> gets changed from an electric-type to a water-type, all future Pikachu will be water-types.<br />
<br />
The emulator will periodically pluck values from the player’s Pokémon, and write them into the area of the cartridge that describes the game’s graphics. It will also pluck letters from the Pokémon’s names and write them into other instances of text in the game. Thus it is not just the DNA of the animals that gets infected, but the DNA of the world itself.<br />
<br />
I wanted to make the world transform gradually to the point where all Pokémon are the same, where the player cannot navigate the environment, and where text no longer has meaning. An amorphous sludge, which inspired the name of the first test video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shqy9Qlhh7A&t=2986s">SLUDGEBOMB</a>.<br />
<br />
Making these changes had unintended consequences. In particular - and here's where it gets super-technical - each line of dialogue programmed into in the game ends with a byte of value 50. The game is programmed to interpret 50 as a cue to stop writing text to the screen. But if that number 50 was replaced, the game would continue reading through memory, through bytes that were never intended to represent text at all, until it found an instance of the number 50.<br />
<br />
When the game encountered bytes it could not interpret as letters, it would interpret them as cues to play sound effects, play music, or execute totally unpredictable commands. At one point during the playthrough, a line of dialogue was interpreted as a command to evolve all four of my Pokémon into <a href="https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Kangaskhan_(Pok%C3%A9mon)">Kangaskhan</a>.<br />
<br />
Seeing these effects in action I realised that this project wanted to be about entropy.<br />
<br />
It wasn’t just that the Pokémon world was becoming more and more amorphous. The longer you spent playing the game, the longer actions would take to perform - even the most basic ones.<br />
<br />
Playing the game for one hour was funny. But what if I played it for 24 hours? At what point would it cease to be funny and simply become alien? At what point would the viewer simply be soaking up the sights as the world collapses?<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Recording the Journey</span></h2>
<br />
Playing through the game was, obviously, done in stages. 24 hours is a long time to spend in front of a screen! I would play <i>Pokémon Red</i> for sessions of about 2 to 3 hours, recording the screen as I went.<br />
<br />
Every time the game was corrupted in some way, my modified emulator would log the change that had been made in a file. This meant I could switch off the emulator and come back to it again in the same corrupted state. The emulator would simply read the list of changes from the log file, and edit the cartridge so it matched the state I left it in.<br />
<br />
Sometimes the game would become too corrupted to play at all. Sometimes a specific line of dialogue would crash the game. Sometimes the game appeared to get into a loop where it would play the same sound effect over and over and, after listening for 10 or 15 minutes I'd convince myself it wouldn't stop. At these points I could go and explore another part of the world, and hope that when I came back to the problem area the offending byte would have been overwritten.<br />
<br />
Occasionally, however, it did seem that these game-breaking glitches would be insurmountable. In these cases I would do a bit of detective work to find out which area of the cartridge was causing the issue, and delete the changes made to that area in my log file.<br />
<br />
There is part of me that worried that that was going against the integrity of the piece - rather that letting the system do what it did organically, I came in and righted it through human interference, so it would make a better video.<br />
<br />
But as I thought about it I realised that this whole piece was created by human interference. Human interference was in my choice to make the corruption mechanisms in the first place. Human interference was in my choice of which areas of the cartridge should be corrupted and which areas of the cartridge should be left untouched.<br />
<br />
To deny that this piece was steeped in human interference would be disingenuous.<br />
<br />
The system I was filming was not a naturally-occurring microcosm decaying on its own accord. It was a human-created system: a game created specifically to be interesting to human players. To right it when it fell over, so that its collapse into entropy could go on for longer, felt entirely congruent with the reality of the piece.<br />
<br />
To imagine the Pokémon world as a living ecosystem is itself an illusion.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Creating the Still Life</span></h2>
<br />
In the final hours of the playthrough I’d already started to think about how I wanted to present the video as a piece, and how I wanted it to resemble a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanitas">Vanitas</a> still life.<br />
<br />
Earlier this year I read <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/301539/the-order-of-time/9780141984964">The Order of Time</a> by Carlo Rovelli. A non-fiction book about the science and philosophy behind time. Rovelli posits that the direction we perceive time flowing in is the direction in which entropy increases. We see time, he says, flowing towards death: to the end of our worldly experience. Were it not for our mortality, time would not matter to us.<br />
<br />
I was making a piece about entropy, about decay, and - at over 24 hours - quite clearly about time. It was natural that the journey should end at the Pokémon graveyard: in <a href="https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lavender_Town">Lavender Town</a>.<br />
<br />
Time. Entropy. Mortality. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanitas">Vanitas</a> painters would paint still lives that included rotting fruit as a reminder that life is fleeting. I had created a piece of video where fruit could visibly decay in the time it takes to get from the start to the end. It made sense that the environment in which the video was displayed should itself change over time. Thus I re-recorded the footage as part of a real-world still life. The objects in this still life would change between the start of filming and the end.<br />
<br />
Again, there is an element of human artifice in the video itself. I could film for multiple hours at a time, but I also needed to go to sleep and go to work. So it was filmed across several days. Wait for the right moment and you will see sudden - perhaps even dramatic - changes in the details. As these time jumps became necessity I realised they gave the video, in the face of its morbid overtones, a positive outlook.<br />
<br />
Yes, it can be read as gloomy: a recognition that our worldly commitments prevent us from engaging with the more difficult questions of life and the universe. But at one point I stopped filming, not because of work or sleep or other necessities, but simply because it was a sunny day.<br />
<br />
I went for a walk and enjoyed the sunshine.<br />
<br />
I think it is important to contemplate the heat death of the universe and environmental catastrophe, in order to appreciate the world and make it better. But I also believe that to appreciate life we need to live it, and if that as message has found itself in the artwork then that is something I am happy to see there.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, however, what I am speaking to here is not the reality of what the piece means. What I am talking about is how it spoke to me during the process of making it.<br />
<br />
The reality of the piece is how you, the viewer, experience it. Whether you encounter it at an exhibition, or through the medium of YouTube. Whether you experience it without reading this blog post, and come at it with my interpretation in your mind, or if you come at it entirely on your own.<br />
<br />
I hope you find in it something that connects with you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<hr />
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-6551914859186266822019-08-04T18:26:00.013+01:002021-12-17T13:14:15.265+00:00Pebbles in a Jar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It’s been just over a year now since I first exhibited<i> <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/thebookritual.html">The Book Ritual</a></i>. After multiple tweaks and changes I’m happy to say that it’s reached a point where I think it’s complete. <i>The Book Ritual</i>, at <a href="https://agaitcheson.itch.io/the-book-ritual">version 1.3.1</a>, with the custom-modified shredder living in a real-world environment and piles of paper shreds mounting over several days, is the game it always needed to be.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFIkBkLC_WJgPBi1wRpJ6JN82Yqjx4L8vbRlZlIP1UR1RUDi1giOI42a3lZrY1iK29mUkizfnu2FYr0hPZv9K2pzbN5iT1kjTSUOK9R5sn8nf6GCSi0PKaHADdbbHk6CchmyOxG917f1E/s1600/tbr_amaze_19_1-2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFIkBkLC_WJgPBi1wRpJ6JN82Yqjx4L8vbRlZlIP1UR1RUDi1giOI42a3lZrY1iK29mUkizfnu2FYr0hPZv9K2pzbN5iT1kjTSUOK9R5sn8nf6GCSi0PKaHADdbbHk6CchmyOxG917f1E/s400/tbr_amaze_19_1-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Book Ritual</i> on exhibition at A MAZE 2019 </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It’s been an exciting year. It was part of the <i>Leftfield Collection</i> at EGX, and then was nominated for the <i>Most Creative Game Award</i> at <a href="https://play18.playfestival.de/en/">PLAY18</a>. In 2019 I took it to GDC, where it was one of the six nominees for the <a href="https://www.gdconf.com/alt.ctrl.gdc">Alt.Ctrl.GDC award</a>, and then to <a href="https://2019.award.amaze-berlin.de/games/honorable-mentions">A MAZE in Berlin</a> where it was selected as an <i>Honourable Mention</i>. The Shredder adopted the name Shredward, despite not being given a name the text itself. I played around in mountains of paper and I made myself a T-shirt from pictures of the old shreds.<br />
<br />
<i>The Book Ritual</i> is a game that I made for myself. From its conception I knew I was not making something that could be sold, and I was not making something that would make sense to hire for parties. It was a game I needed to make because it said things I needed to say.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Creating The Book Ritual</span></h2>
<br />
<i>The Book Ritual</i> is an installation played with a real book and a real shredder. The player chooses a book and it is personified on the screen. This book asks them questions about their lives, and also has a story of its own to tell. At various points in the story the book asks the player to tear out a page and put it through the shredder. Inside the shredder are infra-red sensors that detect when paper is being fed through it. The story won’t continue until the player destroys a page.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="“281”" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MZ3qGdS_8Q8" width="“500”"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
It is a story about grief and loss, and coming to terms with the fact that loss is inevitable. It is about accepting that our memories and our connections will fade and lose their meaning over time. I like to hope it is about finding strength and new meaning in the face of sadness.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUyEJryhlyR7tJiUrayWL5vBBPJwCC0-0d84wcTWglj-TNoK946TTUfKOnvsaGDzPqKGfgQ8Hm5NgcnqFjj1J0j4VXqR4Q0OK4c2gQZa5RbJBu06I8VXChhGFblog_S5IkBqDVtdrPetm7/s1600/tbr_screenshot_3.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUyEJryhlyR7tJiUrayWL5vBBPJwCC0-0d84wcTWglj-TNoK946TTUfKOnvsaGDzPqKGfgQ8Hm5NgcnqFjj1J0j4VXqR4Q0OK4c2gQZa5RbJBu06I8VXChhGFblog_S5IkBqDVtdrPetm7/s400/tbr_screenshot_3.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot from the current version of <i>The Book Ritual</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>The Book Ritual</i> was motivated by my own personal experiences. After a difficult event where a close friend nearly lost their life, I was filled guilt and anxiety that I struggled to put into words. What would have happened if I’d done things differently? Had I helped too little or interfered too much? How do we find acceptance of the fact that our connections to those we love are fleeting? When is it okay to let go? When is it dangerous to hold on? How do we find hope when loss is unavoidable?<br />
<br />
I could not find the words to express the heart of what was getting to me. Games were a potential way to say what words could not. Performing my shows had <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-incredible-playable-show-everything.html">taught me a lot about connecting to people</a>. Making games like <i>Codex Bash</i> had shown me how <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-only-reality-that-matters.html">objects take on new meanings</a> when we use them for play. Perhaps this was the vocabulary I could use to express the un-expressible.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb2Ru4MpzKhPIC7KP8VabEjbeYFs1LGIqAg2COKenrKD-7Tew60_4gqmxSurN-otpv2doOf34Rwn4B0lX0si7WijRnUKCwfhbqAYTTsuHlMKIBws7IIKtyw1vIa62AntbxxHkAb82WMquj/s1600/Screenshot+2019-08-04+at+14.35.20+no+border.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="895" data-original-width="1600" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb2Ru4MpzKhPIC7KP8VabEjbeYFs1LGIqAg2COKenrKD-7Tew60_4gqmxSurN-otpv2doOf34Rwn4B0lX0si7WijRnUKCwfhbqAYTTsuHlMKIBws7IIKtyw1vIa62AntbxxHkAb82WMquj/s400/Screenshot+2019-08-04+at+14.35.20+no+border.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The player, as a white cube, navigates the Underworld in The Black Book prototype</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The first idea was called <i>The Black Book</i>. Based on the story of Orpheus in the Underworld, the player navigated a world depicted entirely through black and white cubes. Dialogue and descriptions were delivered as reference numbers, which the player would need to look up in a physical book: the Black Book of the title, bound in a jet-black cover akin to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Note">Death Note</a>.<br />
<br />
Whenever characters asked for payment they would ask for it in the form of pages from your Black Book. The player would be asked to choose a page to tear out of the book in the real world.<br />
<br />
I liked the idea of an object that would be permanently destroyed, but as I developed the game its issues became obvious. The first was that because the pages of the book had a functional value the player’s focus would be on which pages were safest to remove. I wanted their attention to be on the emotional meaning of destroying this object, not on the strategic implications of the lost page.<br />
<br />
The second issue was that populating this world - building the text, creating the scenes and event triggers - was a massive amount of work that had very little to do with what I was trying to convey. I was making a piece of work to explore the meaning of loss, and the vocabulary I knew was one of physical objects and playfulness. My creative focus in this design would instead be on allegorical world-building. I would be concentrating entirely on the page and behind the screen. I could tell it was not the vocabulary I was looking for.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghCFqSl9Aea6HOBs5a5J3eGd6X6lfYPB-q3ohjfRNL_52JSb_ZLbqSqilYCjdunKJ24qjfmL45MPhWNEhKgL8dmms8L77DFpee46GvsLtMh1XJRbmhvS_ktB4ezRJmH13S6aQeDhh94_D4/s1600/evidence+room+pixellated.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="1600" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghCFqSl9Aea6HOBs5a5J3eGd6X6lfYPB-q3ohjfRNL_52JSb_ZLbqSqilYCjdunKJ24qjfmL45MPhWNEhKgL8dmms8L77DFpee46GvsLtMh1XJRbmhvS_ktB4ezRJmH13S6aQeDhh94_D4/s400/evidence+room+pixellated.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Detail from the <i>Evidence Room</i> prototype, with identifiable details pixellated</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The second prototype never had a name, but I refer to it as the <i>Evidence Room</i> prototype. Six players would sit in a circle, each with a tablet in hand. At the beginning they would all be listening to a story being recounted as audio. One by one the players would need to nominate themselves to go to the evidence room - that is, their audio would be stopped and they would see a screen of artefacts from the story. Attached to these artefacts were diary entries, written by another character in the story. The contents of the diaries would shine a light on how culpable the narrator was in its tragic outcome.<br />
<br />
It was a prototype that dealt very closely and very vividly with the theme of guilt. No player could hear the whole story or read all of the diaries, so they would only ever have a limited view on what happened. It attempted to capture the feeling of not knowing whether or not you had made the right choices, and needing to accept this as a question that could never be answered.<br />
<br />
The problem with this prototype was that it felt dictatorial. I wanted the players to listen to what I had to say, and read what I had to write, but there was no moment within the experience where the players could express <i>themselves</i>. There was no freedom for the player to respond to what I was proposing. It felt one-sided, harsh and unkind. It did not feel like a game that was grateful for the players giving it their time.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
From Prototypes to Final Concept</span></h2>
<br />
After reflecting I started to ask how I could take the things I’d liked from both of these prototypes and pull them together. I liked the process of tearing apart a book. The feeling of this book getting slimmer in your hands mirrored the feeling of seeing someone gradually slip away. Knowing that you were an active participant in this act of vandalism captured a feeling of guilt. Meanwhile I liked how the <i>Evidence Room</i>'s narrator, speaking directly to the player, could get straight to the point. If there was a context I needed to set up I could simply have the narrator say it.<br />
<br />
What would <i>The Black Book</i> look like if there was no more world to explore, and if it worked with any book the player plucked from their bookshelf?<br />
<br />
Then came a challenge: I wanted players to feel the emotional sting of destroying a book, but this book - now just any book from your shelf - no longer has a function. Why would tearing this book apart matter? After all, if I ask players to choose their own book, won’t they naturally choose one they don’t mind tearing apart?<br />
<br />
The answer lay with <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-god-in-machine.html">ELIZA</a>, an AI psychotherapist from 1966.<br />
<br />
The story, ever since I heard it in the documentary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_(TV_series)">All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace</a>, has always fascinated me. It was developed as a parody, to show the conceptual limitations of artificial intelligence. Users would sit down at a terminal and have a typed-out conversation with the AI chat-bot, who would begin by asking them how they were. From then on it would parrot everything the user typed back in the form of a question, as in the video below.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="“225”" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CJWOOTMt4ko" width="“400”"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
Users reported having deep and meaningful conversations with ELIZA that lasted for hours. But when asked if they knew they were talking to a computer none of them were fooled. Users could tell exactly how it worked, and how limited it was, but in spite of this they would come away feeling like they had got what they needed to off of their chest. They felt that they had grown from the experience.<br />
<br />
It didn’t matter that the machine had no idea what they were saying. It mattered that the users could <i>make believe</i> that it could.<br />
<br />
Make-believe allows us to road-test opinions and perspectives in a safe environment. This is what makes games and play powerful. We can have genuine growth experiences through make-believe. These experiences are important and meaningful <i>because</i> we want them to be important and meaningful.<br />
<br />
The story of ELIZA has always stuck with me. In this instance it gave me the answers I needed. I wanted to use the experience of tearing up a book as a way to make-believe losing something, but to do this I needed to give the player a way to make-believe that that book matters.<br />
<br />
I could turn the book into a character who the player can pretend, just like ELIZA, has the power to listen. The book itself became the narrator, personified on-screen and in conversation with you, the player.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLzjTzk8_J3nrIh5wC_1aEyU9K8vLEdw_67v6G4kYhiaTCmZtjE1YbkDbHYSnJ3D_QOh40pADF3rgVfEz92AEskUI2OHt3KQpMxSHtSBdIBOye1wpMTnEhZ4Ec0nhcdm-UvsB_elUteU4/s1600/Screenshot+2019-08-04+at+14.51.53.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1600" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLzjTzk8_J3nrIh5wC_1aEyU9K8vLEdw_67v6G4kYhiaTCmZtjE1YbkDbHYSnJ3D_QOh40pADF3rgVfEz92AEskUI2OHt3KQpMxSHtSBdIBOye1wpMTnEhZ4Ec0nhcdm-UvsB_elUteU4/s400/Screenshot+2019-08-04+at+14.51.53.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early build of <i>The Book Ritual</i> where the book addresses the player directly via text on the screen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
If the book in your hand spoke like a person, and if that person wanted to be your friend, then you can make-believe that this little paper object <i>is</i> your friend. So I could build up the relationship between book and player by asking the player personal questions and getting them to write inside the book like a diary. I could get them to do creativity exercises in this book, so this book became a safe and private repository of little personal acts of play.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I could reframe the things I was struggling to say in real life as questions posed by the book: questions that the player could give an answer to.<br />
<br />
If I voiced the anxieties I had through the character of this book - and had the players write inside the book about times they’ve felt the same way, or write their objections to how it sees the world - then I express what I need to express in a way that invites the player in.<br />
<br />
The story is no longer just about me. It’s about you. This felt much warmer and kinder than what had come before.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Enter the Shredder</span></h2>
<br />
A real live shredder made sense as a recurring interaction. I was already asking the player to do a lot on trust. That is, to make believe that the book was a person, and to do creativity exercises, they had to play along with my requests and <i>trust</i> that they pay off.<br />
<br />
There needed to be something inescapable. Something where you don’t have to ask yourself “why am I doing this?” Something you do purely because the game won’t advance unless you do it, so you never have to justify it: you do it because you have to. The game needed some forced action for the voluntary actions to sit in contrast to.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdWN7Udh0QGWGwZ3Vwa4t9P1DiWQsedZAi0xz1ba7ViAVz1e32aimp73PXeZJJ4vgMKct5Ms1RDeyFcVE5XlfCqsl5zKy_0Ah02zFCyvXML02a2bYk7WwYmgNnC3di2bL9NzfCPloN4je7/s1600/IMG_20181102_202358.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdWN7Udh0QGWGwZ3Vwa4t9P1DiWQsedZAi0xz1ba7ViAVz1e32aimp73PXeZJJ4vgMKct5Ms1RDeyFcVE5XlfCqsl5zKy_0Ah02zFCyvXML02a2bYk7WwYmgNnC3di2bL9NzfCPloN4je7/s400/IMG_20181102_202358.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shredding pages is loud and irreversible</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Shredding a page was loud, slow, and irreversible. It became the percussion punctuating the piece, growing more frequent and unyielding when the book, as a character, got more emotional.<br />
<br />
In the first builds of the game the book was depicted simply as text on a screen. I did this because I wanted the player to imagine the book in their hands was what was talking, but in honesty it felt more like the monitor was talking. This changed when I added eyes to the shredder. It was my brother’s suggestion - after all, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg">eyes make everything better</a>!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhejtVj9h8m5MBXvyDjEn6Z1auKxlgxf31z6KsqiDSBbswcfOqq5i6rtoDv6YiwuphS1NbK11jlyvdUtSRIiEr7Rx2HPHjhSXURimXE8zn9ggDKxUf5egB0PChsjlNv_Olw6NBD_Je2xoDr/s1600/IMG_20180423_134116.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhejtVj9h8m5MBXvyDjEn6Z1auKxlgxf31z6KsqiDSBbswcfOqq5i6rtoDv6YiwuphS1NbK11jlyvdUtSRIiEr7Rx2HPHjhSXURimXE8zn9ggDKxUf5egB0PChsjlNv_Olw6NBD_Je2xoDr/s400/IMG_20180423_134116.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original Shredward, who is one of two Shredwards I take to exhibitions</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Once the shredder had eyes it felt wrong not to have the shredder be a character in the dialogue. Then the book and the shredder both got on-screen avatars, so you could tell who was talking. It was much easier to give them personalities now they had faces. The book took on the personality of my inner child: naive, silly, playful, worried, curious, stubborn and anxious. The shredder, meanwhile, took on the personality of the grown-up I wish I could be: grounded, measured and comforting.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwKpELEvqB98XZ173uQQ7TVmzc42GITjgW-WLSjh7iNdy9V55Mi1py3xQdc2y_dhxW7tbOjyaSvFH58CDI_2s5fW6dBxsYS0ZuLvhyRxVsZgaXwhtEqKbvLZC64hKY2zcc1viKj85wlsRD/s1600/tbr_screenshot_4.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwKpELEvqB98XZ173uQQ7TVmzc42GITjgW-WLSjh7iNdy9V55Mi1py3xQdc2y_dhxW7tbOjyaSvFH58CDI_2s5fW6dBxsYS0ZuLvhyRxVsZgaXwhtEqKbvLZC64hKY2zcc1viKj85wlsRD/s400/tbr_screenshot_4.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When the book got an on-screen avatar it became easier to connect with as a character</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
From there the game became largely what it is today. There’s been minor tweaks, user experience improvements for the installation build, changes to the text, but ultimately that formed the core of what <i>The Book Ritual</i> became.<br />
<br />
And I realise why I take a selfie with Shredward everywhere we go.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36S2XjhmQnNVSbC760zWKy2LXN_ma7TSEYMIBn-ZJ7eilcN6dJ3-DTEUl6ULbnuJ34u7xWIIosyDTPLPRs7l3RVZEidWw_rJohnwavAG3B38Z8ennQ3OxtcL9rNR1A2atdBqEsPPtXwxy/s1600/IMG_20190414_103040.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj36S2XjhmQnNVSbC760zWKy2LXN_ma7TSEYMIBn-ZJ7eilcN6dJ3-DTEUl6ULbnuJ34u7xWIIosyDTPLPRs7l3RVZEidWw_rJohnwavAG3B38Z8ennQ3OxtcL9rNR1A2atdBqEsPPtXwxy/s400/IMG_20190414_103040.jpg" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The artist and his book-eating buddy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Selfies with Shredward</span></h2>
<br />
Exhibitions always end with a big pile of shreds to play in, and to me that’s kinda magical. This is a game filled with joy. Even though its roots are in sadness, what it has to say is joyful. At the end of the experience the player holds in their hands an object that has grown into something more meaningful than it was before.<br />
<br />
Some players take their book home with them. Some books, once destined to be thrown away, now sit atop mantlepieces.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tSaI1w9ByfYYzpp7bs9gnTR7uf-FzMXG43pGKtr5OykNRs3vNpA_fi8vwH2nUpRWwvxhpnfnLxH1_1OJv6v0Gj-IIXHhRon6jUiyEGlQ2sSaCON9TLrdmJSlaWfQpGUJTwicqfPUpxl9/s1600/gdc+shred+pile.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="938" data-original-width="1568" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1tSaI1w9ByfYYzpp7bs9gnTR7uf-FzMXG43pGKtr5OykNRs3vNpA_fi8vwH2nUpRWwvxhpnfnLxH1_1OJv6v0Gj-IIXHhRon6jUiyEGlQ2sSaCON9TLrdmJSlaWfQpGUJTwicqfPUpxl9/s400/gdc+shred+pile.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hiding in the shreds at the end of GDC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The shreds that are left behind are the footprints of hundreds of people who’ve had some emotional experience, and then moved on leaving the play-space different for the next person. Every player changes it for the next player. Nobody knows what it looked like before they were there or after they left. And written on those shreds, though you will never be able to read them, are people’s memories, stories, drawings and poems. Every player who leaves shreds behind leaves the space more meaningful, more special, for the players that follow.<br />
<br />
And at my side, through all of these experiences, is Shredward. The grounded voice I wish I could have. The comforting voice I needed to hear.<br />
<br />
This is a voice that I had inside me all along. Turned into a character, embodied, externalised, travelling with me to those nervous first exhibitions. At my side is my lens I can use to observe, with warmth and openness, that which terrifies me.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Pebbles in a Jar</span></h2>
<br />
I was<a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/this-game-destroys-real-books-to-help-players-cope-with-grief/"> asked in an interview</a> if I’d found the acceptance I was looking for. Acceptance, of course, being generally the final step in models of grief. My answer was that I wasn’t sure. It’s too hard to say.<br />
<br />
The anxieties that prompted <i>The Book Ritual</i> are still with me. On good days I can keep them in perspective and on bad days they can bring me down. My response was that acceptance is not a thing you either have or you don’t. It’s more like pebbles in a jar.<br />
<br />
Imagine you have a jar, and that's you, and you can put pebbles in that jar, each one representing a little step towards acceptance. You might have lots of pebbles, you might have few, but there’s no individual pebble that makes the jar full.<br />
<br />
Sometimes you get a pebble from seeing the right film, or reading the right book. Sometimes you get a pebble by going for a long walk. Sometimes you get a pebble and you know it in the moment. Sometimes you look back and you realise you got a pebble but you don’t know when you got it. Looking back, I think making <i>The Book Ritual</i> gave me a few of those pebbles.<br />
<br />
One thing <i>The Book Ritual</i> did was allow me to give my anxieties a voice. And when I heard those anxieties in the voice of another person, this vulnerable little book, I was able to show it a level of compassion that I was not able to show myself. Seeing my anxieties in that way it was easier to see them as worthy of compassion.<br />
<br />
Similarly - and I only see this as I look on it as a finished piece - the game itself presents compassion in the way it interacts with you. It asks you about your feelings. It doesn’t push you to share more than you are comfortable with. It reminds you that you can skip a chapter if you feel uneasy. It’s a game that listens. It wants to hear what you have to say, and as a creator as I was at pains to make you feel like your input has value <i>even if</i> the computer can’t actually hear you. In my darkest moments I lose faith in my ability to be compassionate. In brighter times I can look back and see that these choices came out of me just being the way I am.<br />
<br />
Which leads me to… well, I don’t know. Presumably this story - the creation of <i>The Book Ritual</i> - needs to end with some kind of conclusion. A single all-encompassing idea about what games are, and what games can be. Is it a lesson about compassion, or about persisting through failure, or a call-to-arms about games that listen? None of these really feel like what <i>the thing that I learnt</i> from making <i>The Book Ritual</i>.<br />
<br />
As I reflect I don’t think I need have found a conclusive lesson in this process.<br />
<br />
Maybe it’s okay for what I learnt from <i>The Book Ritual</i> to be lots of little ideas, accumulating gradually over time.<br />
<br />
Maybe I’ll never notice what it is I learnt until I look back, further down the line.<br />
<br />
Maybe it’s all just pebbles in a jar.<br />
<br />
<hr />
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-26165422757391105682019-05-27T22:20:00.001+01:002019-05-27T22:20:18.584+01:00Why is the Ocarina of Time Randomiser an Engaging Experience?Over the last week I’ve been playing the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Ocarina_of_Time">Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time</a> </i>for the Nintendo 64. It’s a game I’ve played several times before, but this time was a little different. This time I was playing a custom mod of the game: the <a href="https://ootrandomizer.com/">Ocarina of Time Randomiser</a>.<br />
<br />
Developed by the <i>Zelda</i> speedrunning community, the Randomiser is an online tool which takes a ROM of <i>Ocarina of Time</i>, and patches it to create a new adventure. In particular it takes every key item - every item found in a shop, or a chest, sold by a scrub, taught as a song, or in some way permanently collectable - and swaps them around. So important items like the titular Ocarina of Time might be sold for 10 rupees in a shop, while the big golden chest that would usually contain an essential item might now contain a single Deku stick.<br />
<br />
Additionally the background music in each area, as well as assorted colours, are randomised to make an even more surprising experience.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHk8p95KTNXu7921L65MyRuDggxC5Nee_eDp455pbJfN9Ux0CKEuMUfClK19PW4fCkKCKsbFgXAm4MNxr_0nxzaDA8F_WR3F_IwBma9lnJrmM1a2A3mgQWI2PvDLYI3GsssbRrupDveJVb/s1600/link+orange+tunic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1322" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHk8p95KTNXu7921L65MyRuDggxC5Nee_eDp455pbJfN9Ux0CKEuMUfClK19PW4fCkKCKsbFgXAm4MNxr_0nxzaDA8F_WR3F_IwBma9lnJrmM1a2A3mgQWI2PvDLYI3GsssbRrupDveJVb/s320/link+orange+tunic.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Link checks out his dapper new orange tunic</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A checking algorithm is run to make sure that the game can definitely be beaten, and the player begins the game from Link’s house and figures out the rest from there. In case you get stuck, the randomiser also generates a “spoiler log”: a list of all items and where they’re hidden.<br />
<br />
Speedrunning, <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/03/building-glitchable-mega-drive-emulator.html">ROM hacking</a> and <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/07/breaking-sonic-2-marathon.html">custom controllers</a> have really captured my imagination in recent years. I love the idea that a game is not a finished object, but a starting point for totally new experiences. Watching speedrunners break <i>Ocarina of Time</i>, solving puzzles in the wrong order, abusing the mechanics to get where they shouldn’t be able to, has always fascinated me.<br />
<br />
Having watched several runners playing the randomiser I decided to give it a go myself. Not to speedrun it, but to simply explore what I got out of the experience.<br />
<br />
In particular I wanted to ask myself: if I connect to this as a play experience, what is it that drives that connection? Why do I value it? What makes it a meaningful experience<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">What does <i>Ocarina of Time</i> already mean to me?</span></h2>
<br />
<i>The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time</i> is the first game in the <i>Zelda</i> series that I ever played, and for a long time was my favourite video game ever. But over time I’d fallen out of love with the series. Each successive game has provided diminishing returns. The formula behind its design had become too obvious.<br />
<br />
I could feel when my progress was being impeded artificially, and I resented the pace of the game slowing down to teach me things I already knew. Going through repackaged puzzles that I already knew the answers to felt laborious. Most of all, I’d lost my sense of wonder towards what these games offered.<br />
<br />
Returning to <i>Ocarina</i> nineteen years on I was reminded of the sense of wonder I felt nineteen years ago. The world of <i>Ocarina</i> opens with a hidden forest where children never grow up, talking trees, tiny fairy guardians and wise old owls. The theme of the world is <i>fairytale</i>, and the player’s path reflects a journey into adulthood. You leave the safe boundaries of the forest and run out into a big wide open world. The emotions being stirred up are emotions of wonder. Wonder is at the heart of this game<br />
<br />
When you first play a game in an unfamiliar genre it seems wild and open with possibilities. You don’t know exactly how much the game is going to offer up to you, and how much of the world is off-limits because it simply hasn’t been created. So everything you can think of is <i>potentially</i> in the game. Additionally, anything <i>does</i> present will probably not have been something you thought up. The game is rich and exciting because your mental model of the game is bigger than the contents of the cartridge.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FetvfLKHNRLIWlnoAeIw2w4s8LAPLAYrjfFQJi1MjGxxhnJWxQgOJYgIluKODuvYFUwJwPDOzY18l3XmY0IGUAuVJc0SFxqFHY1oMeADWjU6-AmxP8clg8ozdvX1z-matnbLMqGFzbpg/s1600/oot+map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="976" data-original-width="1326" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4FetvfLKHNRLIWlnoAeIw2w4s8LAPLAYrjfFQJi1MjGxxhnJWxQgOJYgIluKODuvYFUwJwPDOzY18l3XmY0IGUAuVJc0SFxqFHY1oMeADWjU6-AmxP8clg8ozdvX1z-matnbLMqGFzbpg/s320/oot+map.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The unfamiliar player has no basis for how large the world <i>actually</i> is - just how large it's presented to be</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
With familiarity comes expectations. Familiarity exposes repeated ideas, and reveals where the designer’s hand has put up limits. When the familiar player is given a wide array of possible directions they know there’s only one direction that will actually lead to progress. Because that’s the way it was last time.<br />
<br />
The wide range of what the game could be no longer defines the player’s mental model. Their mental model is now based on how the last game turned out to be. This model is smaller than it would have been otherwise.<br />
<br />
It’s not the fault of any individual game. You simply can’t repeat this sense of wonder and adventure with the same formula. It may be disappointing as a player, but that’s simply the way of the world. The same thing can’t be new twice.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiktmmihq8BOfqqKD5gekWVfZB6YlFvhbyzL542C-viey48hsWwTe0-VGZl402vtTIpwcmikaWNslHx519I4nreLlUtQ4WNDQPwmMRzmK0bfmqer4qrRs7Igb5zZDjfkQ0p_c6welqbsBjH/s1600/zelda.original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="719" data-original-width="1279" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiktmmihq8BOfqqKD5gekWVfZB6YlFvhbyzL542C-viey48hsWwTe0-VGZl402vtTIpwcmikaWNslHx519I4nreLlUtQ4WNDQPwmMRzmK0bfmqer4qrRs7Igb5zZDjfkQ0p_c6welqbsBjH/s320/zelda.original.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild </i>on Nintendo Switch</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
However, there are two games in the <i>Zelda</i> series which - for me at least - created a sense of wonder despite me being a <i>Zelda</i> veteran. Both the original <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda">The Legend of Zelda</a></i> on NES, and the recent <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Breath_of_the_Wild">Breath of the Wild</a></i> on Nintendo Switch, drop you in a big wide open world and leave you to figure out the rest from there. Even when I was too jaded to enjoy any other games in the series, these two stood out as joyously exciting and empowering.<br />
<br />
Gone was the sense of being guided through the same hoops as before. Instead there was the a sense that my journey was my own. My survival strategies were my own. My route through the game was my own. I made my own solutions to problems that I found myself.<br />
<br />
There it was, once again: my sense of wonder.<br />
<br />
Intriguingly, playing through <i>Ocarina of Time Randomiser</i> I was struck by a sense of wonder again. It seems that you can capture that sense of wonder not just by creating something new, but also by upsetting the formula that exists within an already finished product.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">My experience with the Randomiser</span></h2>
<br />
I want to record the actual journey I took, which should give some detail to me digging into why I liked it. My hope is to talk about the experience in a way that you can follow without prior knowledge of the game, and as such skimming over this next bit will be perfectly fine if the game-specific language means nothing to you! I’ve chosen to name the specific items and locations for brevity.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgybzP_JIIqVx6pMUHRECUR9V4ly2vxMWci1CIISAy2J3Khg4RmiDJY3CAAySdeK2RbFqyXJD8kHgFEJ_PyOhpOLIhAMZkk5gz9RtwlF9cgg5jCdHDI5V2Mcj822qo0NI1ABqJG7wU-Paq8/s1600/gauntlet+rock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="982" data-original-width="1327" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgybzP_JIIqVx6pMUHRECUR9V4ly2vxMWci1CIISAy2J3Khg4RmiDJY3CAAySdeK2RbFqyXJD8kHgFEJ_PyOhpOLIhAMZkk5gz9RtwlF9cgg5jCdHDI5V2Mcj822qo0NI1ABqJG7wU-Paq8/s320/gauntlet+rock.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The player needs to find the Silver Gauntlets before Link can lift this rock</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It’s important to note that <i>Ocarina of Time</i>’s puzzles are largely built around a “lock and key” design. That is, that for most puzzles there will be a specific item that you need to solve it. For example, to blow up big rocks you need bombs. Big rocks are the lock, and bombs are the key.<br />
<br />
Typically for each key item there will be one major lock that it will allow you to open. You’ll then need to use that item again at later parts of the game, but the game is designed with the expectation that you already have that item. Getting items out-of-order upsets the designer’s expected path of progress.<br />
<br />
Feel free to skip the grey text if you like!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666;"><i>Ocarina of Time Randomiser</i> starts you in Link’s house with nothing. I spent the first 90 minutes without a sword or shield, avoiding enemies seeing as I had a very low health meter. I had to make do with a handful of support items: deku sticks and deku nuts. It was an experience much like the survival-heavy first hours of <i>Breath of the Wild</i>. Defending myself came at a cost because the player is only allowed a limited supply of these items. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666;">There were a wide range of directions to go to in that early stage, but the range of places Link can go while he has nothing are quite limited. The first challenge was to think of places that don’t need any items, and explore them. Exactly which items appeared would dictate where I’d be able to go from there, so the scope of what could appear was fairly manageable. Scope tended to swell with possibilities whenever I got a new item, before contracting again as I found where my routes were blocked until I got further items.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666;">Early on I picked up a lot of items I couldn’t use. I got adult-only items like the Megaton Hammer, Fairy Bow and Hookshot in the first few chests I opened. Starting the game as a child rendered them useless for now. I got several songs in this early phase too, but no ocarina. I knew that once I got the ocarina the possibility space would explode. Not only would I be able to use the songs but I’d also be able to transform into an adult with a great many items and, therefore, a massive range of locations I could explore. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666;">The first useful item I got was bombchus, which I bought from the Kokiri shop. This allowed me to get to Goron City through the secret route in the Lost Woods. This short-cut expects you to have bombs but bombchus also work. Using bombchus to blow away a rocky maze in Goron City I found a chest with the Kokiri Sword inside. The Kokiri Shield was being sold in the Black Market in Castle Town. At this point I knew there were two key items that would open up the game for me. The Fairy Slingshot would allow me to finish the Deku Tree, while the Fairy Ocarina would allow me to become an adult and find the secret areas revealed by playing the Song of Storms. Bombchus allowed me a lot of access to hidden grottos, but very few yielded any useful items. As I began to exhaust the possibilities of where I could explore with my current equipment - including opening every chest in Dodongo’s Cavern - I found the Slingshot behind a fragile wall on Death Mountain. This gave me all the items I needed to complete the Deku Tree, and the Ocarina was the reward for beating the boss. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666;">During the early phase of the game I’d hoovered up a lot of objects that were only usable in the adult phase of the game. Now I was Adult Link there were a massive number of areas for me to check. I could access the Forest, Water, Fire and Spirit temples, as well as take part in the various minigames and access the hidden areas that each key item opened up. Bust as I explored deeper into these dungeons I found my progress gated by how many keys I had for each temple. Eventually I secured the Lens of Truth, which allowed me to find the Adult Wallet hidden in the Bottom of the Well. This allowed me to buy the Longshot, which gave me access to a chest in Gerudo Fortress which revealed the Silver Scale. I still didn’t have Zelda’s Lullaby, which meant I couldn’t use the Great Fairy Fountains and I couldn’t get into a lot of important areas. Zora’s Domain had previously been blocked by this, but I could use the Silver Scale to get there using a secret passage. However eventually I started to exhaust the limits of where I could think to go. I needed either a key to the Forest or Fire Temple, the Hover Boots, or Zelda’s Lullaby, but I’d opened every available chest I could think of. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666;">I scoured walkthroughs to check for chests and grottos I may have missed, but eventually I gave in and looked at my spoiler log. There was a Forest Temple key hidden in a secret chest in the Bottom of the Well, which I’d sworn I’d checked. Using that key would unlock the room where Zelda’s Lullaby was hidden, thus opening up the rest of the game. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #666666;">The rest of the experience was fairly straightforward. Zelda’s Lullaby unlocked the Great Fairy Fountains, which gave me the final Gerudo Fortress key, which opened up access to the Spirit Temple and the Gerudo Training Grounds. The final phase of the game was spent criss-crossing between these two locations, plus the Fire Temple, Water Temple and Ice Cavern, as each revealed items necessary for the others. As I defeated each of the bosses I began to exhaust the possibilities, and ended up with just the Forest Temple Boss Key left to find. Frustrated by the prospect of digging through every dungeon again looking for one last clue, I decided to look at the spoiler log one more time, which revealed it to be in a room in Gerudo Training Grounds that I’d forgotten about. From there I was able to go to Ganon’s Castle for a fairly straightforward finish.</span></blockquote>
<br />
The whole experience was probably around 15 to 20 hours of gameplay but it’s hard to tell as I wasn’t keeping track!<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The flow of play</span></h2>
<br />
Where <i>Zelda</i> games had typically felt quite directed - go to this direction because there’s nothing else you can do but go in this direction - it was delightful to find myself in a world where any direction was viable. Exploring the Lost Woods was equally as likely to yield results as checking the shops in Castle Town, for example. My thought process was to prioritise areas that would give a lot of opportunities to gain items. So, an area with a lot of small chests would be more enticing than an area with one side quest. It gave the sense that the world was my own canvas, for me to <i>choose</i> the right way through it.<br />
<br />
The logic that ensured the game was solvable also meant that there was rarely so much to check that I felt out of my depth. It helped that I had a fairly strong knowledge of the game from having watched streamers playing the randomiser, and watching speedrunners doing 100% runs.<br />
<br />
The challenge for me was thus not to solve the puzzles, but to remember what areas could be opened up by the items that I had, and then to make a decision on what the most viable route would be.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVjz24dChTXBe27oPDRfOumqUwZTrjV1AuOaf3MjfgonKVwMD9zqlvQr-wxFChMqru7S5J6p9zdV6vD7lU7tPhlkjADfH73D6G94LS9O5eZK9BTp__QysfR-mrsVlfD6DrR3gWDdrMejaV/s1600/key+in+shop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="870" data-original-width="1337" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVjz24dChTXBe27oPDRfOumqUwZTrjV1AuOaf3MjfgonKVwMD9zqlvQr-wxFChMqru7S5J6p9zdV6vD7lU7tPhlkjADfH73D6G94LS9O5eZK9BTp__QysfR-mrsVlfD6DrR3gWDdrMejaV/s320/key+in+shop.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This key was necessary but I couldn't afford it until I found the Adult Wallet</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As the game opened and closed, with the items I lacked creating boundaries and bottlenecks it was obvious that the shape of the world became much more naturalistic. Getting a new item had the same kind of magic and joy that it did when I first played <i>Zelda</i>, but this time for different reasons. Originally a new item was a new toy to discover how to play with. This time it was a skeleton key that opened up a wide range of possibilities. Zelda’s Lullaby, for example, opened the door to Zora’s Domain, summoned every Great Fairy Fountain, and it let me drain away the water in Bottom of the Well. Until I’d collected the song I knew there were numerous opportunities for progress hidden behind these gates, just out of reach.<br />
<br />
It fascinates me that none of these gates were designed to be gates to progress. The shape of my path through the game was not planned, but organic.<br />
<br />
In the original game no areas that <i>require</i> Zelda’s Lullaby can be accessed until <i>after</i> you have learnt the song. So every time you use Zelda’s Lullaby to access a new area you are simply going through the motions. You perform the ritual of "use the song to open the door" because you already know that’s what you’re supposed to do.<br />
<br />
Thus, in the unmodified game, learning Zelda’s Lullaby opens up a single opportunity for progress. But in the randomiser it opens dozens. There were so many points I’d reached where I had to remind myself: “come back when I have Zelda’s Lullaby.”<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1YPZktjYJA5V-X0KFEn2HAy0pdroktJatzzOTSCj06yyV5vFoLx3_XlHFzDUgPN-z0BngFPXL-SFIXw2jvVqs5GLc7ApbLkItFpfiVdM_3ywZzCwYVNaZP2nWldvPQ7fA_2qr5GwGYrEz/s1600/zora+waterfall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="975" data-original-width="1317" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1YPZktjYJA5V-X0KFEn2HAy0pdroktJatzzOTSCj06yyV5vFoLx3_XlHFzDUgPN-z0BngFPXL-SFIXw2jvVqs5GLc7ApbLkItFpfiVdM_3ywZzCwYVNaZP2nWldvPQ7fA_2qr5GwGYrEz/s320/zora+waterfall.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Even as Adult Link I wasn't able to get inside Zora's Domain until I found Zelda's Lullaby</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I love how this turns the designers’ plans on their heads. Locks that were never designed to <i>really</i> be locks become locks, and finding out what’s behind them becomes delicious and enticing. After all, any chest could yield an essential item.<br />
<br />
<h3>
A natural environment</h3>
<br />
The randomiser turns <i>Ocarina of Time</i> into a more naturalistic experience. This organic feel is what excites me when finished games are used as a canvas for new work. Parts of the game that were never designed to be interesting become interesting when the context is changed. A random un-designed input creates moments of joy that were never intended to be there. Adding a little bit of chaos uncovers joy where there was no joy before. That joy is naturally occurring: a consequence of design decisions but not their intent.<br />
<br />
Another example of naturalism is the way certain areas become completely redundant. In my playthrough, there was no point in going to the Water Temple, except to fight the boss. The layout of the level means that, once you have the Hookshot and the Boss Key, you can get to the boss directly from the first room.<br />
<br />
Looking at the spoiler log, every single item hidden in the Water Temple was entirely optional. Where in the original game the Water Temple is an intricately designed series of puzzles, in my playthrough the Water Temple was just a building.<br />
<br />
Like exploring a shipwreck, going down into the Water Temple was a venture that could yield treasure, but could equally yield nothing but tat. This felt like <i>real</i> exploration. It made the temple feel like a real place. An environmental narrative emerged, where the chambers were just empty storerooms; a story of an abandoned building that had become filled with monsters.<br />
<br />
No real-world architect would design a building as a series of interlinked puzzles. My feeling of rummaging through the temple's depths made me feel like a trespasser. It helped that I was doing so without the Zora Tunic - the item used to breathe underwater - so exploration felt even more precarious.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkcZ2hNx0kUZ6txOqzhiJ_CJvQ6GgxzA77HSUAjx86NcpWzZ_pk9xC_EM5u2Ei_sCKI3IJWbrjaPlsAe3jnoMQcmhuO8Mni0yy2Q2Z0imJ-pUxCN8v4dgVQmh_84J1hPHcg6cI58ChVPaI/s1600/standing+underwater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1322" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkcZ2hNx0kUZ6txOqzhiJ_CJvQ6GgxzA77HSUAjx86NcpWzZ_pk9xC_EM5u2Ei_sCKI3IJWbrjaPlsAe3jnoMQcmhuO8Mni0yy2Q2Z0imJ-pUxCN8v4dgVQmh_84J1hPHcg6cI58ChVPaI/s320/standing+underwater.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Without the Zora Tunic spending too long underwater causes Link to drown</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The flow of play in <i>Ocarina of Time Randomiser</i> swells and contracts, opening out with each key item, and contracting again when you find the limits imposed by the items you still lack. These bottlenecks forced me to think hard about every nook and cranny I might have missed. It forced me to think about secret areas I may have missed, and these secret areas became less of a bonus and more of a necessary consideration.<br />
<br />
Where typically I would avoid looking at online guides, in this experience I was happy to. They weren’t written for a <i>randomised</i> playthrough after all, and they could provide inspiration for where to look next. It was still <i>me</i> who had to have the eureka moments of deciding what to look up. After all, no walkthroughs are written in terms of “what areas are opened up by the Ocarina?”<br />
<br />
Again, it’s a totally different experience to standard play. The unmodified game will either tell you where to go next, or there will be only one new area opened up by the item you just got. In the randomiser, I had to build a mental map of the world as a complex network of locks and keys. It was entirely up to me to locate the dents in its armour.<br />
<br />
Bottlenecks create new gameplay experiences that weren’t intended to be there by the designers. The bottlenecks are naturally occurring within the game they had built. I’m a massive believer in this philosophy. Magic is made half by design and half by happenstance.<br />
<br />
It’s why, when I make my own work, I like to create opportunities for unexpected things to happen, and see what I learn from them. Look at the <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/07/breaking-sonic-2-marathon.html">4-player Sonic controller</a> I worked on. Some games are beautiful new experiences when played with this controller - games designed to be fast and furious become clumsy, teamworky, and improvisational. Meanwhile other games just become tedious. Isn’t that magical?<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Why am I connecting with it?</span></h2>
<br />
So this brave new world, created half by happenstance and half by design, is delicious in its naturalism, and joyous in its freeform open exploration. But why should I care?<br />
<br />
I think it’s important to dig deep into what this experience actually is. Because it is so easy to argue its redundancy. I’m opening chests with the hope that opening this chest will give me an opportunity to open more chests.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtoIpp11iIkEf3hdODLijtE9R_i4m6h3Fj7AgzfDwN0woA2ftLUkd0WDxbvP_obNZDTcRCJ2tw1rtYDo70sb8z6dnLcrGsZRx6KVvNvqVeItlE3FxcKRDejuMCxddJbZMGzGaJpS-rQDr4/s1600/megaton+hammer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="978" data-original-width="1329" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtoIpp11iIkEf3hdODLijtE9R_i4m6h3Fj7AgzfDwN0woA2ftLUkd0WDxbvP_obNZDTcRCJ2tw1rtYDo70sb8z6dnLcrGsZRx6KVvNvqVeItlE3FxcKRDejuMCxddJbZMGzGaJpS-rQDr4/s320/megaton+hammer.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finding the Megaton Hammer in the very first room was a surprise!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Yes, I loved the surprise of finding out what’s in a treasure chest, or of reaching a new area and finding out what the background music is. But how different is this to watching <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc2Hm_ZRC90">surprise egg videos</a>? You know, those videos for three-year-olds where YouTubers open up Kinder Eggs on camera, revealing the toys as they go?<br />
<br />
One could argue that surprise egg videos are genuinely enticing because they tap into the lizard-brain instinct to collect and uncover. But to argue that I was enraptured by the game solely on this instinctive level doesn't feel accurate. My response to collection mechanics is usually one of frustration and fatigue. I feel frustrated when people say that gamers love to see numbers go up because in my experience it's something I'm usually indifferent to. Sometimes I even get <i>put off </i>when I see stat bonuses being given out as a reward.<br />
<br />
If I’m going to collect things the <i>process</i> that leads to collecting it needs to be satisfying, otherwise I switch off.<br />
<br />
As a designer I believe all players are like this, and the argument that gamers like to see numbers go up misses the most important point. You need to make the player <i>care</i> about those numbers before it matters that those numbers go up. What do those numbers mean on an emotional level? That’s the hard part of game design.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Nostalgia and Comedy</h3>
<br />
In the original game uncovering the story, soaking in new environments, and solving puzzles provided that satisfaction. In the randomiser I already know the story and the environments, and having solved the puzzles before they are just tasks. So there must be something else in this process, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to connect to it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1sqKBzeSKOVy-TaG1SGFjkTJ-weiIpYb8eboULrwpk0nu8e6u71ZOI-rCREZ61kW0Omhi8IQ1XZGY3GfTR8c8teNm9KLdL7-Syw4ohJJW7x37XGio959xjYLegeo4Pt6-Oh3_thQ6KCIA/s1600/sonic-the-hedgehog-2-master-system-virtual-console-20081208012548182.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="480" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1sqKBzeSKOVy-TaG1SGFjkTJ-weiIpYb8eboULrwpk0nu8e6u71ZOI-rCREZ61kW0Omhi8IQ1XZGY3GfTR8c8teNm9KLdL7-Syw4ohJJW7x37XGio959xjYLegeo4Pt6-Oh3_thQ6KCIA/s320/sonic-the-hedgehog-2-master-system-virtual-console-20081208012548182.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The flawed Master System version of <i>Sonic the Hedgehog 2</i> fascinates me more than its better-remembered Mega Drive equivalent</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I come at the randomiser game with an existing connection to <i>Ocarina of Time</i>. It’s a game from my childhood that was, once upon a time, my favourite game ever. When it comes to nostalgia I tend not to be so drawn by those things that are universally shared points of nostalgia, a bucket which <i>Ocarina of Time</i> - one of the best-selling games of its era - falls into.<br />
<br />
I tend to be more drawn to the obscure, often the weirder also-ran versions of things that are iconic. I’m much more fascinated by the flawed Master System version of <i>Sonic the Hedgehog 2</i> than the iconic version on the Sega Mega Drive.<br />
<br />
Perhaps taking something that had a creative impact on me (<i>Ocarina of Time</i>) and turning it into something obscure (ROM hacking) is enough to create the kind of aesthetic that grabs me.<br />
<br />
With the benefit of an existing connection to <i>Ocarina of Time,</i> the items I’m collecting don’t feel redundant. I’m not just collecting a slingshot: I’m collecting the <i>Fairy Slingshot</i>. It’s the slingshot that, when I was 12 years old, allowed me to beat my first dungeon. This iconography is what I have an emotional connection to, making this item more than a simple key to a bunch of locks.<br />
<br />
The iconography - the knowledge of what that object’s <i>supposed</i> to be - also creates comedy.<br />
<br />
Comedy is such a big part of the experience. Compared to surprise egg videos, it’s the difference between there being an unknown object in the egg, and there being something that <i>totally shouldn’t be in an egg</i> in the egg. Imagine opening a Kinder Egg to find a double bass. Imagine opening a Kinder Egg to find the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_White_House_tapes">Nixon tapes</a>.<br />
<br />
The experience of opening a tiny chest in a random house and finding the key for the final boss is <i>funny</i>. The discovery that all bosses will be fought to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1tNmlCFuyA&list=PL8D1E4637261C45EF&index=24&t=1s">whimsical fairground music</a> is <i>funny</i>. Again, it’s not funny without the context or the emotional connection. I wouldn’t find the fairground music funny if I didn’t know how dramatic the boss music was <i>supposed</i> to be.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What was I actually <i>doing</i>?</h3>
<br />
But there’s still more to question about why I’ve taken to this game so much. In particular, the sum total of tasks I actually did in order to beat the game was very similar to doing a 100% run of the original. Doing a 100% run of a game is something I would very rarely do, even with games I love.<br />
<br />
I tend to want the best a game has to offer, and side-quests often strike me as filler material. Yet in the randomiser, I never questioned doing every single side-task as part of my treasure hunt. Why did I not mind it this time?<br />
<br />
After all, while playing this game I was not solving any puzzles, and I wasn’t discovering secret areas anew. But there was definitely a mental experience that went on that made it feel like I was solving something. I wasn’t simply checking off items from a to-do list.<br />
<br />
Most of my mental energy was directed towards figuring out where to go next. I couldn’t remember the ins and outs of every location, so every time I worked out “hey, I can go there!” it felt like a eureka moment. I got to <i>own</i> the mental leap of “now that I have Bombchus I can get to Goron City!”<br />
<br />
While each new location to check came as a eureka moment, the list possibilities that doing so opened up was still a mystery. My memory of the game didn’t stretch far enough to know the consequences in advance. I needed to actively test how far down a path I could actually get, find the bottlenecks, and commit to memory which areas I’d need to come back to later.<br />
<br />
In other words, the game was always bigger than my mental model of it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirFRHCRFDxJdA4DDIcGEb6umx1Ws6CiB8JNLs1RAzDjgMILq7NN9yPP04SsanVezF1d9KSQ-HeYHcVNrJ2QKMrk2XK_vRQYw6R-SXDpiYHbmpjUfhkC63d4uTx9t1e16mXGTDshN02I4nS/s1600/bomb+the+hole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="976" data-original-width="1324" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirFRHCRFDxJdA4DDIcGEb6umx1Ws6CiB8JNLs1RAzDjgMILq7NN9yPP04SsanVezF1d9KSQ-HeYHcVNrJ2QKMrk2XK_vRQYw6R-SXDpiYHbmpjUfhkC63d4uTx9t1e16mXGTDshN02I4nS/s320/bomb+the+hole.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Remembering I could bomb this bit of rock was a genuine eureka moment</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It’s telling that, when I recently started a second playthrough it didn’t seem as compelling. My last experience had left me with a mental checklist of places I should go to. I just needed to check them off one-by-one. My point is that while “check everywhere” is entirely the strategy to use, as a new-but-familiar player my <i>mental model</i> was unclear about where “everywhere” was. Mapping my route, building detail into my mental model, was full of personal eurekas and the challenge of committing what I’d learned to memory. It was intellectually stimulating.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Personal stories</h3>
<br />
Finally, I feel like there was so much charm in knowing that my personally-mapped route through the game was my own. Nobody else would get the same comedic reveals that I did. Nobody else would get the same bottlenecks, or have the same flashes of inspiration.<br />
<br />
It’s unique, shaped by the one-off random seed as much as my own <i>choices</i> of where to go based on what I found. And while nobody else will have had the same experience with me their experiences will be similar enough to share war-stories. Another player will have shared some of the same challenges I faced and, by chance, have been spared others.<br />
<br />
This thoroughly personal experience speaks to another aspect that is important in my own creative work - letting the player own their experience. It was an important sense for me to create in <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/thebookritual.html">The Book Ritual</a>, where I was inviting people to open up and needed them to feel listened-to. It was an important sense to create in <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-incredible-playable-show-everything.html">The Incredible Playable Show</a>, where I posed it as the very reason to bring games and theatre together.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPk9OK-ToGC92Hk5Cn1cYjJ628VpcDWB658g6-32zymJbJZ4Px_IQoofs-kYhmG5DWSCeVZbKjmKYDSVWYr_yNrvtshSBaEUnhZ0vj-GFD_eyFzKr9BXCssWy8rbDSwDK5XB9yOhpUCloB/s1600/slingshot+find.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="851" data-original-width="1318" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPk9OK-ToGC92Hk5Cn1cYjJ628VpcDWB658g6-32zymJbJZ4Px_IQoofs-kYhmG5DWSCeVZbKjmKYDSVWYr_yNrvtshSBaEUnhZ0vj-GFD_eyFzKr9BXCssWy8rbDSwDK5XB9yOhpUCloB/s320/slingshot+find.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finding the slingshot in my playthrough had a significance that isn't in every other player's playthrough</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Personal experiences are the special something that connects the randomiser to <i>Breath of the Wild </i>and the original <i>Legend of Zelda</i>. When the player is dropped into an environment and asked figure it out without guidance, the player creates a story out of their own choices. They don’t just sit and listen to the story the game wants to tell.<br />
<br />
Perhaps when I played <i>Ocarina of Time</i> as a twelve-year old I was indeed creating my own story. Without prior examples from the series it was harder to see when I was being guided or funnelled down a particular path. Even when there was only one choice to make I still felt like <i>I</i> was the one making the choice. Arguably I <i>was</i> making the choice - I made the mental leap and I made the decision to follow that instinct. Interpreting what the game was hinting to me still took mental effort.<br />
<br />
When I followed the route the game asked me to I did so assuming that there were other routes I could have taken. Or I’d worked out that that’s where I was supposed to go and hadn’t <i>spotted</i> that the game was preventing me from doing otherwise. The only thing that's that changed in later <i>Zelda</i> games is that I can now see how the game is directing me. I can spot the game telling me where to go before I can see my personal incentive to go there.<br />
<br />
By randomising the items I was able to hide the strings that held <i>Ocarina of Time </i>together. Perhaps, with more plays I’ll be able to see the trends of the algorithm and I’ll see the strings once again.<br />
<br />
Ultimately I’d argue that, on an emotional level, a game where you have a free range of personal expression, and a game where you don’t notice your personal expression is limited, are the same experience.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">But how positive is my connection to this game really?</span></h2>
<br />
If you leave my television on for four hours without using the remote it will try to turn itself off. If it does this during a game it’s a good sign that that game has sunk its teeth into me. This happened during <i>Breath of the Wild</i>. This happened during <i>Super Mario Odyssey</i>. This even happened during <i>Puyo Puyo Tetris</i>.<br />
<br />
My TV tried to turn itself off during <i>Ocarina of Time Randomiser</i>. It’s indicative of how compelling an experience it is. But how good a quality is that, really? While so much of the game was joyous and delightful, could I really say the amount of time I was spending with it was positive?<br />
<br />
Why was I sticking with it for such long periods? As someone who’s usually quite good at managing their time, why was it so hard for me to say “okay Alistair, it’s time for bed”? <i>Ocarina of Time Randomiser</i> had me staying up too late, struggling to get to sleep as my head was full of things I needed to do in the game. I'd wake up still buzzing with plans, and then, if I could, return to the game straight after breakfast. One more quick shot to get those thoughts out of my head. And, of course, unless there was somewhere I physically needed to be, that one quick shot would extend on and on.<br />
<br />
Much as I loved the game, I didn’t like what it was doing to me psychologically. It was making me tired and stressed. The experience lived on while the game was switched off, but it was the stressful aspects that stayed with me rather than the joyous ones. This game had got inside my head.<br />
<br />
What was triggering this compulsion to keep on playing? I reflected on this at the time and I could feel into the exact feeling that was stopping me going to bed: there was always one more thing to do.<br />
<br />
The same part of the design that made exploration exciting - that I could not easily remember where everything was - was what made me anxious to put the game down. There were a lot of tasks I needed to do, but I had to keep that to-do list in working memory. If I went to bed I feared that I’d forget what I’d done. I'd forget where I needed to look, and spend hours the next day chasing my own tail.<br />
<br />
As I went to bed, thinking about plans kept the game in working memory. When I woke up I was still trying to keep these plans in working memory. I wrote down plans on a piece of paper but I’d still be trying to recall if there was anything I’d forgotten to write down. If I play again, I told myself, I’ll keep a checklist of items as I go.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What does compulsive play offer us?</h3>
<br />
I’ve been in this position before. <i><a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/Kongregate/kongai">Kongai</a></i>, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyo_Puyo_Tetris">Puyo Puyo Tetris</a></i> and <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Smash_Bros._Ultimate">Smash Ultimate</a></i> are all games where I’ve set myself boundaries because they had begun affecting my sleep. Fortunately, <i>Ocarina of Time Randomiser</i> has an endpoint. After a week I’d beaten the game and it was an obvious point to rethink my relationship with it. Now that I’ve beaten it I can put it to one side. I’ll only return to it when I feel I have a way to mitigate its problematic aspects.<br />
<br />
So why was this game hitting an addictive nerve for me in the first place? Traditionally the games I have got addicted to have often had a competitive element. I can see how this competitiveness has satisfied an emotional need at various points. <i>Kongai</i>, for example, was what I played while studying for my finals. At that time I felt very constrained by the requirements of my mathematics course - particularly when I was hungry to make my name as a game developer. Winning at <i>Kongai</i> felt like striking out as an individual.<br />
<br />
The sense of victory has often proved delicious at times where I felt like I lacked control elsewhere in my life. It would get hard to put down when the wins felt so big and the defeats so crushing. You can’t switch the game off after a win because you’re on a roll. You can’t switch it off after a loss because you need to prove you can win. Setting boundaries necessitated asking “why does winning and losing matter so much to me?”<br />
<br />
At this point in time it’s hard to see what emotional need <i>Ocarina of Time Randomiser</i> was satisfying. Perhaps defeating this big ridiculous challenge would prove I could achieve something big, at a time when I was hungry for my work to have a bigger impact?<br />
<br />
Or maybe the fact that the game relied on so much of my working memory - a combination of my existing investment in the experience, and a design which can't be broken into neat chapters - is really all there is to it?<br />
<br />
<h3>
Getting grumpy at a good game</h3>
<br />
While I can happily say I enjoyed the experience, there were definitely times where I felt grumpy. At the midway point, when I could not find the one key I needed for the Forest Temple, I turned to the spoiler log. I don’t think I’d have felt that bad about it had glancing at the log not revealed what was to come. In particular, looking at the log proved that the Water Temple was completely redundant.<br />
<br />
I felt bad for having that surprise taken from me, angry at myself for looking, and angry at the game for having two hidden chest locations that looked so similar.<br />
<br />
The second time I felt grumpy was looking for the Forest Temple Boss key. I’d tried everything and resigned myself to checking the spoiler log. I didn’t resent doing so this time. It did make me think, however, about how every run will probably end with one item you totally forget about.<br />
<br />
Finding that last chest will always be frustrating. You’ll always feel let-down because you had to look it up.<br />
<br />
Yet here’s the question: without this element, wouldn’t the charm of the experience be lost? Taking on the randomiser seems whimsical, and silly, and outrageous <i>because</i> you’re putting yourself in a situation where this can happen. You know going in that there’ll probably be one important chest you completely forget about. It’s like naming all 50 US states from memory.<br />
<br />
Is this not a necessary frustration? Is that frustration not, in fact, the selling point of the experience?<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">What does the <i>Ocarina of Time</i> Randomiser have to say?</span></h2>
<br />
When I began playing <i>Ocarina of Time Randomiser</i> I knew I would want to document my experience at the end of it. It’s a game which takes something that already exists and twists it in some way. That resonates so strongly with what I’ve been trying to do with Genesis emulation and the <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/eggmanshow.html">Doctor Eggman Show</a>.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the value of randomness and unpredictability, where a unique experience is created by allowing the unexpected to happen resonates with what I’ve been doing with <a href="https://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a>. Once I knew I was connecting to the experience in such a strong way I was keen to dig into the emotional experience behind it. Hence this article.<br />
<br />
There is definitely a flag I am keen to fly for randomness, for unpredictability, and for breaking things which were intended to be finished objects. There is a case to be made for <i>found gameplay</i>: the new experiences that naturally exist when we take an existing system and change its boundaries.<br />
<br />
But I also think there is a deeper emotional journey at play in this game.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqvVQRfTd9kKl_34_beLZnfuHQ95mCpD6Fz4wv6ZjHZ5pt_CLJZSjA_Wqm_K4mIGO1UKDb_ARNfSw-GCHwuMX5C80Vfi-KzU68AClVrijULAzHIMgr-pZYsJOLjeny-1BELnJ7qyHHq56C/s1600/Fairy+ocarina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="921" data-original-width="1447" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqvVQRfTd9kKl_34_beLZnfuHQ95mCpD6Fz4wv6ZjHZ5pt_CLJZSjA_Wqm_K4mIGO1UKDb_ARNfSw-GCHwuMX5C80Vfi-KzU68AClVrijULAzHIMgr-pZYsJOLjeny-1BELnJ7qyHHq56C/s320/Fairy+ocarina.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I connected with this broken object because I had already connected with the original “finished” object. My journey was my own, but the context was created by something that was honed and tailored. Spaces that appeared naturalistic because they were redundant were only magical because they weren’t <i>intended</i> to be redundant. Meanwhile the same experience that happenstance made joyful was also made <i>stressful</i> by happenstance.<br />
<br />
If there is anything to be concluded it is perhaps the power of the uncontrollable parts of game systems to create an emotional response. That making one, albeit quite technically impressive, change to the design of the game created a totally new emotional experience, both for good and for ill. And while some consequences are good and some consequences are bad they all have the potential to be powerful.<br />
<br />
As designers there’s one strong message we can take away: surrendering a little bit of our work to chance will uncover experiences we’d never have found otherwise.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-21872315300024198882018-05-30T19:29:00.000+01:002018-05-30T19:29:19.320+01:00Why Make a Game About Shredding Books?<i>The Book Ritual</i>, <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-book-ritual.html">which I blogged about</a> a couple of months ago, is starting to take shape. Since the preview video I’ve made some fairly major changes, and have been getting feedback from the first sets of players. I took it to <a href="http://amaze-berlin.de/">A MAZE Berlin</a> to show as part of the Open Screens, where a lot of paper was shredded! At the time of writing I’m on my way to <a href="http://feral-vector.com/">Feral Vector</a> for its second public outing.<br />
<br />
I’ve also been showing it to a handful of developers and friends to get their feedback. Over time I’ll be expanding this handful to get more feedback from more people, and eventually releasing it to the public. Watch this space!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAB1R_tJ-aipTp9C16U0iAaIMImSJBApqLP806N8WGIxMqTRe1pzztZP1pJu-rbUUZpmuKlsGnyc7M4cE-LO8MBfFq_HDChLhqrDrTGD3XHE4aAUnR8jxC0Dzg31dgW5_HbnNo0UoRm5_F/s1600/IMG_20180427_160419.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAB1R_tJ-aipTp9C16U0iAaIMImSJBApqLP806N8WGIxMqTRe1pzztZP1pJu-rbUUZpmuKlsGnyc7M4cE-LO8MBfFq_HDChLhqrDrTGD3XHE4aAUnR8jxC0Dzg31dgW5_HbnNo0UoRm5_F/s320/IMG_20180427_160419.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me after a 3-hour demo at A MAZE, with a papery souvenir of players' experiences!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
What is the Book Ritual?</span></h2>
<i><br /></i>
<i>The Book Ritual</i> is an interactive art-piece played using a real-world book of your own choice. As an installation it’s played with a real-world shredder connected to the computer, but this is optional and the piece can be played at home without one.<br />
<br />
The book is talking to you from the screen and wants to learn about you, getting you to do creativity exercises inside its pages. To keep on talking to it, however, you need to tear pages out and put them through a shredder. As your connection to the book grows it reveals more about who it is and why it wants to understand you.<br />
<br />
The story is about dealing with loss and accepting change. It is about coming to terms with decisions that can’t be undone, and the souvenirs which will lose their meaning to time. It’s about guilt and regret. My hope is that the book can a prompt to get people to think about why they value what they do, using a tangible book as a way for people to act out these feelings in a physical way.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><i>The Book Ritual</i> can be run as an installation with a USB-connected shredder - which you can see in the photos I've dressed up for the occasion - or it can be played at home. The game adjusts its text and characters based on what equipment it's using.<br />
<br />
During the game, the book and shredder (or bin, if you're playing without the shredder) are personified as characters. Given that the story goes in quite a personal and emotional direction, I feel like having the book and shredder depicted as quite whimsical characters gives it a kind of cuddly charm. My hope is that it’s friendly and honest in tone, with its lighthearted characters easing the players into more difficult subject matter.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSLPeQJj14f5HVIlxErI7ip8Re448JhALddFc5J3fLM0f5GVInNPj7zmRN1Z-Kv2NF7ki99-_4B-D4KuUjMhBf2fDr6Qpqd2qFU8xj8grao6YN3mvqM4iBOsERHLURavXf5O4WtFc5EydT/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-05-30+at+18.19.47.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSLPeQJj14f5HVIlxErI7ip8Re448JhALddFc5J3fLM0f5GVInNPj7zmRN1Z-Kv2NF7ki99-_4B-D4KuUjMhBf2fDr6Qpqd2qFU8xj8grao6YN3mvqM4iBOsERHLURavXf5O4WtFc5EydT/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-05-30+at+18.19.47.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The book, as depicted in-game</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Why Shred Books?</span></h2>
<br />
I’ve been making games with physical props for several years now. One thing that’s fascinated me is how people get personally attached to physical objects. Generally, if objects can be held in a player’s hand it's likely that at least one player will identify an item as “theirs” over the course of the game.<br />
<br />
That’s not to say that that player is being selfish. I think it’s because people hunger for a role, something to identify themselves with: they want something to mark out their purpose as an individual, and their reason for being in the experience. Indeed, there could be all kinds of reasons, and that's just my theory. Nevertheless, the heart of the phenomenon is that we, as humans, naturally imbue physical objects with emotional meaning.<br />
<br />
When I make alternative-controller games and performance games, I always like to ask “what is the special thing about this object/environment and how can I use it?” One special thing about <i>all</i> physical objects is this emotional connection. I feel that’s not really been explored much by our medium, and it’s something I’m hungry to understand.<br />
<br />
Coinciding with this is another unique attribute of physical objects that I want to see explored by alternative-controller games. Physical objects can be <i>destroyed</i>. If what I want to explore is emotional connections to objects, then “destroy” is a powerful verb to employ. To ask players to question how they emotionally attach to something, asking them to destroy it prompts them to consider how and why they feel connected to it.<br />
<br />
At least, that’s what I hope to achieve through the work.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2BX0eRG_5qvEV9ZXfJShenqzOCKYQ6d5tBRsOoNgw9Ta2yYOY13rzb0aeJ-M7S8X7hbrFlvUvx3eNbXwtCO7iAnk3_oq6H3NEiC0T2r3uFFOP4Fgo6qXZ42lzHasObthecS-zrqQB8RM/s1600/33734918_10100828151696206_1631862314330226688_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr2BX0eRG_5qvEV9ZXfJShenqzOCKYQ6d5tBRsOoNgw9Ta2yYOY13rzb0aeJ-M7S8X7hbrFlvUvx3eNbXwtCO7iAnk3_oq6H3NEiC0T2r3uFFOP4Fgo6qXZ42lzHasObthecS-zrqQB8RM/s320/33734918_10100828151696206_1631862314330226688_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the books from testing. Drawing in the pages is one of the creative ways players can permanently damage a book.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
So Why Books?</span></h2>
<br />
Knowing that destruction is something I want to explore, the next obvious question is why did I choose books? The reality is that I gravitated towards books instinctively without really considering other destructible objects. As the concept evolved, books remained a constant element.<br />
<br />
So I write this section in reflection: why did books work? Why didn’t I find another object to destroy?<br />
<br />
Part of it is simply practical. Books are made up of many many components that can be individually destroyed: pages. So, you can destroy a page and have that be a permanent loss, but the book itself is still a complete, if damaged, object. It means I can wrap a whole game around one object that goes through various stages of destruction and transformation.<br />
<br />
Another practical quality of books is that there are so many things we can do with those pages. We can tear them, write on them, draw on them, stick them to things, fold them, and crush them. That’s not even considering the words that are on the pages. The words themselves have unique shapes, and individual meanings outside the context they were written in.<br />
<br />
Thus a printed page is ripe for exploring in different ways. It may be a book about economics, but from the individual words you could construct a story about horses, or mountains, or love, or grief.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8nqCb70kn24AKsFhBUuB-MGJCn5He9orjexYW2P15bLswizf9Ivrmhf05Z9AleTqXteg8D02223bXdUwHQ4z72DuS-XiL_nP2EeUKRo8EQmT3yfN9KOtrhPAU4Gq7pL9dE9Oo-mve7oMN/s1600/31232242_10214534129100018_7051390926190542848_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8nqCb70kn24AKsFhBUuB-MGJCn5He9orjexYW2P15bLswizf9Ivrmhf05Z9AleTqXteg8D02223bXdUwHQ4z72DuS-XiL_nP2EeUKRo8EQmT3yfN9KOtrhPAU4Gq7pL9dE9Oo-mve7oMN/s320/31232242_10214534129100018_7051390926190542848_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another tester's creation, crossing out and cutting up words from the book, and turning them into something new</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
More importantly, however, there is an emotional quality to books that is unique and special. Books are often felt to be sacred. Many of use like to keep out books in pristine condition. We won’t let the corners get folded down, and we get anxious lending them out. Many of us keep a well-stacked bookshelf as an object of pride, even though most of the books will never be opened. Is a well-stocked bookshelf a monument to knowledge we will never absorb?<br />
<br />
Why do we value the state of a book when the power of its words stays the same regardless of how grubby and dog-eared its pages are?<br />
<br />
My objective is not to tell people they are wrong to be protective of books. It is to ask them why they put value in what they value. Can the same reason we hang on to books be the same reason we hang on to distant memories, impossible desires, and unanswerable questions? Does a book still have value if it can’t be made sense of?<br />
<br />
Indeed, to destroy books is taboo, and there’s a solid historical precedent for why. I’m certainly not trying to say that destroying literature is a good idea. What I am trying to do is tell a story about guilt and loss. If the player feels guilty in the process of destroying their book, if it feels like they're losing something with innate value, it means they are acting out the emotion I want them to explore.<br />
<br />
The value of a book exists beyond its physicality, perhaps even beyond the meaning of the text that’s within it. I think that’s why it makes it powerful to destroy them. If you can understand what you fear losing when you destroy a book, maybe you can understand what the book as a character fears losing. Maybe you can understand what it is you fear losing yourself. My hope is that doing so prompts players to ask how they come to terms with loss, change, guilt and the other themes of the story.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUwCNtnKnZjqsheIikj3Y0M2cq8QGUAEBFtEsjKQha1h3P0xCml7qo0V49Iml-ZYsE76oP4ZhVdTLJetF4Vp78kK6TPknrcYEfCck0M_44jPPO4a0f7NfxT39kTKkzkuulATAzR5l8ZUG/s1600/tester%2527s+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1107" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDUwCNtnKnZjqsheIikj3Y0M2cq8QGUAEBFtEsjKQha1h3P0xCml7qo0V49Iml-ZYsE76oP4ZhVdTLJetF4Vp78kK6TPknrcYEfCck0M_44jPPO4a0f7NfxT39kTKkzkuulATAzR5l8ZUG/s320/tester%2527s+book.jpg" width="312" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another tester's book, among the pages torn out of it. My hope is that the object created over the course of the game is more meaningful than the book it began as.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Understanding and coming to terms with difficulty are constructive parts to our life. Loss is an opportunity for growth, and regret is an opportunity to learn. My goal is to create something where, in a process of destroying something, you end up with something that has personal meaning to you. By the end of it, the book should be your object, a reflection of you more than a reflection of the author. It should represent the memory of the experience you've had playing the game, and gain meaning beyond its initial purpose.<br />
<br />
As I write this I realise why I'm putting together this post. It's a statement of intent. It’s what I want the work to be, but is it representative of what the work actually is? Have I actually created a piece that achieves what I want it to?<br />
<br />
To find that out I need to get the game out there into the world, get feedback, learn, and keep on trying to reach that goal. Which is why this post is only the beginning. This post is part of the process of exploring these ideas.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
The Books of The Book Ritual</span></h2>
<br />
As a testament to that which has been created so far, here’s a little gallery of books and passages created during the experience.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcHBbWnIMb5nriW_qehhWexQFvhNJVKwO7CERW-cc0JE28Pg8hHrbBKbtreYctrRsrvGocswnEWZMqxZbnIIBDP1lC5K6Fb2kHcDRZ5m_V43mNP9gedQjHTYpWlCiA_fMgMDDGHUFST7er/s1600/33508380_10100828151326946_5235310352069033984_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcHBbWnIMb5nriW_qehhWexQFvhNJVKwO7CERW-cc0JE28Pg8hHrbBKbtreYctrRsrvGocswnEWZMqxZbnIIBDP1lC5K6Fb2kHcDRZ5m_V43mNP9gedQjHTYpWlCiA_fMgMDDGHUFST7er/s320/33508380_10100828151326946_5235310352069033984_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A drawing of a lost item by one of the testers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh1iuJZvYX3VYJN6yOHvHiB6lGrDxb4cOumS304lQy7EGXXWLx4ul93DCxqKnW6rX8VhQCR8aKyJMb1VqJVGr5JIM-kxw15JxuchXTCxKLFQERAqleQ0eT7MDidij-88HfUkVfM6qZJWLb/s1600/31530373_10100820898217236_508200244362608640_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh1iuJZvYX3VYJN6yOHvHiB6lGrDxb4cOumS304lQy7EGXXWLx4ul93DCxqKnW6rX8VhQCR8aKyJMb1VqJVGr5JIM-kxw15JxuchXTCxKLFQERAqleQ0eT7MDidij-88HfUkVfM6qZJWLb/s320/31530373_10100820898217236_508200244362608640_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That same book by the end of the game, complete with superhero mask</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPbEHWCwDU3pBMggBqtRpaSYR70rIjg_QFMBs_xojOsqMF4_YAyY6U8O0MmmW2NurK-CdR2hNxyilVtr35IcNYqrP_c7V7Sx69m9ycOQibMo1CqjGosbFQcC7Vvh4nG44x7KgFEJMrXXck/s1600/IMG_20180427_134713.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPbEHWCwDU3pBMggBqtRpaSYR70rIjg_QFMBs_xojOsqMF4_YAyY6U8O0MmmW2NurK-CdR2hNxyilVtr35IcNYqrP_c7V7Sx69m9ycOQibMo1CqjGosbFQcC7Vvh4nG44x7KgFEJMrXXck/s320/IMG_20180427_134713.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At A MAZE in Berlin, <i>American Psycho</i> became <i>American Parrot...</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3nJ_DwJorPeo7EIHXRhydCh7heoRkGzANSeWP4AxbhRNICbCH8-SBmpG8Te_U4NpVb55ZmZXbXtISvHzlvcs9sHJIQbxYYrH68b9pKq-qvq4GLaZ82X7vLuAhruai3hxZDtk3rburIZZK/s1600/IMG_20180427_133502.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3nJ_DwJorPeo7EIHXRhydCh7heoRkGzANSeWP4AxbhRNICbCH8-SBmpG8Te_U4NpVb55ZmZXbXtISvHzlvcs9sHJIQbxYYrH68b9pKq-qvq4GLaZ82X7vLuAhruai3hxZDtk3rburIZZK/s320/IMG_20180427_133502.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">... and also drew a small crowd!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis5HUZ_JO1uX_mzd_PDvPml8Lt_G8sRRCPvIlTZX7UQp6XJDwXUgMQqPTnYdAOcbKPwaflebnSjKQt6ZmakMjnWgPNNh9m564S6C2XTc7JHsg-KcPRBKXVvT-Hq1ofz39rHvnfwhbjGE9u/s1600/IMG_20180427_155557.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis5HUZ_JO1uX_mzd_PDvPml8Lt_G8sRRCPvIlTZX7UQp6XJDwXUgMQqPTnYdAOcbKPwaflebnSjKQt6ZmakMjnWgPNNh9m564S6C2XTc7JHsg-KcPRBKXVvT-Hq1ofz39rHvnfwhbjGE9u/s320/IMG_20180427_155557.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">More cutting and sticking at A MAZE. I came stocked with plenty of books and stationery for people to play with.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I expect the first public version to be ready in the next couple of months, but if you’re interested in giving it a whirl and letting me know if it lives up to my goals, please do contact me by <a href="http://twitter.com/agAitcheson">Twitter</a> or email at games[at]alistairaitcheson[dot]com - it will be much appreciated!Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-54854585954123099432018-04-03T18:59:00.000+01:002018-04-03T19:04:59.954+01:00The Book Ritual<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/a6Z_EJRVPI4/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="236" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a6Z_EJRVPI4?feature=player_embedded" width="420"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
So this is one of the things I’ve been working on recently! <i>The Book Ritual</i> is a story told using a physical book, in the real world. The player is given writing and drawing tasks that get them to interact with the book in different ways. They write in it, draw maps, and tell it about their thoughts and feelings.<br />
<br />
The player also needs to tear out pages, and shred them, to progress.<br />
<br />
It’s very much more of an interactive art piece than a game in the traditional sense, and talks about ideas of accepting loss and change.<br />
<br />
Having worked with physical games and props for so long I’ve felt that the emotional weight we apply to physical objects is ripe for exploration. People don’t want to shred books. Why is that?<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>I’ll admit that showing this work for the first time is scary, so I’m focusing on small trials with small groups of people, before releasing anything into a more public space. When a game is about emotional subject matter, it exposes a side of the creator that games made primarily to entertain don’t. So even as I’ve spent many years extolling the virtues of showing your work in public regardless of its state, I must admit to this being a slightly terrifying prospect!<br />
<br />
In spite of the trepidation I’m looking forward to seeing where this project takes me. Even if this particular version of the idea is only a step along the way, I’m keen to see how the lessons I’ve learned from doing installation games and interactive performance can be used to explore more emotional subject matter.<br />
<br />
And don'tAlistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-44680838831164179862017-12-28T17:04:00.000+00:002017-12-28T17:04:00.747+00:00The Incredible Playable Show: Everything Learned from the First YearMy 2017 was all about <a href="http://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a>, and what a year it’s been. I’ve performed it in Sweden, Belgium, and Germany, and it went on to <a href="http://www.indiecade.com/2017/FestivalAwards">win the Jury Choice Award at IndieCade</a> in Los Angeles.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IndieCade17?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IndieCade17</a>'s Jury's Choice Award is <a href="https://twitter.com/agAitcheson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@agAitcheson</a>'s Incredible Playable Show. TY for captivating audiences!<br />
🎮: <a href="https://t.co/uTmyi6RoSj">https://t.co/uTmyi6RoSj</a> <a href="https://t.co/LkmSuvOom0">pic.twitter.com/LkmSuvOom0</a></div>
— IndieCade (@IndieCade) <a href="https://twitter.com/IndieCade/status/917231719526232064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
It’s been incredibly rewarding, and I'm very proud of the reception it's had. I've loved creating and performing the show, so seeing audiences respond so well with it fills me with joy. In a lot of ways it's a culmination of the ideas I've been exploring throughout my career so far, and one of my favourite things I've made.<br />
<br />
I wanted to wrap up the year by writing down the lessons I’ve learned along the way. This is a very long article, cut down from a leviathan first draft, so bring a coffee or read it in parts, and thanks very much for taking an interest!<br />
<br />
For context, here’s the trailer shot at the Bristol Improv Theatre, in December 2016.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/H9hMqFkcH4o/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H9hMqFkcH4o?feature=player_embedded" width="472"></iframe></div>
<br />
If there’s one major lesson I’ve found in the show it’s to be unafraid of things breaking. Often the lessons came out of changing part of the show on a whim, or to figure out why part of it wasn’t working - and understanding why the changed worked only came from comparing all the attempts that led up to it. None of the lessons learned came because I got things right first time.<br />
<br />
But before getting onto that, let’s start with the most important question:<br />
<br />
<h2>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: x-large;">Why Make a Playable Stage Show?</span></h2>
<br />
Back about two years ago I saw a show at the <a href="https://improvtheatre.co.uk/">Bristol Improv Theatre</a>, and ended up chatting to the performers about their craft. I was so excited by improv, and went on to regularly go to the theatre to see shows and take part in jams. Friday night at the Improv became a major fixture of my week.<br />
<br />
What really struck me was how much they talked like game designers. They talked about their fellow performers and their audiences just like we talk about players. We want to give players a bit of rope but still offer them the satisfaction of having filled in the gaps themselves, or of coming up with their own unique response. The performers used the word “game” in roughly the same way we use the word “mechanics.”<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3fHOu-sLvmxuQwLHaJ7JIMlG2PanFF5Rli8F8RAjXxcXwM9qLngvNuQJaXC3AuzbHrQvoxtMWxs-pGsTM3tfigmwmDD-R_RfLt6_nIIlblLG1uJWDN_6TeVQWEM6bHqu5PU8K4uY2wRg/s1600/IMG_7148.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR3fHOu-sLvmxuQwLHaJ7JIMlG2PanFF5Rli8F8RAjXxcXwM9qLngvNuQJaXC3AuzbHrQvoxtMWxs-pGsTM3tfigmwmDD-R_RfLt6_nIIlblLG1uJWDN_6TeVQWEM6bHqu5PU8K4uY2wRg/s320/IMG_7148.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Go! Power Team!</i> being played at the <a href="http://improvtheatre.co.uk/">Bristol Improv Theatre</a> in the first trial run</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A generally agreed-upon part of game is “yes, and” - that you should always accept what a fellow performer has added to a scene and add to it. This struck a chord as it reflected my existing approach to making installations, where instead of another performer it was the player.<br />
<br />
Great improvisers know when they can break the rules of “good game” and still have it work. Great improvisers understand when it’s funny to say “no” to a performer without killing the performance and still giving them a bit of rope to work with. If you say yes to everything you end up on the moon in a rocket powered with jam - the best reaction you can get from the audience is “wow, so random!” Great improvisers know that a truly resonant performance means building a world, desires, personalities, tension, expectations, and a believable context ready to be subverted.<br />
<br />
What they were getting at was that good design is not about adhering to the rules, but about <i>knowing what goals those rules are trying to achieve</i>.<br />
<br />
This was hugely inspiring, and I was hungry to explore what could be achieved by using the audience and human performers as a resource for games. The theatre provides not just a new kind players with unusual expectations, but a whole new space. It’s a physical object which I’d rarely seen used for games before.<br />
<br />
When I talk about an object being <i>really used</i> for games, I mean that the game made use of the unique properties that that object offered. Robin Baumgarten’s <a href="http://aipanic.com/projects/wobbler">Line Wobbler</a> <i>really uses</i> a door-stop because the analogue degrees of motion it has map one-to-one with the motion of your dot, and twanging it - the most interesting thing about the object itself - is a key part of the experience. You can’t twang and move the dot because of the physical properties of the stopper: the door-stop can’t wobble if you’re clutching it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1gkym2KY3gtUFp5q5fUQ24PlIXxeMkPCrwjinQT9vDybCzyRP3llMEQ_Vz6s1F-HmlJEK1usioTpeTnUejuHt6Kf7XMcmr3BTn-KJo6MQqz2LZ90vJmINToXycF9LIG8HZDcOEVlC0Ys3/s1600/IMG_7160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1gkym2KY3gtUFp5q5fUQ24PlIXxeMkPCrwjinQT9vDybCzyRP3llMEQ_Vz6s1F-HmlJEK1usioTpeTnUejuHt6Kf7XMcmr3BTn-KJo6MQqz2LZ90vJmINToXycF9LIG8HZDcOEVlC0Ys3/s320/IMG_7160.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A conga line of Power Rangers in the Bristol Improv Theatre</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
To really use the theatre I couldn’t have people sat in seats watching stuff going on. A good game would have players running around between the seats, climbing over and between each other, stretching to hand objects to the row in front of them, and running back and forth between stage and seating. If there’s a hundred people, all sat shoulder-to-shoulder, I want them to feel like they’re in the middle of the game, and that their being there matters.<br />
<br />
That summer <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/installation-games-at-bristol-improv.html">I demoed some of my games at the Bristol Improv Theatre</a>, which was popular enough to convince me I had enough material to build on. So I pitched the idea of a complete 45-minute show to the organisers of the <a href="http://gamecity.org/">GameCity</a> festival in Nottingham, who generously offered me six time-slots to run the show.<br />
<br />
With that, I spent the subsequent month creating new games and variations so that I’d have plenty to experiment with during the run. <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/welcome-to-incredible-playable-show.html">The first Incredible Playable Show</a> debuted on 26 October 2016.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Building Trust</span></h2>
<br />
Trust is one of the most important resources a developer has. Trust is the answer to “why should I buy your game?” “Why should I download your game?” “Why should I persevere through the dull bits?”<br />
<br />
Trust is certainly the answer to “if I get up on that stage you’re not going to embarrass me, right?”<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidVTFk41kx_ilwH7HuyKkSxUYJiFIjlEtQWINyrrQGDVe4sQAKe0q7eqNrniaVPkLDbwXJOZxKYZjrRZhwdSrJDpzNRB0Pr-loBaBMMJUutiGPm0BclnYnMzm34wFymaGGXgHT_HY-SCgr/s1600/Sonic+Buttons+IPS+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1583" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidVTFk41kx_ilwH7HuyKkSxUYJiFIjlEtQWINyrrQGDVe4sQAKe0q7eqNrniaVPkLDbwXJOZxKYZjrRZhwdSrJDpzNRB0Pr-loBaBMMJUutiGPm0BclnYnMzm34wFymaGGXgHT_HY-SCgr/s320/Sonic+Buttons+IPS+1.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Getting excitable hosting one of the very first shows - photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Trust is why “yes, and” works. “Yes, and” reassures your fellow performer that you are on their side - that they can let loose and you will have their back. If I’m inviting people onto the stage to pretend to be Power Rangers then they want to know that they’re not going to be the butt of a joke. My job is to convince them that coming on-stage is an opportunity, not a trap.<br />
<br />
I learnt this the hard way. On the very first show I opened with <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/enter-button-power-team.html">Go! Power Team!</a> - popularly known as <i>the</i> <i>Power Rangers</i> <i>game</i>. My first audience was twenty first-year students who’d all been told to go there by their lecturer and were expecting a “getting into the industry” talk. I needed five volunteers, and it was a struggle to get even one. When the game started and the mighty voice of Zordon began booming its commands, they just stood and shuffled. The magic of the game - where four human buttons are running around doing random stuff while a player is desperately trying to operate a game using them - just wasn’t happening. The act was a stone-cold wreck.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt5VMJbpm01eT1Qqkyoye1SbP_bRfTAqDXcFlb6AbFMGtZcqNLdGIaIOE9ATKlznhdUPH0v3TYMB4-N4MmPdL8KwE8yykdmrw-4dEndMa3JLp7HfwqAW3s_Gw9USaw9xLW8IswLVYzM05C/s1600/match+me+if+you+scan+IPS+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="970" data-original-width="1441" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt5VMJbpm01eT1Qqkyoye1SbP_bRfTAqDXcFlb6AbFMGtZcqNLdGIaIOE9ATKlznhdUPH0v3TYMB4-N4MmPdL8KwE8yykdmrw-4dEndMa3JLp7HfwqAW3s_Gw9USaw9xLW8IswLVYzM05C/s320/match+me+if+you+scan+IPS+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early version of<i> Match Me If You Scan</i>, where the team huddled at the front of the stage - photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/raygungoth/albums/72157675309403431">Gemma Thomson</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Here's what I'd done wrong: I’d put the most physical, most expressive, and most “it works if you just go with it” game at the very beginning. I hadn’t earned their trust in the idea that being physical would be rewarding. I hadn’t nurtured the idea that this was an opportunity to make their friends laugh. I hadn’t made them believe that I’m a professional and that, while my games sound a bit weird on paper, they pay off if you play along.<br />
<br />
The current 1-hour set list is a much better reflection of build-up of ideas. In order, it goes as follows:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9hMqFkcH4o">Match Me If You Scan</a> </i>- one player running around a seated audience while the audience shouts out to help</li>
<li><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evFruZO9YM4">Codex Bash</a> </i>- four seated volunteers on-stage while the audience clambers around their seats passing around clues</li>
<li><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmCZyzu338o">Buoy Racers</a></i> - four players on-stage fumbling around with props, the audience passing around inflatables</li>
<li><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaC5IhcZ2Cs&t=9s">Go! Power Team!</a></i> - five players on-stage, running around the auditorium, performing silly actions and interacting with the audience</li>
</ul>
<br />
There’s a clear thread of increasing physical activity and room for an individual to interpret the rules as it goes on. Being a Power Ranger is a more intense version of fumbling with inflatables. Fumbling with inflatables is a more intense version of running around with a barcode scanner.<br />
<br />
Of course, the very first game begins with running around, and this can still be a big ask for the majority of spectators. So to get to that point, my job as host is to warm them up.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Warming Up</span></h2>
<br />
Even in a room of card-carrying extroverts you can’t open your act by asking for a volunteer and expect a response. The introduction of the show is the part of the show where I need to inspire the audience to get involved. At a bare minimum I need one enthusiastic first volunteer.<br />
<br />
The way I do the intro is largely improvised, but some features are fairly consistent. I have two ideas I want to establish: the exciting spectacle that says “come to the stage and be a star!” and the down-to-earth friendliness that says “don’t worry, Alistair’s got your back.”<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj29pdVsIjLv5gEzBsY5mJEvS7Ca90mqHYwhQDsqjB2ZEHeroqMfMhkZAk-aMz3r_gutLma-MGCVmthpncfsKC1p7-3dSOxBwt7Mwq6n8-W0d_0perlGGPCmcFFO2wSoK1eZ3-IurfB4cUZ/s1600/23116988_1467057853385200_5188981103189133418_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj29pdVsIjLv5gEzBsY5mJEvS7Ca90mqHYwhQDsqjB2ZEHeroqMfMhkZAk-aMz3r_gutLma-MGCVmthpncfsKC1p7-3dSOxBwt7Mwq6n8-W0d_0perlGGPCmcFFO2wSoK1eZ3-IurfB4cUZ/s320/23116988_1467057853385200_5188981103189133418_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The four Power Rangers pose as their power animals at Play17, Hamburg - photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5qdiJu">Initiative Creative Gaming</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a> always kicks off with a big opening speech about the wonders that are about to unfold. Throughout this speech I’ll be asking the audience to clap and cheer and make some noise, over and over again. This part is really important.<br />
<br />
Shouting and cheering is an action that anyone can do from the comfort of their seat, without singling themselves out. For some audience members, shouting and cheering is enough to feel involved in the show. For others, they want to be more active, and getting them used to making loud noises gets them hungry to do something bigger.<br />
<br />
Once they know there's audience participation, people are asking themselves “do I want to get involved?” Shouting and cheering is a dry run to test how it feels. So by the time I ask for a volunteer, the people who are excited to get up have already made that decision.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo54YJvQ5YNFYjqJuTa6IFkF3j9n_dhWnEk58y-h_z-YSiMRQCTCRpzhtten-0KZVtDHid67Zc8KFudFvowL40SDS5qxktaF8nomkYzRd9777HZmZX3jZP-Uadkurwltal7YcqsSj8Thi8/s1600/DLovkwIUIAAJgY5.jpg-large-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="1570" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo54YJvQ5YNFYjqJuTa6IFkF3j9n_dhWnEk58y-h_z-YSiMRQCTCRpzhtten-0KZVtDHid67Zc8KFudFvowL40SDS5qxktaF8nomkYzRd9777HZmZX3jZP-Uadkurwltal7YcqsSj8Thi8/s320/DLovkwIUIAAJgY5.jpg-large-2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A stage full of volunteers at IndieCade 2017 in Los Angeles - photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/seraphki/status/917097829729918977">@seraphki</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I also get the room to choose a team name, which will be repeated throughout the show. I’ll wander around the audience asking for suggestions, and the winner will be decided by which one gets the loudest cheer. This process seeds a number of ideas. Firstly, that the games are cooperative, and that there should be a sense of <i>camaraderie</i> in the room. Secondly, that <i>anyone</i> from the audience can shout and pitch in, engage their creativity and be funny. And finally, that this show is <i>unique</i> and their experience of it will be different from any other team’s.<br />
<br />
Most of this intro is delivered not from the stage, but instead while wandering around the audience. I want people to feel like I am silly but not intimidating. I want them to feel like I am on their level, so that pitching in feels like playing along with me, and not singling themselves out. I also want the people in the front rows to turn around and look behind them, to seed the expectation that the show uses the whole space of the auditorium.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
My two greatest loves: yelling at Sonic and Night Games.<br />
This is <a href="https://twitter.com/agAitcheson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@agAitcheson</a>'s The Incredible Playable Show!<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IndieCade17?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IndieCade17</a> <a href="https://t.co/vl54T0wGHz">pic.twitter.com/vl54T0wGHz</a></div>
— Ash 💀 (@netslumber) <a href="https://twitter.com/netslumber/status/916876946805366785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
All of these goals and strategies have evolved from shows where the audience <i>hasn’t</i> connected. One time the stage was so high up that coming on-stage looked intimidating. Talking through the show afterwards helped me see that that was the problem, and realise that not being on the stage was a solution.<br />
<br />
For a long time “<a href="https://twitter.com/netslumber/status/916876946805366785"><i>Sonic the Hedgehog</i> controlled by shouting</a>” was my most successful opening act, because it got everyone shouting. Shouting built energy in the room, but I realised I could get the same effect through a good intro and it didn't actually need a game to make it happen.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Yes, And</span></h2>
<br />
One of the selling points of the show is that it’s unique every time, that everyone can get meaningfully involved and make their mark on the experience. Trust is essential here too: the audience needs to trust that their unique input will be valued.<br />
<br />
So the host needs to say “yes, and” to the suggestions of the players. Sometimes, for example, someone will suggest a team name and it will get absolutely no cheers from the audience. There’s always a way to respond in a way builds on this input and adds to the room.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-xow74t72DwYkZDyj42VZINQBInW618mAtOdFclVV80cLaKU3FRSzlTQYilFwHtT2QnVJp27GLQ4_7taW2lUlZMXzmeL6sYW27P8f-w5cdLqksiosTbREUXKGpjmu0_peIzXBUuT8e7-v/s1600/23120225_1467057753385210_3250999526070328418_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-xow74t72DwYkZDyj42VZINQBInW618mAtOdFclVV80cLaKU3FRSzlTQYilFwHtT2QnVJp27GLQ4_7taW2lUlZMXzmeL6sYW27P8f-w5cdLqksiosTbREUXKGpjmu0_peIzXBUuT8e7-v/s320/23120225_1467057753385210_3250999526070328418_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Swapping a plane for a seagull in <i>Buoy Racers</i> - photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5qdiJu">Initiative Creative Gaming</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If they look like they could be upset then “well, it was my favourite!” is usually a successful response. You soothe their bruised ego by pushing the idea that they’re great for having chipped in.<br />
<br />
If they look like they find it funny that they got shut down by the room, you can joke with them about how they need to try harder, and try to embarrass them. The message is “you made an effort and I’m going to reward you by playing with you.”<br />
<br />
This kind of interaction is always spontaneous, but I’ve found having this kind of rapport has come with practice and a positive mind-set.<br />
<br />
I’ve learned to be unafraid of letting the show get derailed in an unpredictable direction - for example, if I get more volunteers than the game supports I’ll often get them all on-stage anyway. If the chaos is funny and the audience is getting something unique then it pays off.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs2Qm11iCadwUNDYyYkmDbj430MWZlgfHpbW48X3A-Hc00Tb7bJRctC4GYJXTJ8GcAfFHVpP9hzCF1yi9aXNbPBDRgqcMtT6YNAnYU8Kq0I0ZJsSs_QSKVIwFXghO1jyVdnQ_pHPTfNZnM/s1600/ips16_-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs2Qm11iCadwUNDYyYkmDbj430MWZlgfHpbW48X3A-Hc00Tb7bJRctC4GYJXTJ8GcAfFHVpP9hzCF1yi9aXNbPBDRgqcMtT6YNAnYU8Kq0I0ZJsSs_QSKVIwFXghO1jyVdnQ_pHPTfNZnM/s320/ips16_-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A volunteer turns performer while being kitted out in Karlshamn, Sweden - photo by <a href="http://www.sebastianbularca.com/">Sebastian Bularca</a><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If every audience suggestion is treated as funny and imaginative, and everything that people shout out from the back is treated as worthy of a response from the host, it creates a sense of camaraderie, where everyone has the right to be heard and the ability to be funny. The same goes from thanking all players who are brave enough to come onto the stage, and getting the audience to applaud them.<br />
<br />
You’ll probably notice that a lot of these details come from the role of the host, and I’ve barely talked about the content of the games. In many ways that’s reflective of a project that has been born out of spontaneity. But the host is also a stand-in for the writing, environment and tutorials that would feature in traditional games.<br />
<br />
Like most of my previous games, the driving force is not in the nuts and bolts of computer code, but in the social dynamics going on outside the machine. Being a living breathing human component in this game experience has allowed me tremendous freedom to experiment while these dynamics are in motion. It's allowed me to engage with the mood and personality of my work in a much more nuanced way.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
The Incredible Playable Man</span></h2>
<br />
Right from the first performance I have been on-stage not as myself, but as “The Incredible Playable Man.” As in, I'm performing as a character, and character is literally called "The Incredible Playable Man." He has a top hat, ringmaster’s jacket and a deep “welcome to the circus of wonders!” voice because that’s what the show was always meant to be: the video game equivalent of circus.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjelP_QT892Ahxf3P6IZ4ZGoCEJq5l0t0g627JVrK9AYh1UOTsc4mNL0I958bl_MTTojI1NmDQqI4P32VxyEmDbrUdB2DNm-2bb2ukBIPxVMfJVBmDJPJ0kgwMYhFzP7YfIKz3suw_psvY4/s1600/23120151_1467057676718551_6805730977771127924_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjelP_QT892Ahxf3P6IZ4ZGoCEJq5l0t0g627JVrK9AYh1UOTsc4mNL0I958bl_MTTojI1NmDQqI4P32VxyEmDbrUdB2DNm-2bb2ukBIPxVMfJVBmDJPJ0kgwMYhFzP7YfIKz3suw_psvY4/s320/23120151_1467057676718551_6805730977771127924_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Setting the scene at Play17 in Hamburg - photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5qdiJu">Initiative Creative Gaming</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A personality emerged naturally, based purely on how it felt right to interact with the audience. The Incredible Playable Man is amazed by everything, and is enthusiastic and excitable. He thinks the games are incredible, the audience are incredible, but also that he’s incredible. He’s fantastic, and for these wonderful people in the audience, he's prepared games as a reward.<br />
<br />
An excitable host is an obvious way to build up excitement and anticipation. But it has a subtler secondary effect that makes the audience feel safer about coming to the stage. The host raises a high bar of excitability and expressiveness, removing some of the fear of embarrassment: volunteers know that they will never draw more attention to themselves than the host, <i>unless they choose to match his energy</i>.<br />
<br />
The Incredible Playable Man is vain and loves attention, inserting his face into his games and handing out signed photos of himself as prizes. His ridiculous vanity and love of the spotlight means nobody has to worry about being more ridiculous than The Incredible Playable Man - again, <i>unless they make a conscious effort to do so</i>.<br />
<br />
Once I was in character, breaking character became a powerful tool. If something went wrong I’d lose the deep voice, so that <i>Alistair</i> would be the one apologising and nervously fixing the equipment, not the Playable Man. It earned me trust by exposing the gentle human being behind the bravado, and encouraged people to volunteer out of camaraderie with me.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf9R64lEC5tSvRZLA8oSj1JI8PqcUq98CAaHlDKTWT7Uojsp7pPohHdcccCuPW4tS6mjK0HUJU6yC7tXb-lkVWSJUel0-RBH0XTk-lbLNe4etHJhDHa5lW0rHzaFc4dj1VkSa9cqhHj7Pi/s1600/23116941_1467057943385191_6261010758411247935_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf9R64lEC5tSvRZLA8oSj1JI8PqcUq98CAaHlDKTWT7Uojsp7pPohHdcccCuPW4tS6mjK0HUJU6yC7tXb-lkVWSJUel0-RBH0XTk-lbLNe4etHJhDHa5lW0rHzaFc4dj1VkSa9cqhHj7Pi/s320/23116941_1467057943385191_6261010758411247935_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Everybody dance! Play17 in Hamburg - photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5qdiJu">Initiative Creative Gaming</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Eventually I stopped using the deep “showman” voice entirely. I now deliver the show in my natural speaking voice and just project more. This wasn’t a conscious decision - rather, I kept on forgetting to do the voice. I think I simply got more confident on-stage, and I didn’t need it as a prop anymore.<br />
<br />
Being on-stage as The Incredible Playable Man has been personally very rewarding. As I look back now The Incredible Playable Man is the kind of person I’ve always wanted to be: imaginative, excitable, confident, friendly, generous, fearless and capable of making people smile. Seeing an audience respond well to him has always been a fantastic feeling.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Performing for Kids</span></h2>
<br />
I’ve often claimed the show has taught me to be fearless, throw myself into an unknown situation, and be happy to get things wrong. Performing for an audience of children encompassed all of these things.<br />
<br />
In December 2016 I did a run of four shows at the National Videogame Arcade, for a crowd almost exclusively in the 8-12 age bracket. I’d done shows for a mix of kids and adults before, and was happy with how they’d gone, but an audience of mostly kids? That’s a whole other ball park.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKY4xSS6gtDNOokHVv7ZicEO9cwWT0eWx21xfEgESlvRq40cNurtKsxVqWS_l0dEDiPQeY8GCeYI29uxgjRxLdHach_P_n5AN0RZRbpc8doy6vSYUiuaZ42gaE1ySq1ecChnj9zWNf2vV/s1600/DSC09273.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1076" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKY4xSS6gtDNOokHVv7ZicEO9cwWT0eWx21xfEgESlvRq40cNurtKsxVqWS_l0dEDiPQeY8GCeYI29uxgjRxLdHach_P_n5AN0RZRbpc8doy6vSYUiuaZ42gaE1ySq1ecChnj9zWNf2vV/s320/DSC09273.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A mix of kids and adults at the first run of the show at the National Videogame Arcade - photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The first show was an absolute disaster. It ended with eight children on a stage fighting over the <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a> buttons without a single puzzle having time to appear. The NVA staff were quite encouraging and understanding. They knew that sometimes live performance doesn’t go to plan, and they were confident in the show based off of <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/winner-of-gamecity-spirit-of-festival.html">how popular the GameCity run had been</a>.<br />
<br />
But I knew I was capable of better. The reasons it wasn’t working were flaws in the show and not in the audience, and I was determined to make it work. Fortunately, after each show I had time to reflect on where it had broken down, and figure out new strategies for the next one.<br />
<br />
The final show of the run was an absolute belter and is one of my proudest moments.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_AUifuYdLpIVZx9X-ZCJ8sGeMJQgAnqSA7uc9gcTuFFLmb7F7z-ymOo1P6OQT0I-mRYe93CfpHlLqddHDHvxN_2NI1oumEwEOCFmS6OC0lfv6fAzgTkb8V4NZrdaRm-G6i3TkTJV8oHFC/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.27.59.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_AUifuYdLpIVZx9X-ZCJ8sGeMJQgAnqSA7uc9gcTuFFLmb7F7z-ymOo1P6OQT0I-mRYe93CfpHlLqddHDHvxN_2NI1oumEwEOCFmS6OC0lfv6fAzgTkb8V4NZrdaRm-G6i3TkTJV8oHFC/s320/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.27.59.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kids in front of the alt-control Sonic the Hedgehog game. Still from BBC Click, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08450vk/click-quiet-zone">26 November 2016</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It’s very easy to lose the confidence of a room of kids. If they don’t get it, or they get bored waiting for you to faff around, they’re not going to give you any rope. It’s very hard to win them back once you’ve lost them. In fact, for many of them their natural response when it all goes wrong is to plow on independently - I'm just some silly grown-up who doesn’t know what he’s doing, after all!<br />
<br />
When children feel like they’ve figured something out, they are convinced they are right and there is no convincing them otherwise. From their eyes, video games are about winning, and being the best as an individual. If they’ve decided that the way to win <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/enter-button-power-team.html"><i>Go! Power Team!</i></a> is to press their own power belt over and over then that is what they will do for the rest of the game.<br />
<br />
So it’s important that kids aren’t given anything interactive until you’ve demonstrated what it is, and what the rules are. Part of the comedy in the adult shows is equipping volunteers with interactive props but leaving it as a total mystery what they’re for. Kids come up with their own solution to that mystery so the gag doesn’t work.<br />
<br />
Another aspect of being a kid, especially given that they view games as synonymous with winning, is that they try to one-up each other. They want to be sillier than each other, funnier than each other, and more rebellious than each other. When this one-upmanship overflows it descends into arguments.<br />
<br />
But if I invited three kids and one adult to the stage the kids would, for whatever reason, try to one-up the adult. They’d try to be sillier than the adult, and more rebellious than the adult, and smarter than the adult. But the adult wouldn’t try to one-up them. The result was that the kids still got to be imaginative, rebellious, and expressive, without risk of them winding each other up.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEEDWP3EZhQLxM1jrGTwEDbujb-C-cPw0elHIwSkxJ_X_kSRc_ljNBS_xBaxw92PoabnYmSP04jy9oxodFvRH1ZGn4jzyCv4ehrmuRQz5TO4pUTTDt70YLD6ouuXG8Ka0pQcbiiZDZUjna/s1600/go+power+team+IPS+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="997" data-original-width="1597" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEEDWP3EZhQLxM1jrGTwEDbujb-C-cPw0elHIwSkxJ_X_kSRc_ljNBS_xBaxw92PoabnYmSP04jy9oxodFvRH1ZGn4jzyCv4ehrmuRQz5TO4pUTTDt70YLD6ouuXG8Ka0pQcbiiZDZUjna/s320/go+power+team+IPS+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Forming a conga line with some of the younger volunteers from the original run. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the December 2016 run at the NVA! - photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/raygungoth/albums/72157675309403431">Gemma Thomson</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Perhaps the joke of the show is lost on children, who don’t have the prior experience to read that the games are subversive. But what is lost is gained back tenfold in their boundless enthusiasm. Once the games are rolling the kids find them really fun at face value. They don’t need a joke to be in on.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Lessons from the Games</span></h2>
<br />
Rather than list out every minor change to the games - and there have been many - I’ve picked out some notable ones. These ones were indicative of issues unique to performative games, or lessons that crossed the boundary between multiple games.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Props that didn’t work</h3>
<br />
In an early version of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmCZyzu338o">Buoy Racers</a>, one of the props was a set of plastic balls with barcodes attached to them. The idea was I’d throw them into the crowd and, when a symbol popped up on the screen the audience would need to throw the corresponding balls to the players that needed them.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh75xPFh_G3UJB46xsuoTKZ7gZBket4-8zj2Ijq7qWtSOU4ndPKrE7FMMLhzrU9mm6PKSq4NDbk55BqN8ZjFUrLdcUmDp9tWYGEuPf-rsCSyEQFaSWWOVAR5fAQNEAiJ6pEkf-i4nET-BHm/s1600/23270344_1467057776718541_606664371383327033_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh75xPFh_G3UJB46xsuoTKZ7gZBket4-8zj2Ijq7qWtSOU4ndPKrE7FMMLhzrU9mm6PKSq4NDbk55BqN8ZjFUrLdcUmDp9tWYGEuPf-rsCSyEQFaSWWOVAR5fAQNEAiJ6pEkf-i4nET-BHm/s320/23270344_1467057776718541_606664371383327033_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Buoy Racers</i> is played by scanning inflatables with barcodes - photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5qdiJu">Initiative Creative Gaming</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The problem was that most members of the audience wouldn’t throw the balls back. Even though I’d explained what they were for in the intro, most people held onto their balls and asked me “I’ve got the ball, when do I use it?”<br />
<br />
Once people have been left alone with a prop they naturally think “this is mine” and that they’ll get to use it for something - especially if it’s something they can hold in their hand.<br />
<br />
By contrast, pool inflatables worked in the same game because they were too big for one person to own. It was visually obvious to the audience that the players were sharing the inflatables between them, and it was hard to conceive of how to use something that big without a buddy.<br />
<br />
<h3>
One twist at a time</h3>
<br />
I’ve been through many many versions of “<a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/the-mega-cooperator-teamwork-fuelled.html">classic Mega Drive games with unusual controllers</a>.” I love the idea of taking something familiar, adding a twist to it and seeing what unexpected gameplay happens as a result. I love the way it turns a game of skill into a game of communication, and makes the avatars look clumsy and inept.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheixjYy0Oeo4JuIxgDCX-zGnvzRvYmJxR5YYeFB99iLvFSDE4dhdWLuHjZmd6ld_TUBLafRwcs8HdwcHDcYMkPczbGpIWyYDNJsAuEYvtY2aGOfPQTVOZeOPk1lrHUz7bwSFt8vW39_VE7/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.28.13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheixjYy0Oeo4JuIxgDCX-zGnvzRvYmJxR5YYeFB99iLvFSDE4dhdWLuHjZmd6ld_TUBLafRwcs8HdwcHDcYMkPczbGpIWyYDNJsAuEYvtY2aGOfPQTVOZeOPk1lrHUz7bwSFt8vW39_VE7/s320/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.28.13.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The four Codex Bash buttons. Still from BBC Click, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08450vk/click-quiet-zone">26 November 2016</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Originally I played around with using the <i>Codex Bash</i> buttons as a controller <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/breaking-sonic-2-marathon.html">where the buttons kept swapping</a>, but it was obvious that the spectators had nothing to do. I tried using <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Machines_2:_Turbo_Tournament">Micro Machines</a></i> but it was too complicated a game. I tried doing stuff with the <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/building-glitchable-mega-drive-emulator.html">Mega Drive glitches I’d created</a> but nobody understood what was going on.<br />
<br />
In a home environment all of these had worked out well because we had time to fiddle around them. But on the stage each one was too complicated for the audience to figure out just by watching. I wanted the audience to get behind the drama of the game, not trying to suss out what was going on.<br />
<br />
The best version for a time was the <i>Codex Bash</i> buttons set up so that shouting “jump!” made Sonic jump. But I could tell that the audience didn’t understand how the buttons worked.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeUdSZTR5OBPYR4o7NwX2VCq0PgL0cQua82RXrAxqlNBC1Smd2V42-xoSgpJo9zxmAhpI3oC51aViSfR2-FMygsT3Z63HtYKeSUv3wLM4LPfuKjJcUpI9KVfjRznzJ76wD9lYlrvlz39r/s1600/26354699199_d2af633e73_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBeUdSZTR5OBPYR4o7NwX2VCq0PgL0cQua82RXrAxqlNBC1Smd2V42-xoSgpJo9zxmAhpI3oC51aViSfR2-FMygsT3Z63HtYKeSUv3wLM4LPfuKjJcUpI9KVfjRznzJ76wD9lYlrvlz39r/s320/26354699199_d2af633e73_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With the improved controller at Play17, Hamburg. Notice the buttons have been removed! - photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5qdiJu">Initiative Creative Gaming</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In a half-hour break between shows I made the world’s simplest alt-controller, to replace the Codex Bash buttons: I opened up a USB joypad, and took out all the buttons, except the D-pad.<br />
<br />
Now there’s a narrative reason to shout. The volunteer’s controller is broken, so Sonic can only move left and right. The audience is shouting “jump!” to fill in the gaps and help the volunteer.<br />
<br />
The prop of a broken USB controller does not need to be understood - it makes natural sense. The only thing different to normal Sonic the Hedgehog is shouting to make him jump. The audience immediately knows what they’re getting behind and get invested a lot faster.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Changing the staging changes the game</h3>
<br />
Often a successful change to a game has nothing to do with the content of the game itself, but rather how you frame the environment.<br />
<br />
Originally in <i><a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a></i> the four players pressing the buttons could see the screen. The issue was that the players could do the first couple of puzzles without needing the audience. Then, when the audience became necessary for finding clues in the room, everyone got confused.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7wiHn3ibGdlHJdNM4NwOG4pFu3hsfu-Uit8zuXjF9RZ61DZ1il3uBvtepeocec_TO2qU_ZX1Nr-Q47GXddJRxUU_vTTvK4tH4Zb-qQ93e7SFhvzlJLOyEkQlUMQYgijpCgPybdKWj-mC/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.54.42.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7wiHn3ibGdlHJdNM4NwOG4pFu3hsfu-Uit8zuXjF9RZ61DZ1il3uBvtepeocec_TO2qU_ZX1Nr-Q47GXddJRxUU_vTTvK4tH4Zb-qQ93e7SFhvzlJLOyEkQlUMQYgijpCgPybdKWj-mC/s320/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.54.42.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Getting everyone out of their seats and working together is the magic moment in <i>Codex Bash</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
So I made the players face away from the screen and made the audience shout out the colours they needed to press. So even before they had to search for clues the audience was actively propelling the action.<br />
<br />
The resulting communication challenge is really interesting - the players need to listen for colours from all these disparate voices, and the audience need to agree on what to shout out!<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
Playable Show was Incredible! Oot! Oot! Thanks <a href="https://twitter.com/agAitcheson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@agAitcheson</a> <a href="https://t.co/zTqgjFt96M">pic.twitter.com/zTqgjFt96M</a></div>
— Zachary Johnson is reading about guillotines (@zacharyjohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/zacharyjohnson/status/917113787437662208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2017</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
<br />
<h3>
When a prop should just be removed</h3>
<br />
An early problem with <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9hMqFkcH4o">Match Me If You Scan</a></i> is that while the initial surprise was lots of fun it would lose momentum as the same volunteer kept running around zapping the same groups of people. I wanted to randomly select new players from the audience each time a new puzzle appeared, to keep the energy in the room moving and build a feel of “you could be next!”<br />
<br />
I went through so many failed ways to do this, so I’ll pick out a notable one. At the beginning of the act I’d throw plastic balls into the crowd, and each ball had a letter on it. After each round there’d be a letter on the screen, and the person holding that ball had to come up and get the barcode scanner.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jrhp1GqJaZu1yNBknfg7qN6O9RvO-776MU-uvDSHOjAqEBWhBNpiA7tRws9FIYnbm6Z0vjz4DV_FGIr3Fs9DZU1B3cUqXjYKxjG20jgAtU36MNGWFSSQS0z8LaD5OqOy7Gjg-0kDiIgo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-12-28+at+16.27.04.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="890" data-original-width="1600" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jrhp1GqJaZu1yNBknfg7qN6O9RvO-776MU-uvDSHOjAqEBWhBNpiA7tRws9FIYnbm6Z0vjz4DV_FGIr3Fs9DZU1B3cUqXjYKxjG20jgAtU36MNGWFSSQS0z8LaD5OqOy7Gjg-0kDiIgo/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-12-28+at+16.27.04.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Running with a barcode scanner at Play17</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Some people wouldn’t want to come on-stage when selected. A lot of the balls went missing under chairs. Most pressingly, between being given a ball and being shown the first letter the reason for having a ball was of no consequence. People forgot what the balls were for.<br />
<br />
A ball is not a letter. A ball does not identify a person. A ball is a ball. What was going through the heads of most people holding balls was “when do I get to throw it?”<br />
<br />
A much better way to get the random selection I wanted to put prompts up on the screen: “Step up if your name begins with the letter A” or “step up if you are wearing green.” Nothing new needs to be made sense of, and it doesn’t single out anyone who doesn’t want to be singled out.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
What makes the Incredible Playable Show funny?</span></h2>
<br />
I always intended <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> to be funny. In fact, going back to <i><a href="https://www.greedy-bankers.com/iPad/index.html">Greedy Bankers vs The World</a></i> I've tried to make people laugh with most of the games I've made. So, just like the games that came before it, I’ve worked very hard at making it funny. If the volume of laughter at IndieCade was anything to go by I managed to meet that goal!<br />
<br />
A comedian friend of mine told me that he'd always seen <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> as always a comedy show. I had never crossed my mind that it was <i>comedy</i>, but it didn't cross his mind to call it anything else. He made me realise how much there was I could learn from stand-up comics. Listening to <a href="http://www.comedianscomedian.com/">comedians’ podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Born-Standing-Up-Comics-Life/dp/1847391486">reading about the craft</a>, and watching shows, has been a staple of my 2017.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrUE0OFtSebJJUvefhp3-50KXs4LJ2p18mAK-II4Xta-UlDY8QY9B0wIdfj9NdghKHW7OZnQOa7KbSyl8D-Q2-ncuMU0gEGAgb-HxEe83YBVsCFo4B31tgda7WzQ1g5MtxzwmxNXBLuZzD/s1600/ips6_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrUE0OFtSebJJUvefhp3-50KXs4LJ2p18mAK-II4Xta-UlDY8QY9B0wIdfj9NdghKHW7OZnQOa7KbSyl8D-Q2-ncuMU0gEGAgb-HxEe83YBVsCFo4B31tgda7WzQ1g5MtxzwmxNXBLuZzD/s320/ips6_.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Presenting to the crowd! Screenshake 2017 in Karshamn, Sweden - photo by <a href="http://www.sebastianbularca.com/">Sebastian Bularca</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My job as host is, in many ways, a double act. As long as I’ve built energy and trust in the crowd, the games always get big laughs whether or not I’m a funny individual. If I can make people laugh on my own then that's a bonus.<br />
<br />
I think most of the laughs I get as host are not from telling jokes or using clever language, but simply reacting to what the audience give me. A good reaction seems to be less about being witty but highlighting the absurdity of what the audience has thrown up. If I can feed the audience with prompts that allow them to respond in unpredictable ways, and react to them in a way that makes people laugh, it adds to the spectacle: a show that seems shambolic but somehow comes together. As I’ve performed more and got more confident my ability to find these reactions on the fly has grown.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBQ2dvclYMPxSC58TaR9JOfH7P-2oLSKNcAEzRoWaPukCpQ3vtTrsIgYFTBf8kvH5Me5269IOLyv1vaI7UPTI49pFmovCpHIjijb3mb7svZ5L2exT11MWYu41MebYJrg5SLD4su3QfQVVV/s1600/23116989_1467057726718546_832082983007995613_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1050" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBQ2dvclYMPxSC58TaR9JOfH7P-2oLSKNcAEzRoWaPukCpQ3vtTrsIgYFTBf8kvH5Me5269IOLyv1vaI7UPTI49pFmovCpHIjijb3mb7svZ5L2exT11MWYu41MebYJrg5SLD4su3QfQVVV/s320/23116989_1467057726718546_832082983007995613_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Buoy Racers</i> is played with an inflatable doughnut - photo by <a href="https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5qdiJu">Initiative Creative Gaming</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Jimmy Carr, <a href="http://www.comedianscomedian.com/164-jimmy-carr-part-one-of-two/">on the Comedian’s Comedian Podcast</a>, shared a theory about why jokes are funny. You take two concepts that are disparate, and show that they are connected, and the brain rewards the newly-formed connection with laughter. This is fascinatingly close to the theme of Raph Koster’s <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1932111972/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1514474218&sr=1-1&keywords=a+theory+of+fun+for+game+design">A Theory of Fun for Game Design</a></i>: that the reason that video games are fun is because we learn from them.<br />
<br />
All the games draw on some mystery object which makes you go “how do you make a video game out of this?” and then pay off when you see it in action. You go “aha, that’s how you make a video game out of that!” and a new connection between “inflatable banana” and “video game” is made. Perhaps that’s why the games are funny and that so many alt-controller games are naturally funny.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
The Biggest Lesson</span></h2>
<br />
Running <i><a href="http://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a></i> has felt like a natural next step from I’m used to creating - the thing <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games.html">my games</a> have always wanted to be - and yet the way I've delivered the experience has been a massive departure. The adventure is still going on - I already have bookings for 2018 and am always making improvements to the show.<br />
<br />
At the same time I’m hungry to explore the next step from here that builds on what I've learned - be it as a game, performance, installation, some kind of mash-up, or something entirely new. My goal for the coming year is to keep on pushing forwards and be <i>fearless</i>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCtNYtTeDJO7a8bEpVH4z_-eSSi1lCCfCPU88DVb5146KISI7f6DX7SAyozIHFvMF13kthA5XOvYNEolQR9K6zfkMM6_M_R49je7zSv0ae5Fo7XeoqbTJBV4m9peDLiBZFTzWj5waD8Qgh/s1600/ips2_2000px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCtNYtTeDJO7a8bEpVH4z_-eSSi1lCCfCPU88DVb5146KISI7f6DX7SAyozIHFvMF13kthA5XOvYNEolQR9K6zfkMM6_M_R49je7zSv0ae5Fo7XeoqbTJBV4m9peDLiBZFTzWj5waD8Qgh/s320/ips2_2000px.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hosting at ScreenShake 2017 - photo by <a href="http://www.sebastianbularca.com/">Sebastian Bularca</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Fearlessness: before stand-up comics do their knock-out Edinburgh show they do preview after preview where the material just doesn’t work. Standing in front of a room full of people who just don't find you funny is not easy. But only by saying it on stage can they figure out how to turn something that showed promise on paper into something that gets laughs from a live audience.<br />
<br />
For everything that works about <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> there has been a version of it that has not worked. I needed to see it not work before I could understand what didn’t work, why it didn’t work, how to fix it, and what “working” actually means.<br />
<br />
Indeed, very often when something’s failing is when the best solutions emerge. Perhaps it’s the adrenaline, or perhaps it’s knowing that the only way to make a better show is to do something different to what I did list time. Perhaps it’s about looking for those opportunities with a spirit of positivity.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it’s about not just saying “yes, and” to those players playing your game, but also to yourself. When that little voice pops up with an idea, do it in the here and now, if only for the benefit of knowing what would happen if you did.<br />
<br />
Because when things click with your audience it’s the greatest feeling in the world.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGw9llEVQVtsOa2oSPMbB-hyMav-BOeTThvziABcYlI8mcr-ndxabH1zLIjFqBeKNKOHdBmwnmyZ7BFMysKR8CwoigYN03jwx9wKqUw6vcuaDLNdXrvtI8Gc0wufWwQmkzNqTFl2A_9gTV/s1600/ips4_2000px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGw9llEVQVtsOa2oSPMbB-hyMav-BOeTThvziABcYlI8mcr-ndxabH1zLIjFqBeKNKOHdBmwnmyZ7BFMysKR8CwoigYN03jwx9wKqUw6vcuaDLNdXrvtI8Gc0wufWwQmkzNqTFl2A_9gTV/s320/ips4_2000px.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="http://www.sebastianbularca.com/">Sebastian Bularca</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>Thanks to <b>everyone</b> who's come to the show, and <b>all the venues</b> who have hosted me over the past year! I look forward to more shows in 2018!</i>Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-31230464824870043762017-11-20T11:51:00.004+00:002017-11-20T17:16:25.954+00:00Nintendo HardWhen developing games for the NES, Nintendo designers used to have a concept of <b>Nintendo Hard</b>. Most kids didn’t have a lot of pocket money and games were expensive in the Eighties, so Nintendo wanted to ensure their games stood out as good value for money that provided a lot of play-time. To do this, they didn’t just make games hard; they made them <b>Nintendo Hard</b>. They’d do the normal three difficulty levels - Easy, Medium, Hard - and then they’d make a fourth difficulty called <b>Nintendo Hard</b> which was too hard for the developers to beat. Then they’d just shift everything down a space in the menu. So Easy would actually be Medium, Medium would actually be Hard, and Hard would actually be <b>Nintendo Hard</b>. So was the genius of Nintendo.<br />
<br />
<i>The above story is absolute rubbish.</i><br />
<br />
There’s a thousand reasons why it makes no sense. Indeed, one of the things that makes Nintendo’s first party games stand out from other games from the same era is how intuitive, accessible and forgiving they are.<br />
<br />
But it was told to me in a pub by a drunk guy who was very insistent and I think he liked the idea that he was imparting valuable knowledge to a so-called professional game developer. Who am I to take that joy away from him?<br />
<br />
Thus, this is an article about what it really means to be <b>Nintendo Hard</b>.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I’ve had an interesting relationship with difficulty in my own games. <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a> was never meant to be difficult. It is designed for exhibition spaces where visitors will want to move from exhibit to exhibit. My duty as a designer is to give them the best experience I can in the environment they’re in. So they should have the best five-to-ten minutes I can offer and then be free to explore the rest of the exhibition with my game a highlight of their day.<br />
<br />
Part of that memorable experience is a feeling of a success well-earned. So I want players to beat <i>Codex Bash</i> first time, but it’s important that they had to make a genuine effort to do so. In other words, the game is meant to <i>be</i> easy but <i>feel</i> hard.<br />
<br />
A game is nothing if it is not being played, so what a player <i>feels</i> a game is is the only thing that game <i>actually is</i>.<br />
<br />
It matters that <i>Codex Bash</i> feels hard. It recognises the lateral thinking, imagination and teamwork you put in, and validates that with the the sense that you’ve achieved something against the odds. It matters that you feel like you classic Nintendo games have the legend of being <b>Nintendo Hard</b>. It makes you feel like you have rad skills. It comforts you if you’re struggling.<br />
<br />
Difficulty is not an absolute. A game is only as difficult as the player finds it. A beginner has to overcome the same intensity of challenge playing a game on Easy as a veteran does playing a game on Hard. The beginner gets the same pride in beating the game as the veteran, so long as they both felt they overcame a challenge that was beyond them starting out.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Difficulty in Modern Games</span></h2>
<br />
Designers’ approach to difficulty in games has changed, certainly over the past ten or fifteen years. They haven’t got easier, they haven’t got harder, but they have got more forgiving. Tutorials are richer and more detailed and the explanations are better. Pictures have replaced text. Doing has replaced being told. Controls are increasingly re-mappable. Checkpoints are more common. These are great trends. They mean more people get to play, and people get to play the way that suits their preferences and their physicality. The trend has been to reject the ridiculous idea that getting into a game is something that must be earned.<br />
<br />
<b>Nintendo Hard</b> in the early 2010’s has changed too, albeit with some backlash from certain corners of the internet. Recent <i>Super Mario </i>games have given players the opportunity to skip over levels they can’t beat, or super-strength power-ups if they’re struggling. If you can’t get past a level why shouldn’t you enjoy the rest of the game you paid for? When you come back to it and finally master it you’ll still get the same sense of achievement. <br />
<br />
Nevertheless, with these wonderful trends there has been a parallel trend which has been frustrating. As developers have embraced the reality that a good game teaches its players, my personal feeling is that “the bit that teaches you how to play” has become longer, more restrictive and more forced.<br />
<br />
A game that offers you an exciting new toy but won’t let you play with it until you’ve jumped through a list of hoops is frustrating. A game that does not trust you to be able to figure out the toy on your own is condescending. “Let me get to the good bit” has become my most common whine about recent games.<br />
<br />
Compare 1991’s <i>Sonic the Hedgehog</i> - which opens with a massive playground of ramps and springs and lets you loose to feel out its novel momentum mechanics by mucking around - with 2013’s <i>Gravity Rush</i> - where the first hour teaches you to use its tantalising gravity mechanics by hemming you in to small environments and metered “get to a location” quests and fights.<br />
<br />
One game opens by giving you a racecar and the other opens by giving you a driving test. One game trusts you and the other is afraid to let you make mistakes.<br />
<br />
Granted, one game is more complex than the other. But there’s no reason <i>Gravity Rush</i> could not have opened with an open playground to experiment with the mechanics on your own terms. Targeted quests could be an opportunity to put your newly-found abilities into action, to take what you’ve discovered into the playground and use it to achieve a goal. Instead, main quests feel like a harder version of the tutorial - a test to see if you’ve been paying attention rather than an opportunity to show off.<br />
<br />
This is, of course, a reflection of personal taste. Many people have applauded <i>Gravity Rush </i>for its design, and I'm glad that it's found an audience who have thoroughly enjoyed it, and no game should be expected to please everyone. I personally grew impatient with the game and could not get into it because it felt like work. But I also feel that for new studios and cheaper games losing the player's interest early on can mean the work gets entirely overlooked. An upfront investment, or the trust of a known studio or a box on a shelf, means players are willing to give a game with a weak opening the benefit of the doubt. Nevertheless, do any of us really want to <i>rely</i> on the benefit of the doubt? <br />
<br />
Fortunately, it is entirely possible to have the best of both worlds. It is perfectly reasonable to support reticent players with a helping hand and offer confident players freedom. It’s exactly what Nintendo have demonstrated this year with <i>The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild</i> and <i>Super Mario Odyssey</i>.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>The New Nintendo</b></h2>
<br />
In <i>Zelda</i>, if you follow the suggested route you learn to fend off some simple enemies, and the fine folks of Kakariko Village teach you the tools of the trade. You’ll have opportunities to get equipment and power up your hearts and stamina with some simpler puzzles. There’s a neat learning curve that warms you up to the challenges, trains you in adventuring skills, and mounts the challenge when you’ve proven you get it.<br />
<br />
The game is perfectly well equipped to train you. But if you don’t feel the need to be trained it won’t stop you going your own way.<br />
<br />
As soon as I was given the opportunity to diverge from the suggested route I did. I felt confident. I wanted to be rebellious. I wanted to push the boundaries of what the game would let me get away with. If an area looked like it was supposed to be too hard for me I made a beeline for it and tried to prove the game wrong. I felt smart when I used my wits to climb rock faces that seemed way too high, and disarm enemies that could slay me in one hit. I felt like a maverick poking around the north edge of the map, with its lava pools and centaurs and only three hearts to my name.<br />
<br />
This was an act of self-expression.<br />
<br />
I got to express my rebellious nature and choose my own level of challenge. I could go straight to the harder puzzle rooms, straight into the tough puzzles that a <i>Zelda</i> veteran like myself would find satisfying. None of this prevented a beginner from engaging with the lessons that would help them reach the same position, and where to find these lessons was clearly marked out.<br />
<br />
Not only this, but having easy sections in the game was of no detriment to my experience as a confident veteran. When I went back to the easy sections, well-armed and full of self-taught strategies I felt powerful. The easy puzzles felt like fun freebies, proof of my awesomeness. I’d been trying to prove to the game “look how good I am!” and it said “yes you are!”<br />
<br />
Again, I stress that none of this means there are no tutorials in the game. Tutorials are plentiful and well-indicated, but it’s your choice to engage with them. Gentler areas of the game exist too. The beauty of the game is that it trusts you to choose. It trusts you to decide how confident you are, and gives you a teleport back to the easier bits if you decide it’s too much for you.<br />
<br />
In <i>Super Mario Odyssey</i>, to progress to the next stage you need to collect a certain number of shiny gold moons. Some of these are indicated by plot points and markers which obviously guide you to the next one. Plenty are scattered around the area for players who want to go off the beaten track to demonstrate their lateral thinking and dexterity. Moons that you wouldn’t find unless you spotted some unusual level geometry, or questioned what might be out of camera-shot.<br />
<br />
Of course, a beginner finds following the path to the plot-marked moons is just as hard as a veteran finds hunting for obscure moons. The game makes few demands on which moons you need to get - any moons will do - and rates no one moon as more worthy than any other.<br />
<br />
Beginners: you’re not going to run across a point where your play experience stops dead. Veterans: you don’t need to trudge through tasks that do not stretch you. The game applauds both approaches and rewards you with new levels for your efforts.<br />
<br />
These are games that say “yes, and” to their players. You need a hand to learn? I’ve got your back, here’s a tutorial. You want to just get on with it? Go ahead, pick the bit that looks most interesting to you - I promise it will pay off!<br />
<br />
<h2>
Of Toys and Teachers</h2>
<br />
This is the attitude that says the role of a game is to offer up a toy rather than teach a player a skill.<br />
<br />
When I was starting out in the industry, and Raph Koster’s <i><a href="https://www.theoryoffun.com/">A Theory of Fun for Game Design</a></i> was a massive inspiration for me. Raph Koster’s book proposed that we have fun as an evolutionary reward for learning, a thought which I found rational and compelling.<br />
<br />
While I still largely agree with A Theory of Fun, I also don’t think learning is the only source of fun. Nevertheless, either through other designers using this pattern in their work, or by noticing the trend more easily having read it myself, I feel I’ve come across more and more often. Games that, particularly in their opening segments, prioritise teaching their mechanics over providing inspiration to play.<br />
<br />
“This section is there to teach the player” is the design philosophy of <i>Super Mario Bros</i> World 1-1 without the nuance.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PsC0zIhWNww/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PsC0zIhWNww?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
World 1-1 is a level that’s been analysed brilliantly time and time again <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE">by many astute designers</a>. World 1-1 teaches you the basic mechanics of jumping on enemies, falling down holes, enemy patterns and behaviours, all by putting you in situations where you have to do them. It’s learning by doing, not learning by being told. This is excellent, but it’s only half the lesson. What World 1-1 also does is never feel like a tutorial. You don’t realise you’re being taught how to play, but like you’re figuring it out for yourself. As an added bonus if you already know what you’re doing you can burn through it really fast and feel awesome in the process.<br />
<br />
Not feeling like a tutorial is important. If a game feels like it’s trying to teach the player it doesn’t feel satisfying to learn. It feels like performing a task rather than expressing yourself. The player does not get to take pride in their own achievement. At worst, if the player fails they will blame the teacher that set a frustrating task, rather than look to themselves for an alternative solution.<br />
<br />
The designer’s hand can direct a player to the lessons they need to learn, but we should aspire that the player should not see it. The player should see themselves spotting a detail and responding with a solution.<br />
<br />
The player chooses to learn because the player has an intrinsic motivation to solve each challenge in the level. The player’s goal is to get to the end of the level. Pits and enemies are in their way, but figuring them out means getting to that next level! But if the player can tell that each challenge is there to teach them a lesson their goal is not seeing the next tantalising stage - it’s getting the teacher off of their back.<br />
<br />
A good game lets the lessons a player learns be their own achievements.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Yes, and</h2>
<br />
If you want to be on your player’s side you need to be able to say “yes, and” to them.<br />
<br />
“Yes, and” means providing your game to players and letting them do whatever they want with it, learn what they want from it and achieve what they feel is a meaningful achievement to them. You can suggest new paths for them to follow, but if they choose to go a different path then your job is not to restrict that choice. It is to celebrate it.<br />
<br />
“Yes, and” is about providing an opportunity to players. Give them an opportunity to jump around in crazy environments and go on a wild adventure. Give them an opportunity to express themselves. Give them an opportunity to prove themselves to themselves. Inspire them to ask “what if?”<br />
<br />
A teacher gives you a task. A toy gives you an opportunity. Raph Koster was right when he said that when we learn we have fun. But the joy is much more memorable when we own the lesson we have learned.<br />
<br />
That’s the great lesson Nintendo have demonstrated this year. <b>Nintendo Hard</b> is not about being punishingly hard, and it’s not about being trivially easy. <b>Nintendo Hard</b> is about letting players choose for themselves what they want to achieve and saying “yes.”<br />
<br />
<b>Nintendo Hard</b> is, to say to every single player who approaches your game, <i>“this is my gift to you.”</i>Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-11573891009984250982017-11-13T15:59:00.001+00:002017-11-13T16:04:22.940+00:00Winner: IndieCade 2017 Jury Choice Award<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1m2xPnmNd9IpB4KDGgNdoLxmqvUOdLlgUyiBEQoLxwqFEwdqUqtIBHArarn3bhOB7LYNHo530YfTxkh3UvNQd4PcFZuH8PdfO11N-opyAn_iNSUEEA-_QQv736M4p58IZ5YrK3Ekj9uio/s1600/DLtl_KgVwAAz71k.jpg-large.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1029" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1m2xPnmNd9IpB4KDGgNdoLxmqvUOdLlgUyiBEQoLxwqFEwdqUqtIBHArarn3bhOB7LYNHo530YfTxkh3UvNQd4PcFZuH8PdfO11N-opyAn_iNSUEEA-_QQv736M4p58IZ5YrK3Ekj9uio/s320/DLtl_KgVwAAz71k.jpg-large.jpeg" width="204" /></a>The past few months have certainly been busy! I flew to Japan to show <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a> at <a href="http://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/tgs/2017/exhibition/english/">Tokyo Game Show</a>, followed by a trip to <a href="http://www.indiecade.com/">IndieCade</a> in Los Angeles to perform <a href="http://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a>, and then after a couple of weeks off I was in the air again, on my way to Hamburg to perform at <a href="http://www.playfestival.de/">Play17</a>.<br />
<br />
The big big news is that <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> was awarded the <a href="http://www.indiecade.com/2017/FestivalAwards">Jury Choice Award</a> at IndieCade 2017!<br />
<br />
The Jury Choice Award is eligible by all games chosen for the Official Selection, and is voted on by the judges, jury and production team of the festival.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a> was part of the Night Games selection, exhibited on the second night of the festival. I was allocated the main lecture theatre to perform in, and a window of four hours. Having flown over 5000 miles to be there I thought I should make the most of it, and did three one-hour shows. I'm glad I did, as the audience were really up for it, loads of people came to see it and honestly the show was the wildest and funniest it has ever been.<br />
<br />
In fact, I was so buzzed from performing that I only slept two hours the following night!<br />
<br />
It really is an honour to receive the award and I'm so happy that the team at IndieCade were so impressed by it. The Incredible Playable Show is something that I have worked very hard on - it's brought together everything I've learned from all the previous games I've made, but has also challenged me to learn performance skills and fearlessness. It's a piece of work I'm very proud of and so to know that people have been so entertained by it means that that work has paid off.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDUvrExOq7mZulIW7Wk_4aVPePpVqS4KgZLxmX84nsOLK_v78hPDNO5eYk1vMEtJjT39XJe0SNv6Z_cLGEk8zSrxpBoE0acbUZfO_lzlxYd9yC5BghZxtEgv6O8addB6YXASC-GRm-dIBA/s1600/DLovkwIUIAAJgY5.jpg-large-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="883" data-original-width="1570" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDUvrExOq7mZulIW7Wk_4aVPePpVqS4KgZLxmX84nsOLK_v78hPDNO5eYk1vMEtJjT39XJe0SNv6Z_cLGEk8zSrxpBoE0acbUZfO_lzlxYd9yC5BghZxtEgv6O8addB6YXASC-GRm-dIBA/s400/DLovkwIUIAAJgY5.jpg-large-2.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from <a href="https://twitter.com/seraphki">@seraphki</a> on Twitter<span id="goog_384201628"></span><span id="goog_384201629"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I'd like to send a massive thank you to the IndieCade team for the award, and also to all the staff and stewards, the sound desk operators and the <a href="http://www.janm.org/">Japanese American National Museum</a> for the fantastic venue - my work can often be complicated to set up and run, so having so many helpful people behind you helping accommodate it makes a massive difference!<br />
<br />
I'd also like to send a massive thank you to everyone in the audience who came along, who joined in the games, who made lots of noise, who told their friends about it, and who simply enjoyed the show. Having an audience who is excited to get stuck in is what makes the show work, and so I really do mean it when I say you made it a success.Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-73728196948874621052017-09-11T21:19:00.002+01:002017-09-11T21:19:59.657+01:00Tokyo, Los Angeles, Bath, Hamburg!Lots of exciting announcements, and a very busy end of the year ahead for this game developer!<br />
<br />
<h3>
Tokyo</h3>
<br />
This Thursday I'll be jetting my way to Japan for Tokyo Games Show. <i>Codex Bash</i> has been selected for the Indie Game Area and will be playable at <b>booth A36</b> from <b>21 - 24 September</b>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Los Angeles</h3>
<br />
Then in October I'll be making my return to IndieCade in Los Angeles, where <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> is an <a href="http://www.indiecade.com/2017/games">Official Selection</a>. I'll be performing as part of the <b>Night Games</b> event on <b>Saturday 7 October</b>. I'll also be giving <a href="https://indiecadefestival2017.sched.com/event/Bp3L/postmortem-microtalks?iframe=no&w=100%&sidebar=yes&bg=no">a talk about the creation of the show</a> at <b>12 noon</b> on <b>Sunday 8 October</b>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Bath</h3>
<br />
Closer to home, I'll be performing <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> in Bath as part of <a href="https://bathdigitalfestival.co.uk/events/personal:do/the-incredible-playable-show.html">Bath Digital Festival</a>, at<b> 7pm</b> on <b>Tuesday 17 October. </b>Entry is free with a festival ticket, which can be <a href="https://bathdigitalfestival.co.uk/wristbands/purchase/">purchased here</a>.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Hamburg</h3>
<br />
Finally, November sees me returning to <a href="http://www.playfestival.de/de/2017/08/11/the-incredible-playable-show/">PLAY Festival in Hamburg</a>, where I'll be running <i>The Incredible Playable Show</i> from <b>2 - 4 November</b>, in <b>Markethalle Hamburg</b>. I'll also be performing a special surprise skit at the opening party, for audience members who like to give their vocal cords a good workout!Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-42538244835559634912017-07-25T22:18:00.002+01:002017-07-29T10:09:51.997+01:00Codex Bash Selected for Out Of Index 2017More exciting news! <a href="http://alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a> has been chosen for the <a href="https://www.outofindex.org/">Out Of Index 2017</a> Official Selection in Seoul, South Korea.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.outofindex.org/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjLbp6JtCBXDCs1sLLZSRZuiOgTpLdSfH9SeCCh7EHSjme2kIad4NrjTQR4lz8dl9n3y9nH2KzYxVjpi1PxpMWy8RwzP1V32GAHc-1eTE_pXkjjqIIRh62hZS2kbMBjkSkhtMiBCmmo9Am/s400/OOI+2017+-+Poster.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>Out Of Index</i> is an annual festival of experimental independent games, with a mission statement of exposing unusual and surprising works and making them visible and available to a wider audience. 98 games were submitted to the selection from a grand total of 22 countries, of which 12 made the final shortlist.<br />
<br />
The exhibition will be this<b> Saturday 29 July</b>, and it marks the furthest <i>Codex Bash</i> has travelled from its birthplace in Bristol - narrowly beating Los Angeles by a mere 200 miles!<br />
<br />
The developer presentariona can be live-streamed at 9am BST on the <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/outofindex">Out Of Index Twitch channel</a>Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-66138900189576350312017-07-07T13:19:00.003+01:002020-09-25T14:09:22.218+01:00Breaking Sonic 2: The MarathonEarlier in the year I gathered together some friends to try to beat as much of <i>Sonic the Hedgehog 2 </i>(1992, Sega Mega Drive) as we could using some of my hardware and software hacks. We didn't get very far, but it was a lot of fun!<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Four players, one controller</span></h2>
<br />
First off we tried using the <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/the-mega-cooperator-teamwork-fuelled.html">Mega Cooperator</a> - a four button co-operative controller where each player controls one of the Mega Drive's buttons. The buttons change what they do every thirty seconds and the only way to find out what they do is to press them!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="197" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hmsh__wezcE?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY&showinfo=0" width="350"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/Hmsh__wezcE?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 1: Emerald Hill Zone</a><br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/WV98pUkPtcY?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 2: Chemical Plant Zone</a><br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/ICHp6gYcLok?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 3: Aquatic Ruin Zone</a><br />
<a href="https://youtu.be/IU1cTJsW_eY?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 4: Casino Night Zone</a><br />
<br />
I love way the kit forces everyone to communicate with each other. You need to listen as well as speak, wait as well as act, and unlike <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a> - my codebreaking installation which I adapted the hardware from - you have to act in tandem.<br />
<br />
Jumping between moving platforms, for example, requires a lot of attention to what the other player is doing. Are they running fast? Are they tapering their speed?<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
When the game breaks as you play</span></h2>
<div>
Then we tried to do the same with the <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/building-glitchable-mega-drive-emulator.html">self-glitching emulator</a> I made. I set up a script in the emulator to glitch random bytes of level data every time Sonic collected a ring.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We skipped around levels this time to see what other effects could come up.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="197" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kwj1XTB0nlE?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY&showinfo=0" width="350"></iframe></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="https://youtu.be/Kwj1XTB0nlE?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 1: Emerald Hill Zone</a></div>
<div>
<a href="https://youtu.be/S1y-RtPdpjw?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 2: Chemical Plant Zone</a></div>
<div>
<a href="https://youtu.be/s0d_lGFwNHs?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 3: Casino Night Zone</a></div>
<div>
<a href="https://youtu.be/KPIU5fykzEs?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 4: Mystic Cave Zone</a></div>
<div>
<a href="https://youtu.be/cQZxkh5joMo?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 5: Oil Ocean Zone</a></div>
<div>
<a href="https://youtu.be/2SCgkgL3EfE?list=PLOtJR9EV2XccR7gN5hvLV3I-_LmjruyFY">Part 6: Metropolis Zone</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I love the way this setup forces you to play the game differently. You play to avoid rings rather than collect rings, and sometimes you have to abuse the way the game's physics work to launch yourself over level geometry that was never meant to be there.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div>
I'd love to try and do this again as a full run, on my own, to see if I can get through the entire game in these conditions. I've played a massive amount of Sonic in my life and a big fan, and it did become obvious that I was more capable of abusing the physics than my friends were - making beating the entire thing a bit more feasible!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Massive thank-you to Mike, Chippy and Ana for braving the game. And to Vander, who referred to me as someone who "just wants to watch the world burn." They're all part of the comedy group <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/WhatHaveYouComedy">What Have You</a>, making sketches, music reviews, let's plays and more. Go and take a look at what they do!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-74829532499065647612017-06-28T17:49:00.000+01:002017-06-29T23:51:47.160+01:00Homunculus - Lyst Summit 2017Earlier in the month I was at <a href="http://lyst-summit.org/">Lyst Summit</a> in Copenhagen. While I was there I worked on a playful performance called <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/being-there-interactive-performance-for.html">Being There</a>, which I’ve talked about in an earlier blog post.<br />
<br />
At the same time, this happened…<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="197" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_C6_Ns5OFXQ?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="350"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
I say “happened,” because unlike the other games made during the weekend, <i>Homunculus</i> emerged practically fully-formed.<br />
<br />
The rules of <i>Homunculus</i> are simple. A participant dons a morphsuit and becomes the homunculus. The player closes their eyes, while a volunteer chooses a “pleasure point” on the homunculus - a hand or an elbow, for example, or an ear. All other parts of the homunculus’ body are “pain points.” I call this “programming” the homunculus.<br />
<br />
The player opens their eyes, and must find the pleasure point by touching bits of the homunculus’ body. The homunculus must, through physical movement alone, convey whether the point they have touched is a pleasure point or a pain point.<br />
<br />
As you can hopefully see from the video the experience is both awkward and hilarious! Witness, for example, Sabine Harrer (PhD student and member of <a href="http://www.copenhagengamecollective.org/2017/06/22/lets-get-physical-a-recap-of-the-4th-lyst-summit/">Copenhagen Game Collective</a>) in stitches watching a player grope around for a pleasure point on a homunculus’ belly.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht2hcCI63E6Dyuk65eAosXlFCKJ1ItpjDcYtljENEV_RpEe5X8kaTM68xdEAM2DDPYzDdv3ZJm-NrWav85pdo7IEMgmslKMuDtBRlquf-_zMx1iLUfEfr36K1UZB4Xw35_OBAMvdGBS9T8/s1600/19055775_10209411076654051_6208505777460946973_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht2hcCI63E6Dyuk65eAosXlFCKJ1ItpjDcYtljENEV_RpEe5X8kaTM68xdEAM2DDPYzDdv3ZJm-NrWav85pdo7IEMgmslKMuDtBRlquf-_zMx1iLUfEfr36K1UZB4Xw35_OBAMvdGBS9T8/s320/19055775_10209411076654051_6208505777460946973_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a>There’s a whole bunch of interesting interactions going on in <i>Homunculus</i>, and that’s what I want to talk about here. It may be a rough-and-ready game, but there’s a certain depth to it because of the sheer amount of control the homunculus has as a performer. It’s testament to how much complexity can come from the human element of games.<br />
<br />
Several jammers, over the course of the weekend, had a go at being a homunculus, and everyone had slightly different responses. One of idea that was up for debate was who has the power between the homunculus and the player.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Power Dynamics</span></h2>
<br />
Conventional wisdom would say that it is the player who has the power. They can cause pain to the homunculus. They are active, choosing where and how to touch the homunculus. The homunculus, by comparison, is passive, waiting to be touched.<br />
<br />
However, I and some of the other homunculi felt a great sense of power. We had the power to really freak out the player, to surprise them. We could make them worry about hurting us. We could approach them, coax them into touching us. We could respond suddenly and without warning. The squeals of “I’m scared to touch it!” from players were obvious. We had the power to control the emotional journey of the player.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxVfFKTLgj10GwE8ARIB3pidkBQy7ujCOK0Fpz7TOoAWD8VANI2EAWLrVCXDbmMIpl7kdzk-Em5eFIU0gD1Yg76fvMgx4kIGz16foP8cXEhCaXESeaaxZeWieS1d2jV3I5iP6YW55OLddA/s1600/19059584_1395298087256501_7123129216551248095_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxVfFKTLgj10GwE8ARIB3pidkBQy7ujCOK0Fpz7TOoAWD8VANI2EAWLrVCXDbmMIpl7kdzk-Em5eFIU0gD1Yg76fvMgx4kIGz16foP8cXEhCaXESeaaxZeWieS1d2jV3I5iP6YW55OLddA/s320/19059584_1395298087256501_7123129216551248095_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
We were aware that we were anonymous, and that we looked really disconcerting. It’s certainly true, that these nude, faceless, silhouette figures are disconcerting - especially when you touch them and they look right at you. We knew we were freaky and that inspired us to perform. We made the player squirm and we made on-lookers laugh.<br />
<br />
Perhaps, however, the element of trust allowed us to feel powerful. When I was in the morphsuit I was with good friends. If I was with strangers I would be making myself much more vulnerable. Strangers are unpredictable. Strangers may not respect your boundaries. Perhaps that’s what the performers who felt differently had cottoned on to.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Homunculus, meet Homunculus</span></h2>
<br />
We also tried a variant with two homunculi. The homunculi closed their eyes, and separate people chose their pleasure points. Then the two homunculi had to find each other’s pleasure points, while an audience crowded and watched. There was something disconcerting about it, between gladiatorial and voyeuristic, but combined with the costumes the result was rather comedic.<br />
<br />
In spite of this, the experience wasn’t quite as strong as the original version, because it was missing the contrast of roles. Both homunculi had the same status, the same knowledge, and the same set of responses. So there was no power dynamic. That made it harder for personalities to shine through.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaBiF69q6AC8ACXwuTLeDWIBPrAw4tNdc1iifT9_hfyCNo5VoDE6ZjQRScDABtrC4DRj-aMQmDWbiPXFnWPRYr8uLo651G3r8mWcae70mMo5xoe83UETt6UrJqZm8ACU90HISIdhaGKcj4/s1600/19055046_10212947585028030_5986859898147340891_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaBiF69q6AC8ACXwuTLeDWIBPrAw4tNdc1iifT9_hfyCNo5VoDE6ZjQRScDABtrC4DRj-aMQmDWbiPXFnWPRYr8uLo651G3r8mWcae70mMo5xoe83UETt6UrJqZm8ACU90HISIdhaGKcj4/s320/19055046_10212947585028030_5986859898147340891_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Gamifying and Humanising</span></h2>
<br />
We’d come up with a great starting point, but there were still some questions. Most notably, if the homunculus always responds with pain to all but one touch point, how is the player supposed to find it, other than just guessing over and over?<br />
<br />
An obvious solution, particularly at a games event, was to build some rules into it. We added a “warmer and colder” rule, with the homunculus moving away if the player approached them in a place that would obviously hurt. The problem with this was that the player never needed to touch the homunculus.<br />
<br />
If the player never touched the homunculus, they would never get the magic moment, where the homunculus springs to life. That sudden snap when, for example, the homunculus grabs its foot in agony and turns its head to you as if to ask “why did you do that?!”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWJOWeSYrILFs15omdPRs-mCKlpigQDKaFOJFWPjK2fbMOv1GFPji4mBdXb7enbzHU059YiuBy-GUrqHzuDDg_meaLx-_l2WMDgmuVGk3ez7PynktxAH6xrsSaXF8l5_ANqQB2cPg4BtvM/s1600/19092659_10154834663617746_7007508011119217123_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1440" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWJOWeSYrILFs15omdPRs-mCKlpigQDKaFOJFWPjK2fbMOv1GFPji4mBdXb7enbzHU059YiuBy-GUrqHzuDDg_meaLx-_l2WMDgmuVGk3ez7PynktxAH6xrsSaXF8l5_ANqQB2cPg4BtvM/s320/19092659_10154834663617746_7007508011119217123_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Rather than formalising this, it seemed that the stronger solution was to leave it to the homunculus to improvise. The performer in the costume could act out a personality for the homunculus. When I was the homunculus I enjoyed starting out static, barely moving, like a mannequin or a lab specimen. I’d become aware of the player after the first touch, tracking them with my head as if I was trying to figure out what they were doing. The more they hurt me the more I’d appear to fear them. But if they became reluctant to touch me, I’d start approaching them, as if driven by a dangerous curiosity. Eventually I’d begin moving the pleasure point vaguely towards them, to help them out.<br />
<br />
Every performer can take on the role of the homunculus differently, and to me that’s the magic of the game. Because it’s so open-ended, the experience is unique to each player-homunculus pairing. It’s unpredictable and it’s personal.<br />
<br />
So what would be the benefit of formalising <i>Homunculus</i>? The benefit is that it allows people who aren’t natural performers to feel comfortable in the role. Perhaps the right set of rules is not a list of “what the homunculus should do,” but "how the homunculus should feel" over time.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-tZRpAdM6cbNQrRh4JaBrD4nuw6GrR830xr1pv1Ap4dEvDLXwWUrUFmwlefoRXFyPX_GyCpGGqnjJHFVHqtZ4ibhwV1OUzhLGzGDLHN-VTM2KSe2OmO_kz-oAA56cnXGlCC0V-OEvttG/s1600/19143335_1396243103828666_5971195693749349858_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5-tZRpAdM6cbNQrRh4JaBrD4nuw6GrR830xr1pv1Ap4dEvDLXwWUrUFmwlefoRXFyPX_GyCpGGqnjJHFVHqtZ4ibhwV1OUzhLGzGDLHN-VTM2KSe2OmO_kz-oAA56cnXGlCC0V-OEvttG/s320/19143335_1396243103828666_5971195693749349858_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Play with the Materials</span></h2>
<br />
The final big take-away from the experience is just how important it is to play with the props. You need to play with them to truly feel how to use them. I’m sure this could be said equally for game systems. It certainly chimes with the “I can’t understand it until I’ve watched someone break it” mentality I’ve taken when designing games like <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a>.<br />
<br />
I brought the morphsuits to Lyst having originally used them for <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/enter-button-power-team.html">Go! Power Team!</a> in Berlin. I didn’t know what the suits were for but thought someone else might want to use them. People asked what they were, so I put one on to show them, and so did another developer. We started batting ideas around for how to use them. Someone floated the idea of giving a player a secret pleasure point, so I hopped on a table and said “let’s do it and see what happens!”<br />
<br />
We’d never have reached that point if we hadn’t put the costumes on. We needed to wear them, see how bizarre they looked, notice their weird second-skin texture, in order to make the connections for a game about touch. We needed to get on the table and start playing before we saw that the morphsuit could become a character.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="197" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/n8uK-qtm6bE?rel=0&showinfo=0" width="350"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
<a href="http://tapeface.tv/">The Boy With Tape On His Face</a>, a physical comedian, was interviewed for the <a href="http://www.comedianscomedian.com/18-the-boy-with-tape-on-his-face-live/">Comedian’s Comedian Podcast</a>. It’s excellent and I suggest you listen. He uses a lot of props in his work, and in the interview he talks about how much of his time is spent playing with props that he’s bought. You don’t think of a funny idea and hunt down the corresponding prop. You play with the prop and it will show you what makes it funny.<br />
<br />
So what next? I have come back from Copenhagen inspired, and have already acquired my sixth morphsuit, this time in white. I have a lot of plans for things to try, games to make and games to break. Perhaps this is only the beginning…<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-51417557266490829062017-06-21T21:58:00.003+01:002017-06-21T23:41:20.851+01:00Being There: An Interactive Performance for Lyst SummitA couple of weekends ago I flew to Copenhagen to take part in <a href="http://lyst-summit.org/">Lyst Summit</a>, a symposium and game jam about love, sex and romance in video games. During the event roughly forty creatives from disciplines inside and outside games collaborated to make experimental games and playful experiences.<br />
<br />
I teamed up with <a href="http://lyst-summit.org/portfolio/maya-magnat/">Maya Magnat</a>, a performance artist from Tel Aviv, and <a href="http://tonehoved.dk/">Anders Børup</a>, a sound designer from Copenhagen, to create <i>Being There</i> - an audio-led role-play for two people.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">About Being There</span></h2>
<br />
<i>Being There</i> is played by two participants, who each take a headset loaded with an audio track. The two participants start the audio at the same time, and have to follow the actions described to them by the audio. The two tracks start similar, but over time the perspective offered by the two narrators changes. One participant’s view of the events will become increasingly different to the other’s.<br />
<br />
The story that participants act out is the story of a relationship from first date to break-up.<br />
<br />
If you want to try the prototype version we made during Lyst, the mp3 files are below for you to download and try out. And below them, a bit of an explanation and discussion of the process, if you don’t mind the magic being spoiled!<br />
<br />
You will need to hug, hold hands, and have your phone on you to take a photo with.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Download: <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/lyst-2017/being_there_TRACK_A_003.mp3">Participant A</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Download: <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/lyst-2017/being_there_TRACK_B_003.mp3">Participant B</a></span><br />
<br />
The voices are provided by myself, and by writer <a href="http://jordanwebber.com/">Jordan Erica Webber</a>.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9v6fjAjCxstEeIg5OOXdk8g7ozKpVzRX7NfBvSKufYwW8yIiczEEPZ0mRbJibLzSguWwEDvH51OaiJl9xdzJ03aWKg9JJLv7HXHK3IYc3rx9dNt0q0fFcnOx_Ft2WtmdFENayOML10XU/s1600/being-there-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9v6fjAjCxstEeIg5OOXdk8g7ozKpVzRX7NfBvSKufYwW8yIiczEEPZ0mRbJibLzSguWwEDvH51OaiJl9xdzJ03aWKg9JJLv7HXHK3IYc3rx9dNt0q0fFcnOx_Ft2WtmdFENayOML10XU/s400/being-there-01.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><hr />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Concept</span></h2>
<br />
<br />
The founding idea behind the story is that for one partner the relationship is idyllic, while for the other the relationship is imperfect and leaves them frustrated.<br />
<br />
One player hears that everything is wonderful, full of all these little daily moments that seem magical. The other hears that how frustrating it is that they never really do anything and they.<br />
<br />
One dreams of taking the other to Paris, while the other laments that they always talk about holidays but never actually go anywhere.<br />
<br />
The hope is, that through role-playing the situations, the participants will independently spot that there’s something not-quite-right with the relationship. We wanted them to pick up on their partner’s body language and feel that the other is more doting or more distant than themselves; even when this runs counter to the vision of perfection being described.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Role-Playing Relationships</span></h2>
<br />
Obviously, there’s a lot of interesting design threads to come out of the basic concept. I love getting the players themselves to actively play out a story as it happens, without knowing where it is going. It chimes with a lot of what excites me about getting players to improvise and perform during <a href="http://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a>, and with a lot of Maya’s work where she uses technology as a springboard to get players exploring personal boundaries.<br />
<br />
There's also an exciting set of possibilities in using the player being an active participant to get them to engage with the emotions and issues of relationships. The mis-match between what your partner does and what you hear can be a prompt to ask questions while the story is going on.<br />
<br />
Many of us have been enamoured with a partner who becomes distant for reasons we cannot understand. Many of us have had to break the heart of a doting partner. That we just don't see the same way can be achingly out of our control. Indeed, many of us have experienced relationships that ended even when they seemed so perfect. Many of us have watched, with aching hearts, partners who cannot see the inevitability of a relationship that really isn't working.<br />
<br />
Using directed role-play we can ask our participants to step into the shoes of another, or a younger version of themselves, and question their approaches.<br />
<br />
Much of the inspiration came from <i>Inside Out Karaoke</i>, a set of training videos for dealing with difficult relationship situations. The viewer watches, for example, a break-up from a first-person perspective. They hear their partner’s responses and must read aloud, karaoke-style, their side of the conversation. When I tried it out, there were a lot of moments where I thought “I wouldn’t have said it like that,” but went along with it anyway, committing to the role. These moments made for really interesting conversation points for after the video. Is there a right way to break up with someone?<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Reflections</span></h2>
<br />
The current version, downloadable here (Participant A, Participant B), is a prototype. We’re keen to revisit it, to see how we could develop the concept and flesh it out. Testing <i>Being There</i> at the event certainly taught me a lot of things, which I’ll detail below.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Silence</span></h3>
<br />
In our first test we just tried out the the first chapter. The participants felt uncomfortable with the long empty silences where they didn’t know what to do. We started fleshing the scripts out with more descriptions of the surroundings, but we soon realised that doing so was drawing attention to our voices. We wanted to draw their focus to the person in front of them.<br />
<br />
Adding some diagetic audio to flesh out a sense of place made a difference to this, but our biggest change was to add an intro segment priming players for the long silences.<br />
<br />
I suspect there's a more elegant solution to the issue, but it did make a positive difference. Telling the players about the silences in advance meant they did not think the silences were a design fault. They instead did what we wanted them to do: spend a long period of time nervously looking into each other’s eyes. It was still awkward at the start, but it was a good kind of awkward: two first-daters sharing a first awkward moment together.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Debriefing</span></h3>
<br />
Another big lesson was how important it is to have a debrief session with the participants. The reality is that they don’t have the conversation of “what was it like for you?” unless they are primed to do so. After showing it to other Lyst jammers on the last day, we found ourselves having extended chats with some of them, which would reveal some of the differences in perspective that they had.<br />
<br />
Historically I’ve always tried to get people to talk about the games I’ve made. It's a great way to learn what needs to be improved! I find myself less asking for direct thoughts and feelings, and more just getting them talking and seeing what common ground players gravitate towards.<br />
<br />
So part of debriefing in-person after <i>Being There</i> was an active effort to learn how players experienced the performance. But it was also a chance to get ideas for how to create debrief sessions without us there to run them.<br />
<br />
It turns out that debrief sessions are common, sometimes even expected, in performance pieces and live-action role-play. So maybe having an in-person debrief with the creators - even explicitly revealing all the details - is perfectly fine. Perhaps expecting the performance to do that on its own is a hang-over from thinking as a digital games creator!<br />
<br />
There's a lot of ideas we could try out, and it's also a lesson for me in my other performative work. In <i><a href="http://playable.show/">The Incredible Playable Show</a></i> I've recently found myself hanging around slightly off-stage to chat to visitors after each performance. Talking to the creator, be it about what happened during the act, or to ask me how I made it, is a big part of the magic for some people.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Expanding</span></h3>
<br />
The final thing that stood out as ripe for improvement was simply fleshing out the piece, particularly to get the pacing right.<br />
<br />
There’s a moment early on where one participant is told to smile and laugh, while the other participant is told to spill coffee on themselves and look embarrassed. On their own these actions seem weird, but when they fit together the penny drops and it’s a magic moment. There’s room for more moments like this.<br />
<br />
There’s also a bit of an abrupt shift from the third chapter to the fourth, and the partner leaving comes suddenly and there’s no sense of a shift in time. We could definitely take more time in the later stages of the relationship to ramp it up.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Lyst</span></h2>
<br />
In all it was a fantastic project to work on, and I’m really proud with what we achieved. I learnt so much, thoroughly enjoyed working with this team. I'm looking forward to revisiting this and seeing how we can grow it.<br />
<br />
A massive thank-you to Andrea Brasch and Patrick Jarnfelt for putting <a href="http://lyst-summit.org/">Lyst</a> together - it was an absolutely fantastic weekend. This is my second time at Lyst, and both trips have been eye-opening experiences where I have made many great friends and expanded my horizons as a developer.<br />
<br />Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-73087014058722578552017-06-05T22:35:00.004+01:002017-06-05T22:35:57.431+01:00How Sonic the Hedgehog Uses ColourThere’s a lot of excellent use of colour in the very first <i>Sonic the Hedgehog</i> game on Sega Mega Drive.<br />
<br />
Visual readability has been a personal bugbear throughout my time in video games. There’s been some cases where I’ve been really happy with the choices I’ve made, and others where I feel I could have done much better. From my point of view, visual design is only partly about making things look pretty. It is primarily about conveying information that the player needs in order to interact.<br />
<br />
Where are the key objects in the scene? What do they do? What can I interact with? How can I interact with it? What is my goal? What should I aim to avoid? Once those questions have been answered, then the developer is free to answer the question “how should I feel about this scene?”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvdbx1kzcAhdjCz3f2QBj-lFtAyLxPrrcxnh2_bOQ5-2EspU086C0R73lBdbyAeKUUf6P57pd62QRv2b4GN_AWUNYP6mdNvKNOIqOW0Siz7RIEgxInmdB4nzkkBoWPNqeu_F6nlNVCK8a/s1600/MD_Sonic_the_Hedgehog.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvdbx1kzcAhdjCz3f2QBj-lFtAyLxPrrcxnh2_bOQ5-2EspU086C0R73lBdbyAeKUUf6P57pd62QRv2b4GN_AWUNYP6mdNvKNOIqOW0Siz7RIEgxInmdB4nzkkBoWPNqeu_F6nlNVCK8a/s1600/MD_Sonic_the_Hedgehog.png" /></a></div>
<br />
The original <i>Sonic the Hedgehog</i> is visually outstanding not just because it presents landscapes that feel rich, vivid and fleshed out, but also because it has a very strong grasp on delivering key information. I’ve always admired, for example, the fact that Sonic when rolling is the exact same shape as his hit-box<br />
<br />
<i>Sonic the Hedgehog</i> conveys its information not just through the shape and form of its visual elements, but also by its use of colour. That’s what makes it an exciting example I want to explore in this article.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Conveying Geography</span></h2>
<br />
The player needs to be able to pick out which bits of the level Sonic can stand on, which are walls he can push up against, and which are objects that he can smash through. Given that this is a platform-jumping game, conveying to the player what Sonic can stand on is of utmost importance.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEvQS5AfIqyBAtJKRQYMGbQ2l23Rwd4YatmoJbM7E2MmjfZZPgByW1PG4iIoIadrC918Gq-hV6xVaBuMvIS5V56bD5gXf0gZTlO6rju-q0AOU-HjfId0kMNrXKMG7vjeMYmcCKSj1GRm4c/s1600/IMG_2149.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEvQS5AfIqyBAtJKRQYMGbQ2l23Rwd4YatmoJbM7E2MmjfZZPgByW1PG4iIoIadrC918Gq-hV6xVaBuMvIS5V56bD5gXf0gZTlO6rju-q0AOU-HjfId0kMNrXKMG7vjeMYmcCKSj1GRm4c/s320/IMG_2149.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
A change of hue can be used to pick out the difference between foreground and background. In the screenshot above, taken in Scrap Brain Act 1, there are a lot of blue tones in the foreground and red tones in the background. Similarly we see that ground which Sonic can stand on has drop-shadows. The shading in the background is much more indistinct. The eye reads this foreground instantly as three-dimensional and solid.<br />
<br />
By contrast, details in the background are either in low contrast with their surroundings, or have mottled, dotted textures to them. They are readable but they do not jump out to the player as important details or solid objects.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsiF-XCseBrahmBszzMCFxFzEpeD-MW8qikoUDizNCF3VJsYhTrvgZM8-_5Z88g2Mgg3UIrLIbwtir2Z_8xgK8a-Gjiaog07kljRRddK81JJp8ynHnXqS37xwbXf0ZnPoZMiefpb_0svWZ/s1600/IMG_2150.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsiF-XCseBrahmBszzMCFxFzEpeD-MW8qikoUDizNCF3VJsYhTrvgZM8-_5Z88g2Mgg3UIrLIbwtir2Z_8xgK8a-Gjiaog07kljRRddK81JJp8ynHnXqS37xwbXf0ZnPoZMiefpb_0svWZ/s320/IMG_2150.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
As well as the difference in hue between foreground and background, we also see a separation between light and dark. In this image from Scrap Brain Act 2, the background colours all seem to lie in the 0%-50% band of lightness, while the foreground elements lie in the 70%-100% band. What impresses me about this technique is how the eye does not pick this out as being inconsistent. It does not feel that the background belongs to a separate room. The two layers are consistent with themselves, and that is enough for it not to feel visually messy.<br />
<br />
Take a look at the button as well. It is light grey on the top, in the centre and on the sides. This may not be realistic - where is that button being lit from? - but it doesn’t matter. First and foremost this use of colour conveys that the button can be collided with and is solid.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofLEYgky3aN5eXW5VqfESbvamjbbt6tvRBc4Omibhe1Wd1TQUhRuMA6DsRgGYNrnpTFOtDk73La_yziaQpJkqoR8-4G8AFse8BRQH_A_MNLtewgjoLdFyba5qrXj4DNbdyv_u6zwIRciK/s1600/IMG_2153.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofLEYgky3aN5eXW5VqfESbvamjbbt6tvRBc4Omibhe1Wd1TQUhRuMA6DsRgGYNrnpTFOtDk73La_yziaQpJkqoR8-4G8AFse8BRQH_A_MNLtewgjoLdFyba5qrXj4DNbdyv_u6zwIRciK/s320/IMG_2153.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Again, we see a strong three-dimensional effect applied to the blocks in the foreground. They also have a flat white line on their top edge. It makes it stand out as a key foreground element but also, by being flat, conveys that this is an object which can be stood on.<br />
<br />
The green metal reflects a difference between these blocks and the terrain around them - that the blocks move. It reinforces to the player that these platforms obey different rules to the scenery around them. Differences in hue can also be used to convey differences in purpose.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFzsKXB7W7hP2blOFqRNTRZFBRV5y29mv_GnWfLSB7TYJeLCpzDCFlCqbGUIWF5MZb5xyZukXkhAprD1YNL-BUXKRZFEr2F-OhRAL-a8QrvGHP5Gai-esE4Yoieya1Tx3vCQCPiPD6ONQm/s1600/IMG_2154.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFzsKXB7W7hP2blOFqRNTRZFBRV5y29mv_GnWfLSB7TYJeLCpzDCFlCqbGUIWF5MZb5xyZukXkhAprD1YNL-BUXKRZFEr2F-OhRAL-a8QrvGHP5Gai-esE4Yoieya1Tx3vCQCPiPD6ONQm/s320/IMG_2154.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Here’s an example of the visual rules being tweaked or broken, and where I feel the game manages to get away with it. There’s a light edge on this vertical wall, in a game where light edges on flat surfaces are usually collidable. Fortunately there’s plenty of detail reinforcing the idea that this is a background element - the block shadow lying on it sets it into the background, and there’s nowhere else in the game where a slope meets a wall like this. I’m not entirely sure what would happen to Sonic’s momentum if there was one.<br />
<br />
In addition there’s no stage hazards on screen at the same time, so it’s a safe space to break the rules. The benefit here is that the scene does pop visually as a result of the contrast, and it reflects the metal-clad industrial feel of the area. Perhaps the lesson here is that it’s okay to break one’s own rules in favour of aesthetic feel when it does not create a danger for the player.<br />
<br />
One could make the same point about the previous images. Flashing white lights behind the rings draw a lot of attention, but this doesn't impede the player as the area is not dangerous. It's okay for the visuals to be extravagant.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9TMy8pFlgraPNwAqp7U5QxP913z77-fkFfO7BeDGL5SSAYQk7EwTDynNjHrJEYdOGLqA9S5ItajT4D4zra1eBcjL3wnxiVWy_KyyFHm-dUSQY-RYqgdLKU0a-a2Qx7AuK4CLSjgder8MY/s1600/IMG_2156.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9TMy8pFlgraPNwAqp7U5QxP913z77-fkFfO7BeDGL5SSAYQk7EwTDynNjHrJEYdOGLqA9S5ItajT4D4zra1eBcjL3wnxiVWy_KyyFHm-dUSQY-RYqgdLKU0a-a2Qx7AuK4CLSjgder8MY/s320/IMG_2156.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Again, reflecting on the use of straight edges of light, the pillars here have straight light lines running down them but they’re on the inside of the shape so they do not appear solid. What they do however appear as is loud.<br />
<br />
They are far brighter and more attention-grabbing than the button on the left-hand side, which is grey, more dim, but is actually interactive. Personally, I don’t think this is a good bit of visual design. Better for this to be an individual area than a recurring visual theme.<br />
<br />
Indeed, by contrast to these pillars the "Roller" enemy on Sonic's left barely stands out. This is one area where key information is washed out by busy scenery<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid4lLXvlOEAi_oSkpopFPH2Ae__DYq64UT4-K1cgU2cMdmaqpMVPZTy7u7dGSur3uuQQf-sCPZw_bfk4tB8RqbcmdVUQkrQ_6rMBG3Xliq4AcQbK-ujS2GVdsqX5WORPQmdSPAaQ8NqY-h/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.16.18.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1150" data-original-width="1538" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid4lLXvlOEAi_oSkpopFPH2Ae__DYq64UT4-K1cgU2cMdmaqpMVPZTy7u7dGSur3uuQQf-sCPZw_bfk4tB8RqbcmdVUQkrQ_6rMBG3Xliq4AcQbK-ujS2GVdsqX5WORPQmdSPAaQ8NqY-h/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.16.18.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I also don’t like the design of the “Spikes” enemies. Their magenta colour scheme blends them right in with the background. They are one of few enemies in the game that cannot be defeated from any angle, but the spikes growing out of its back aren't large or consistent enough to convey genuine danger.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Moving Underwater</span></h2>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrMgLTZqQBBwVcyehrYhQSQw3Z42uoi4qT7MkeTFdfHCoWq71REqPfYGr1yH9ZQ9NeiJb-PcCSDFOViu3AKEWiu9xCGI0Ggf4DdhsnaVFp-JvQDa_g7_mBEHGSYMMwNq0TKFAvfOp8SNn5/s1600/IMG_2162.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrMgLTZqQBBwVcyehrYhQSQw3Z42uoi4qT7MkeTFdfHCoWq71REqPfYGr1yH9ZQ9NeiJb-PcCSDFOViu3AKEWiu9xCGI0Ggf4DdhsnaVFp-JvQDa_g7_mBEHGSYMMwNq0TKFAvfOp8SNn5/s320/IMG_2162.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Labyrinth Zone is interesting because it has two colour schemes: one for above the water and one for under it. On the surface there is little difference in hue between foreground and background, but there is a difference in brightness. Notice how the contrast between light and shadow is much more pronounced in the foreground. Details in the background are small, delicate and mottled, while in the foreground details are boldly three-dimensional. There is a clear separation of layers conveying purpose and depth.<br />
<br />
All collidable terrain has, just like in Scrap Brain, a one-pixel-thin edge around it, making it easy to pick out exactly where Sonic can and can not go. Vines dropping down from above are not collidable, and this is drawn by having them thin and spindly, drawn mostly in cyan mid-tones. They are not loud.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDnvt0PCQlmwnkAv5iaPs9VBJHA56hXHsuiv5AXbkrEjk4tYU9x3j2qlR4ujNJTqqWZBQQjBd_lb4D6O0eoh2oQZqjsD6YAZb2GCA1kpJzjYUZZOn2M-9WIoLugkrYbNIb3PIHzUjUIO3/s1600/IMG_2163.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDnvt0PCQlmwnkAv5iaPs9VBJHA56hXHsuiv5AXbkrEjk4tYU9x3j2qlR4ujNJTqqWZBQQjBd_lb4D6O0eoh2oQZqjsD6YAZb2GCA1kpJzjYUZZOn2M-9WIoLugkrYbNIb3PIHzUjUIO3/s320/IMG_2163.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
By comparison, the difference between background and foreground while underwater is much more pronounced. The background uses blue hues while the foreground uses green hues. You’ll also notice that the distortion effect is much more pronounced in the background than the foreground, making it feel less solid.<br />
<br />
It's really important that the landscape be readable while underwater, while the player’s movement is impaired.<br />
<br />
But if differentiation between landscape and decoration is <i>always</i> useful, why not have high contrast above the water too? Perhaps there is a limit to how necessary this differentiation is, and in some cases the contrast can be pushed higher but the effect is sufficient. The payoff that Labyrinth Zone affords itself by having weaker contrast above the surface is a sense of tone. The darker backdrop underwater conveys deep dark danger, and the green stone conveys mystery and unease. By contrast, the surface feels warm, well lit and safe.<br />
<br />
We can make a direct comparison with the same zone as represented on the Sega Master System.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqcG5xzs09Z2GjsW7BJKRbidN_c-uVissrnYKrXQPyhqE6kwf-r1rx8dANg90soMcNcoWdeP4IxpdPbVP5Bhyphenhyphen_njDF75vuOFLMTR_O4j3T2Owdp5GohFXsB0Dz-5H112vzjumbYZSeLdYY/s1600/labyrinth.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqcG5xzs09Z2GjsW7BJKRbidN_c-uVissrnYKrXQPyhqE6kwf-r1rx8dANg90soMcNcoWdeP4IxpdPbVP5Bhyphenhyphen_njDF75vuOFLMTR_O4j3T2Owdp5GohFXsB0Dz-5H112vzjumbYZSeLdYY/s1600/labyrinth.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMG7fi5CM3K7zAHJQvBPYZC2MxCU9_P5W1k-G0WOVW_27TbFQGLr15028_Loxvm8Uh8yVWH4nuEhoZTH9DdspK4j15knxUSkErJQvkRiCwg9MoDBAI1Gc-uUrZzm_dhyphenhyphenEwUCdvNYTeTQPw/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-04+at+22.04.48.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="1248" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMG7fi5CM3K7zAHJQvBPYZC2MxCU9_P5W1k-G0WOVW_27TbFQGLr15028_Loxvm8Uh8yVWH4nuEhoZTH9DdspK4j15knxUSkErJQvkRiCwg9MoDBAI1Gc-uUrZzm_dhyphenhyphenEwUCdvNYTeTQPw/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-06-04+at+22.04.48.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
With the stark contrast between golden stone and a black backdrop the surface feels imposing and treacherous, while underwater feels murky but sedate. Escaping to the surface feels like a return to light but not a return to safety. The visual design runs counter to the feel of the level, where being underwater is dangerous and the player desires to return to the surface.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Using White</span></h2>
<br />
There’s a wonderful visual trend in <i>Sonic the Hedgehog</i> - that every interactive object has white somewhere in its sprite. By contrast, it is rare that scenery uses the colour white.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiz3JNehD1lR64liGujiBsYR0COv3vjtYq-BbGvh_7aPCuAYx7LYj_UG1EPqbZ0XVhEnOlo8xk1wU8GDpPXAFBAzMMCJz9cx_2Rz4OyB2bJENvxS2ntmSLwbCC3uBsZRs6IDsc078wj5JR/s1600/sonic+1+white+sprites.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="712" height="83" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiz3JNehD1lR64liGujiBsYR0COv3vjtYq-BbGvh_7aPCuAYx7LYj_UG1EPqbZ0XVhEnOlo8xk1wU8GDpPXAFBAzMMCJz9cx_2Rz4OyB2bJENvxS2ntmSLwbCC3uBsZRs6IDsc078wj5JR/s400/sonic+1+white+sprites.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Sonic has white in his eyes, or reflecting off him if he is a ball. Collectable rings have white light glinting off them. So do item boxes. Enemy robots do too. It's a very subtle effect, but it helps the eye pick out key bits of scenery at a glance.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy5E7Gct3AL_IksbaeqR7PkoLEfz5iopAcjc8zLB16SObxXI62rQ2dtECJTVXpQORqT2mIRvdHmUMHBcYMzsVDkWkXjNdT36jLOnmo_TEvd-6iT0D_FtqLYag_jN0T4ZKT3_wO4Jf4s05e/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.29.16.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="1526" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy5E7Gct3AL_IksbaeqR7PkoLEfz5iopAcjc8zLB16SObxXI62rQ2dtECJTVXpQORqT2mIRvdHmUMHBcYMzsVDkWkXjNdT36jLOnmo_TEvd-6iT0D_FtqLYag_jN0T4ZKT3_wO4Jf4s05e/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.29.16.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Where it's really noticeable is while underwater. When all the other colours on the screen have turned green and blue, white highlights stay white. It may not be visually realistic, but it conveys super-important information. Sonic runs, jumps and falls at a much slower pace when submerged. The player is likely to be on the back foot, but also needs to be able to plan jumps in advance, anticipating where hazards will be by the time Sonic lands.<br />
<br />
If key information is within instant grasp, the player can make these decisions while well informed, rather than feeling caught out.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDlk-rh4g9dGtGRFMzJUEf9e6Tvs3TCUKTPZreg0TgT6_QUh41KWSqtq3whIIrytXctBdDhM061Zov95FsNkyMo09JeO09FJt51_7m0FUmn_NNTEIDVjS4qHHyhdjJ4wlhODzV9lDUlQy/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.10.44.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="1536" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDlk-rh4g9dGtGRFMzJUEf9e6Tvs3TCUKTPZreg0TgT6_QUh41KWSqtq3whIIrytXctBdDhM061Zov95FsNkyMo09JeO09FJt51_7m0FUmn_NNTEIDVjS4qHHyhdjJ4wlhODzV9lDUlQy/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.10.44.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Sonic gives you the ability to move very fast, but the level design in the first Sonic game is largely not about moving very fast. Sonic often has to stop, think, and time jumps. He also has to react. There are spaces where you can run at full pelt but where you will need to respond quickly, by slowing down or by jumping. Sonic is invincible to most enemies when jumping, so the game is less concerned with your accuracy in disposing of a hazard than the fact that you recognised it and responded.<br />
<br />
That’s why it’s important to see everything at a glance. If you’re moving quickly and something interactive pops into your view you need to see it and evaluate your reaction. Jump into it? Jump over it? Stop and wait for it?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3y7zlFPr1S2ZUbizKbUg6wKuBDNoo0vqbw0m2NQrC8jdIekoLKijGf2clvkd9fMTpui9P0wf-Je0VfA1MIYE-Sye7sOcVRwaWBVqSMTO70tQmYoG6CC3cgXoDdpbsH2_f7Lzu-Eba81n/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.35.31.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="1526" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3y7zlFPr1S2ZUbizKbUg6wKuBDNoo0vqbw0m2NQrC8jdIekoLKijGf2clvkd9fMTpui9P0wf-Je0VfA1MIYE-Sye7sOcVRwaWBVqSMTO70tQmYoG6CC3cgXoDdpbsH2_f7Lzu-Eba81n/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.35.31.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
That said, the game is not perfect. The fireballs shown above are some of the most annoying hazards in the game. They're small and their colouring isn't bright enough to pick out from the scenery, unless you already know where they are. The power of the use of white is made obvious by its absence.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Colouring Sonic</span></h2>
<br />
I often talk about "hot and cold" when considering video game graphics. Saturated colours, bold contrasts and busy textures draw the eye - I refer to this as hot. Grey tones, low contrast and mottled textures recede - I call this cold. It's important that the game draws the eye to the information that is most useful.<br />
<br />
I find it interesting that in the very first <i>Sonic</i> game, the main character - Sonic the Hedgehog himself - is not rendered particularly hot. His colour scheme seems to gravitate to blue mid-tones, which are often quieter than the objects in the level around him. Aside from the whites of his eyes, Sonic as a character does not leap off the screen at you. He does not make his location resoundingly obvious.<br />
<br />
Sonic is almost always at centre-screen, which means it’s far less important to highlight where he is. The player is much better equipped to locate him by where the centre of the screen is. Perhaps having a bright bold object at centre-screen through most of the game would create an unnecessary focal point. If the player knows that Sonic is at centre screen then what they need to know is where the hazards are. That information is both new and pressing.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOloTe6q76paXMTRDDDLjUbCkPkkq3nX5QOgqoZX5C0TftzhY0Kzthi6LrqgjsBcTfHsnQjMyF2W_RR3O0m4QgejW6ZTCmMp9CJfFDqNytpI6JjiCLSibfFQlj6GcjRwuve3nyvOrOafT/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.23.20.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1146" data-original-width="1532" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOloTe6q76paXMTRDDDLjUbCkPkkq3nX5QOgqoZX5C0TftzhY0Kzthi6LrqgjsBcTfHsnQjMyF2W_RR3O0m4QgejW6ZTCmMp9CJfFDqNytpI6JjiCLSibfFQlj6GcjRwuve3nyvOrOafT/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-06-05+at+19.23.20.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
In boss arenas Sonic can move freely with the camera fixing itself in the centre of the arena. There are fewer visual elements for the player’s eye to track here, and new information is not being introduced from off-camera like it would be during the level.<br />
<br />
It is perhaps for this reason that the designers of Spring Yard Zone felt confident putting a visually complicated background in the boss arena. The bushes in the background have a loud pattern described with high contrast tones. It’s stimulating to look at but visually complicated, drowning out the key information: Sonic, Robotnik, and the crumbling floor beneath them.<br />
<br />
To its credit, it is a visual choice that is dramatic at a point in the game which benefits from drama. It may be complicated, but better to have this as distinct moment at the zone’s climax, rather than a recurring motif throughout the level.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">
Evolving Sonic's Colours</span></h2>
<br />
I feel the relevance of these ideas is important when looking at the trailers for <i>Sonic Mania</i>: an upcoming <i>Sonic the Hedgehog</i> game created in the style of the classic Mega Drive titles. I’m interested in the game, but in all honesty a little worried at first glance. The game looks far too noisy.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="197" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wvD8NZN9Zsg?t=33s&rel=0&showinfo=0" width="350"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The visual design seems to colour every screen element as hot as possible: the main character, the enemies, the landscape, the background, and even incidental visual details. All the colours are bright and heavily saturated. All the shadows are jet-black. It doesn't help in a game where there is a lot more going on at once than in the more gentle first-paced.<br />
<br />
It looks like artwork designed to impress, to pop out of the screen. But is it well-designed for spacial awareness?<br />
<br />
I may be wrong on this. I said similar things about trailers for <i>Street Fighter V</i> and felt completely different when I played the game first-hand. Nevertheless, it continues a trend that has already existed in the Sonic series. From Sonic 1, to Sonic 2, to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the colours in the game have got bolder and more saturated, while the level artwork has got more detailed.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7oN7IqKKQnLZawjGWpcazbpLlhSkEKc9vExZn6FHhvwRa9vkngQm16M872CVBQV9vjlPYdM1FapfEYcEpbBMwQZU49tKtroDnaxmqK58Nr1ImCze62Ifw3IjageITHr_cE0PYlNnoJmaw/s1600/knuckles-chaotix-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7oN7IqKKQnLZawjGWpcazbpLlhSkEKc9vExZn6FHhvwRa9vkngQm16M872CVBQV9vjlPYdM1FapfEYcEpbBMwQZU49tKtroDnaxmqK58Nr1ImCze62Ifw3IjageITHr_cE0PYlNnoJmaw/s320/knuckles-chaotix-6.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Knuckles Choatix </i>for the Sega 32X</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>Knuckles Chaotix</i>, released in 1995 for the 32X add-on system, is a successor to these games. That is, it is next in the sequence of 16-bit 2D pixel-art Sonic games. It looks visually messy, and in places is barely navigable. All the colours are bright and loud and level details are fiddly. There is no visual differentiation between key gameplay elements and set dressing. Every single object in the frame is <i>hot</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>Knuckles Chaotix</i> is drawn this way because it needed to make Sega’s 32X system look more powerful. Bold artwork conveys power.<br />
<br />
Each successive Sonic game has been driven to look more powerful than the one that came before it - even if the technology driving the sprite-based artwork was barely changing. In a time before polygon counts created a metric for visual quality that could always be increased, the developers were limited in how to convey that this game's graphics were "better" at a glance.<br />
<br />
The developers’ only tool to convey "better" at a glance was bolder sprite work: more saturation, more detail, darker shadows.<br />
<br />
Today’s developers of <i>Sonic Mania</i> are faced with the same problem - they must justify using the present day’s more powerful consoles for a pixel-based game. The graphics must impress, but they must also adhere to the house style of the early 1990s - it's the game's USP.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4WbCXNFGcDYVDVSZKCOGOu41sRCJTPZ3mdlVdFqJZv6jjeTMJjOWCMm3XYFYQC3NGIpuBnlswJJjioAbOVyGgcaYmP6FdBlXVK_Qsdb2OaPXa1F9dOH9F75vjdoZegQOMid_4kUfkAUX3/s1600/sonic-advance-usa-en-ja.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="480" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4WbCXNFGcDYVDVSZKCOGOu41sRCJTPZ3mdlVdFqJZv6jjeTMJjOWCMm3XYFYQC3NGIpuBnlswJJjioAbOVyGgcaYmP6FdBlXVK_Qsdb2OaPXa1F9dOH9F75vjdoZegQOMid_4kUfkAUX3/s320/sonic-advance-usa-en-ja.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sonic Advance</i> on Game Boy Advance</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
For comparison, the <i>Sonic Advance</i> games, did not need to demonstrate technological advancement, as they were converting the still-current franchise for a handheld. The developers were free to rewrite the house style, conveying newness and fitting the needs of the Game Boy Advance's weak display. The device sported a fairly lacklustre unlit screen, so bold contrast between player and scenery were essential style choices.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">What Graphics Are For</span></h2>
<br />
I personally feel that the first purpose of graphics is to convey information, and the second is to convey tone and personality. Looking impressive is of limited benefit to the moment-to-moment experience. Only by conveying information well can the the player experience the game seamlessly and appreciate its tone. Additionally, tone and personality will stick with a player far longer than initial "wow" factor.<br />
<br />
However, making a strong pitch to customers is a business reality, so to impress is a necessity. Any creative team who manages to capture all of the above is performing outstanding work.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless if there’s anything I want to convey in this article it’s the following: always know what your players see, and what they need to see. Be clear with yourself about what’s essential information, and how the pace of your game affects what needs to be clearest. Colour is rich and powerful tool for this very purpose.<br />
<br />Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-44423833786715649462017-05-29T16:58:00.002+01:002017-05-30T09:41:02.766+01:00On What Games AreMy brother asked me a very interesting question last time I came to visit. <a href="http://www.jamesaitcheson.com/">He’s an author</a>, and we were talking about why we do what we do.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“If you had to pick two games to demonstrate - to someone who’d never seen video games before - what games are to you, what would they be?”</i></blockquote>
<br />
Originally he asked me to do it in one game, but I couldn't describe the entire medium in one example. Trying to do it in two was much more interesting. You can't describe an entire medium in two examples, but the process of trying to do so is very telling about your perspective as a developer.<br />
<br />
I’m going to talk about the two games I chose, but this piece is only partly about the games and why I chose them. It’s also about why the question is interesting in the first place. Eventually it’s a question about Ian Bogost and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/">whether or not games can tell stories</a>.<br />
<br />
But I digress.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>After a bit of deliberation I settled on <i>Tetris</i> and <i>Wii Sports Tennis</i>. That is, specifically the tennis mini-game within <i>Wii Sports</i> on the Nintendo Wii. My explanation is as follows:<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tetris</span></b><br />
<div>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div>
<i>Tetris</i> is a game built up of systems, and the game wears these on its sleeve. Blocks fall step by step over time. They can be rotated and slotted together. It’s got a blank-slate start state, a very obvious end state, and between this start and end the systems look after themselves. That is, <i>Tetris</i> shows mechanics in action because there is nothing going on in <i>Tetris</i> that isn’t presented as-is at the start of the game.<br />
<br />
It’s what arises as a consequence of these very obvious systems that makes the game exciting.<br />
<br />
<i>Tetris</i> is a game where the player is given a task and simply asked to do it. What excites me about <i>Tetris</i> is why the player would want to take part in this block-stacking task that should, at first glance, be mundane and mechanical.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDsJlq05fFkoSzA_ZhbqozsIZNMA8CTztIhKv6IWg_8YKsfrvat-b158bzjDrpyXwMEbodsslmJihkzW4eH2feokwSsyEwsQCBGlDP_sNwzzL_rt0iq_TZ5X7W3fQ1EPcDXleZM_q1U5bM/s1600/tetris.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="798" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDsJlq05fFkoSzA_ZhbqozsIZNMA8CTztIhKv6IWg_8YKsfrvat-b158bzjDrpyXwMEbodsslmJihkzW4eH2feokwSsyEwsQCBGlDP_sNwzzL_rt0iq_TZ5X7W3fQ1EPcDXleZM_q1U5bM/s320/tetris.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The emotional driver to keep on playing is the screen that will never quite stay clean. As you play the game board gets messy. Gaps between the blocks immortalise every mistake and every compromise you have made. You know how to clean up the gaps. You <i>want</i> to clean up your errors. But in your attempts to do so you make new mistakes and new compromises, always leaving gaps that need more cleaning up.<br />
<br />
<i>Tetris</i> gives you a reason to care. It’s cold and mechanical and made entirely out of computer logic systems. Yet you care about that task because of the emotional desire created by those very same systems.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Wii Sports Tennis</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<i>Wii Sports Tennis</i> lies at the opposite end of the spectrum. It is a game that makes sense not because its systems present themselves to you but because you already know what tennis is.<br />
<br />
It is full of colour and sound and characters and animations which hide what its systems are actually doing. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what’s going on under the hood. There is only the vaguest connection between your arm motions and how they are interpreted by the game.<br />
<br />
There is arguably little skill involved. You cannot master the perfect shot. But neither do you need to. That’s not what the game is about.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhM1QT4JkoL4nLDEWgKxDgCx1qFX30-YLWz_3DiwsNGvKubs1tSMES-h6l9ynx3DuSKgQFuzdLv1kGFXMZGCcbNpx1ESdbclqiwxQGyf5mGqxxrNmV8kKyHOpuiUdnXOZL2ZrupbHw9xY8/s1600/maxresdefault-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhM1QT4JkoL4nLDEWgKxDgCx1qFX30-YLWz_3DiwsNGvKubs1tSMES-h6l9ynx3DuSKgQFuzdLv1kGFXMZGCcbNpx1ESdbclqiwxQGyf5mGqxxrNmV8kKyHOpuiUdnXOZL2ZrupbHw9xY8/s400/maxresdefault-5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>Wii Sports Tennis</i> works because of make-believe. Sure, you can sit in an armchair and aimlessly flail your WiiMote from side to side, but you lose the joy of the experience. <i>Wii Sports Tennis</i> works because you get into the spirit of it. It works because you pretend that you’re a real tennis-player, with a real tennis racquet, and even though it’s immediately obvious that neither of these things are true you get into it anyway.<br />
<br />
The fact that it takes all its visual cues from televised pro-level tennis and makes them into a colourful cartoon mirrors the disconnect between a real tennis racquet and a WiiMote. It prompts the player not worry that it is not the real thing, and instead embrace the whimsy and comedy of playing make-believe with friends.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPUKDrSLWDfmJK_GNwghfHGxZiFL4Zq8fi8Z0-Rji5goWa5m-Gk0WR5cBpM2cJKedstNd2CizajwoKu9WU94zdfZYqlLA6zISPa_rBmjwK6uALFz1c849p8icTrhZegQabFqGnJXrk9c3/s1600/maxresdefault-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPUKDrSLWDfmJK_GNwghfHGxZiFL4Zq8fi8Z0-Rji5goWa5m-Gk0WR5cBpM2cJKedstNd2CizajwoKu9WU94zdfZYqlLA6zISPa_rBmjwK6uALFz1c849p8icTrhZegQabFqGnJXrk9c3/s400/maxresdefault-3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It is a game which stokes the imagination, which provides an excuse to perform and express oneself. In doing so it asks you the player to co-operate, to give it some slack not being the real thing. The game asks you to be actively involved in making the illusion work.<br />
<br />
<i>Wii Sports Tennis</i> is a tool for joyous, expressive experiences, but it only works because the players invest themselves into it. It is the job of the game developer to use audio, visuals, hardware and theme to make players want to pitch in.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">So why does this matter?</span></b><br />
<br />
Two games, two sides of a spectrum. One mechanical and one hand-wavy. One game that provides you its entire experience up-front, one the game that gives you a prompt and asks you to fill in the gaps. One game that is about winning, like we do in sport, one a game that is about make-believe, like we do as children.<br />
<br />
There were so many aspects of video games I didn’t cover with these two games. I didn’t talk about meaningful decisions, or interlocking mechanics, or systems versus narrative. I didn’t talk about the difference between single-player and multiplayer, even though I picked games that crossed that divide. They weren't the concepts I would be excited to convey to an outsider.<br />
<br />
That’s part of what makes my brother's question interesting. You can’t pick every single game so you have to choose the games that feel like they span that gap the best they can. You’re forced to neglect certain areas of the medium. At the same time, you choose a select few axes of differentiation. These reflect the concepts in game design that you are excited to explore.<br />
<br />
For me the big concept I wanted to demonstrate about games was about answering the question “why should I care?” I chose one where the motivation to care came entirely from the game as a digital artefact. I chose another where the motivation to care came from the world outside the screen.<br />
<br />
"Why should I care?" is a question I’ve been trying to answer during my whole time in the games industry. How do I make iPhone owners care about <a href="https://www.greedy-bankers.com/">another colour-matching puzzler</a>? How do I make people desire to <a href="https://www.taphappysabotage.com/">fight each other over a touchscreen</a>? Why would someone remain emotionally invested in <a href="https://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">a codebreaking challenge</a> that, at first glance, looks like a novelty?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGqcy1aNv741pc90eRKd6WvMKmi3agWc-3q8Nf0mVP7r5QB7Bcwi5fTRXwsBnsZ2giBaNTD_Fh7RS1XEjRvE_HtWXPcFqUoo5wsiCaATuvcKaX1aEsOHfDSYKUdZEN32H_aoCtRAG-5mn/s1600/CB+team+of+three+outside.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="1600" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGqcy1aNv741pc90eRKd6WvMKmi3agWc-3q8Nf0mVP7r5QB7Bcwi5fTRXwsBnsZ2giBaNTD_Fh7RS1XEjRvE_HtWXPcFqUoo5wsiCaATuvcKaX1aEsOHfDSYKUdZEN32H_aoCtRAG-5mn/s320/CB+team+of+three+outside.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
My best answers to that question have, so far, been about what the player as an individual brings to the table. This is what <i>Wii Sports Tennis</i> demonstrates in stark contrast to <i>Tetris </i>- as if <i>Tetris</i> is the default, and <i>Wii Sports Tennis</i> is the subversive twist that shows what games could become.<br />
<br />
Obviously, given the nature of much of my work, individual expression is a big thing for me. I’ve long been making games where I get players to make the experience their own, be it through cheating, open-ended puzzles, improvisation, or performing. And while local mutliplayer has always been a big part of my work, “local multiplayer” has never been a question I’ve been trying to solve. I've always seen it as just a great tool for enabling player expression.<br />
<br />
These are the issues that matter to me. They are the issues that excite me and the ones I want to express to someone else if they need to know what this medium means to me as a creator. Well, they’re the ones that excite me right now anyway.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Time, Place and Narrative</span></b><br />
<br />
I know my two games would have been different five years ago because I was a different game designer. I would hope that my answers will still be different five years from now, as I always want to be inspired by new experiences and to ask new questions.<br />
<br />
What we care about and why we care is linked to who we are right now. It is a fragment of ourselves stuck in a moment of time, and for each of us it is different. I posed the same question to my game developer friends on Facebook, and no two developers covered the same games or the same ideas.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="771" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDhl8Fzka9L-1JGfbeEV1qAs-9Fbiafn2NIeEP1R0qBHVTU61VFM2qIsGLdGqADhgs39wgzoTb0myiO9LUh0SmaNLHT6MP-FQZwJzwE_3dcyYgIC8Vqa8fWahMaXgjkTKOBN1JiAUb7pU0/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-05-29+at+16.47.05.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
At the start of this piece I said I was going to talk about Ian Bogost. For those of you who don’t know of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/">the article written by the veteran designer</a>, the brief version is that he believes that game developers should stop trying to tell stories. The article’s been doing the rounds and has attracted disapproval from numerous figures across the world of game development. The medium is, according to Bogost, yet to produce a complex and mature narrative work and the medium at large would be better to focus on the unique features of games as a medium - of systems and interaction. This, he argues, is the unique opportunity that the games medium provides.<br />
<br />
What Games Are, he says, is "the aesthetic form of everyday objects."<br />
<br />
Personally, I feel like Bogost is largely right about how the medium has evolved, and how the predominant forms of storytelling in games have eschewed interactivity for traditional media. He neglects to consider examples such as Telltale's <i>The Walking Dead</i>, where the magic of the storytelling is that it directly confronts the player with questions.<br />
<br />
But most of all I see no reason we cannot make great work that takes lessons from the novel and the movie and uses them directly in a new medium. Why not? <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/welcome-to-incredible-playable-show.html">It’s like saying games can't draw directly from theatre.</a> It doesn’t matter what media we use to get there, as long as the end product is meaningful to us.<br />
<br />
Why should What Games Are be the aesthetic form of everyday objects? Why can't What Games Are be a way of people connecting, or a way of experiencing a story from the inside?<br />
<br />
I would challenge Bogost to say that games are not "the aesthetic form of everyday objects," but in fact that this view is what excites him about the medium. I would challenge his detractors not to see his article as a dismissal of their work but as a prompt to prove him wrong: why are you <i>really</i> excited by games as a narrative medium? Why does it matter to you, as a creator, if games tell stories, how games tell stories, and why games tell stories? Those are genuinely important questions to ask.<br />
<br />
I would challenge everyone that claiming What Games Are is a source of pointless arguments, but exploring What Games Are To You is a source of inspiration and creative development.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">What Games Are To You</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
Some creators believe that narrative is super-duper exciting. Of them, some think games are an exciting new narrative medium ripe with opportunity. Conversely, some think games just are not good enough at doing narrative yet and need to rethink their processes.<br />
<br />
Some creators believe that systems are super-duper exciting. Among them, there’s creators who feel that narrative should not be used at the expense of systems. There are also those who think that the really worthwhile stories are those generated by the systems themselves.<br />
<br />
There’s also creators like myself. Personally, I’m super-duper excited by play as a sensory/emotional experience. I see the power of both narrative and systems as tools for prompting people to create the real experience for themselves.<br />
<br />
All these viewpoints are correct. None of them are higher than the others.<br />
<br />
There is no right or wrong in creating games, or in striving to make something special in any medium. There really is room for everything. There is nothing to be gained by arguing about what games should not be.<br />
<br />
<i>Everyone has a unique pair of games that tell the story of What Games Are To Them. </i><br />
<br />
So be proud and excited about that which excites you. You are a wonderful snowflake and so is everyone else!<br />
<br />
At the same time, there is no benefit in dismissing that which excites other people. If you stop to see things from their perspective you may find yourself excited by the very same ideas.Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-21832501558891842522017-03-05T11:43:00.002+00:002017-03-05T11:43:56.104+00:00Building a Glitchable Mega Drive EmulatorThis is a little project I did back last summer, to explore glitching games. I've long been inspired by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedrun">speedrunning</a>, and glitches like the <a href="http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/MissingNo.">Missingno glitch</a> in Pokémon Red and Blue.<br />
<br />
I love being able to pull apart the game and see how they work, an getting an insight into what the data looks like from the perspective of the machine. For example, the Missingno glitch shows us what happens when the GameBoy interprets the player's name as the parameters of a Pokémon.<br />
<br />
I also think there's a certain beauty to seeing a game not as a finished work but as a raw material - a starting point to be reinterpreted. Speedrunning gives us a new objective, and can turn a game of exploration into <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IUbUF8cnVA">a deep exercise in resource management</a>. <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/the-mega-cooperator-teamwork-fuelled.html">Changing the control system for Sonic 2</a> allowed me to turn a game about dexterity into a game about teamwork.<br />
<br />
With this project I worked on modifying GenesisPlus, an open source Sega Mega Drive emulator for Mac, which is bundled as part of <a href="http://openemu.org/">OpenEmu</a>. I put in a system of scripting interactions with the console's memory. This means it can write new values into memory on certain triggers. These include a time period passing, a button being pressed, or another value in memory changing.<br />
<br />
I then worked on turning this into something that would be fun to play in its own right. I added networking features so that players playing separate copies of the game can interact with each other, using glitching to fuel a competitive challenge.<br />
<br />
The video below talks about how I created this, how it works, the thought process I went to, and the <i>Sonic the Hedgehog 2</i> variant that emerged as a result. I hope you enjoy watching!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yu_dkELxFBE?rel=0" width="400"></iframe>
</div>
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-79726262103456863062017-02-15T22:10:00.002+00:002017-02-17T22:03:16.563+00:00The Human in the Machine<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA">ELIZA</a> was the world’s first digital psychotherapist. Created from 1964 to 1966, long before Siri and Cortana, long even before the first commerical videogames, ELIZA was an AI that had conversations with its users.<br />
<br />
A user, communicating with ELIZA through a terminal, would be asked a question about themselves, and ELIZA would listen, prompting the user with questions.<br />
<br />
Except ELIZA had no idea what was going on. ELIZA only created the illusion of understanding, using pattern-matching and substitution to parrot the own user’s words in the the form of a question.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/GNU_Emacs_ELIZA_example.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/GNU_Emacs_ELIZA_example.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
ELIZA’s conversational ability grew over time - not through machine learning, but through users adding new rules and behaviours to her script. She was an illusion, non-sentient and entirely artificial. Nevertheless, users were reported as having meaningful conversations with her. ELIZA talked them through their problems. They found the experience comforting, often revealing to themselves inner feelings they hadn’t acknowledged.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weizenbaum">Joseph Weizenbaum</a>, the creator of the program, was dismissive of this response. He had created ELIZA as a parody of artificial intelligence, to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between man and machine. He felt the popular response was merely a result of humanity’s tendency to anthropomorphise the world around them.<br />
<br />
Regardless of what was really going on under the hood, users had a meaningful human experience with ELIZA. Whether or not the machine was actually intelligent is not important. Even whether or not users actually <i>believed</i> that the device was intelligent is, arguably, of little consequence.<br />
<br />
For the end user, their emotional response was the entirety of the experience. The banality of the program only mattered if believing it to be artificial affected that response.<br />
<br />
Maybe it was enough to simply play along with the artifice.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/English_ouija_board.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/English_ouija_board.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Although similar talking boards have been used to communicate with spirits as far back as 1100AD, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouija"><i>Ouija</i> board</a> was patented in 1890 and has been manufactured under this name since 1901. Hasbro is the current official owner of the <i>Ouija</i> trademark and, intriguingly list it in their “Toys for Girls” range, for ages 8+. It even came in pastel pink at one point, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3121265/Amazon-selling-controversial-Ouija-board-games-children-young-EIGHT-including-pink-version-aimed-girls.html">to the fascination of the Daily Mail</a>, who kindly list a range of paranormal stories for your perusal.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgha3rza2IRfnRtl9qFsiCReQtn5kGPN8GzQgIKTOsh0rSJFkKcDrkaN5fXYhk1lu8HPXX6SXhaqAM3mUJ732BYTVrLZKu-i1QJAS85O6b1g6Ot-ffv-sl63WF_64HSm2uREqsRbnJDsNPY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-02-15+at+21.01.38.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgha3rza2IRfnRtl9qFsiCReQtn5kGPN8GzQgIKTOsh0rSJFkKcDrkaN5fXYhk1lu8HPXX6SXhaqAM3mUJ732BYTVrLZKu-i1QJAS85O6b1g6Ot-ffv-sl63WF_64HSm2uREqsRbnJDsNPY/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-02-15+at+21.01.38.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot taken 15 Feb 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
While numerous similar products exist without the <i>Ouija</i> branding, the official version remains a piece of cardboard and a piece of plastic.<br />
<br />
Despite the <i>Ouija</i> board being a soulless material product and an intellectual property owned by a major corporate entity, it has claimed its place in the popular consciousness as a means of contacting the dead. It comes with urban legends and movies and a long dark history in divination.<br />
<br />
Do people really believe that the <i>Ouija</i> board is an actual working means of performing a séance? Do people want to disbelieve, but the fear that the legends <i>might</i> be true is sufficient to create a spooky experience? Or do people play along because there’s no point in the experience if they don’t?<br />
<br />
Even if you don’t get chilling results, is <i>playing</i> at divination sufficiently meaningful?<br />
<br />
I use the Oujia board as a mental parallel for my own work in installation and performance games. I keep it in mind when I think about how to make a new game meaningful.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aaC5IhcZ2Cs?rel=0" width="400"></iframe>
</div>
<br />
In particular, <i><a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/enter-button-power-team.html">Go! Power Team!</a></i> which makes up the middle segment of <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/welcome-to-incredible-playable-show.html">my playable stage show</a>. It’s a game where four players become “Power Rangers” wearing tablets on their bellies. Rangers must perform the actions dictated to them by the computer. Another player must press these tablets in the correct order, but the rangers are neither on this player’s side, nor working against them. Their job is to simply perform the actions dictated to them by the computer.<br />
<br />
So why do the rangers play along?<br />
<br />
Originally I performed this game using staff from the venue, anonymised and dressed with morphsuits. As I took it around, however, I began asking volunteers from the audience to take on the mantle of the rangers. I’ve run it with enthusiastic actors at the <a href="http://improvtheatre.net/">Bristol Improv Theatre</a>, with colleagues at the ed-tech company where I do contract work, with teens at <a href="http://gamecity.org/">GameCity</a> and under-12s at the NVA Playable Christmas shows.<br />
<br />
In the performance you want players to be active, silly and inventive - that’s what makes it funny to watch. You also don’t want them actively running towards the player, pressing their own buttons or helping the player out, as that removes the jeopardy. Much of the excitement comes from the tension of a game that would be easy were it not so silly. To get this to work each group has required subtly different approaches.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrDXTIcCDJNlNBovHgUcMp9naxcDS4n0zWl7dXEaHGArmBK9e5dqC0h17tV8Tn7pxacy1OE7MV6hNVqbBQkuBZTlnrAjv1Y8Mt9iqhbtndDJRs8oHLbpD7C-VfWX6EQnwD-O0f2bH3UzXo/s1600/go+power+team+IPS+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrDXTIcCDJNlNBovHgUcMp9naxcDS4n0zWl7dXEaHGArmBK9e5dqC0h17tV8Tn7pxacy1OE7MV6hNVqbBQkuBZTlnrAjv1Y8Mt9iqhbtndDJRs8oHLbpD7C-VfWX6EQnwD-O0f2bH3UzXo/s400/go+power+team+IPS+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Kids, for example, don’t like to be told what to do and expect everyone to be paying attention to them. Not to tar all kids with the same brush, but it only takes one kid to rebel against the spirit of the game to break the experience. “The spirit of the game” is arguably a grown-up concept after all. I’m not a parent and have little experience with kids beyond the show, but they appear to decide on what they believe to be “how to win” and fixate on that.<br />
<br />
I’ve had kids try to run out of the room and I’ve had kids stood staring at the screen pressing their own power belts. The one weird trick that fixes everything is to pick one adult to be a power ranger. Kids won’t do what I say when I’m hosting, but adults will. The kids will, however, see that adult as the “default” way to play, and so all their creative interpretation will be a variation on that.<br />
<br />
The joy of the game is when players creatively interpret the commands given to them by the computer, so they do weird and inventive things on stage. I never like to tell players not to do something. Instead, I try to <i>engineer</i> a situation where following the spirit of the game becomes desirable.<br />
<br />
Adults tend to be shyer and more reserved than kids, so my objective as host is often different. I need to get volunteers motivated and excited about being silly in public, to inspire them to perform and be creative. When <i>Go! Power Team!</i> is an act in <i><a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/welcome-to-incredible-playable-show.html">The Incredible Playable Show</a></i>, the preceding games involve shouting loudly and moving between seats. This warms players up to the idea that the room does not stay still and tidy. And every time I give a ranger a power belt it comes with a ceremonial “transfer of the power,” as I attach each belt while announcing, their special skills and spirit animals. I’m not just giving them a blank slate and telling them to be silly. I’m giving them cues on personality and attitude, and a pop-culture reference point, so that they have something to embody.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKxVraGuyImgnA_7_7QedLdX4g9ANRk3HQsqtS4GH4v9KSGMi49RSYnZO4xA4e_1HCqpf5kXil0z4XRyFxfAG3Z_G8Sn8ivhpTQo7pawJPV1vI4QT6xFG4haC6_GCAZheqOIFxJDRMttlE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-02-15+at+22.00.21.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKxVraGuyImgnA_7_7QedLdX4g9ANRk3HQsqtS4GH4v9KSGMi49RSYnZO4xA4e_1HCqpf5kXil0z4XRyFxfAG3Z_G8Sn8ivhpTQo7pawJPV1vI4QT6xFG4haC6_GCAZheqOIFxJDRMttlE/s400/Screen+Shot+2017-02-15+at+22.00.21.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Red Ranger receives her powers at the Bristol Improv Theatre</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The <i>Ouija</i> board remains a reference point<br />
<br />
It reminds me that the game, the graphics, the technology, the rules, the puzzles and the mechanics are just material. They are tools that help me create an experience. But they are not the entirety of that experience.<br />
<br />
As far as the player is concerned, their experience is formed of motivations, emotions, belief, understanding and expectations. This is the difference between pressing buttons and being Power Rangers.<br />
<br />
My role as a designer is to use my materials to serve those roles. That includes how I stage it, how I frame it, how I build up to it, who I suggest my players embody, who I choose for which tasks, my costume and persona, and how I explain it. It also includes choice of music, pacing and sound-effects, creating a sense of big jeopardy and big victories.<br />
<br />
The magic of the <i>Ouija</i> board is not in the product itself. It is, after all, a piece of cardboard and a piece of plastic. The magic moment where you feel the marker move under your fingertips and spell out words is not created in a factory. It is created by you, the audience. You light the candles, you gather everyone in a circle, you switch off the lights, and you are acutely aware that you are doing something taboo.<br />
<br />
People perform a séance because they believe it will be good if everyone in the circle plays along - whether or not they actually believe they are contacting the dead. And if they do believe they are contacting the dead, it’s the mythology around the <i>Ouija</i> board that makes that happen. You place your trust in the experience.<br />
<br />
The box and the board try to make <i>Oujia</i> look authentic, but what makes it really feel authentic is the urban legends. It’s the half-heard stories of spooky goings-on, the Daily Mail scare stories and, perhaps, the desire to believe. It’s accursed not because the cardboard and plastic are magical but for the same reason <a href="http://www.zam.com/article/571/sent-from-satan-why-doom-scared-us-back-in-1993">Dungeons & Dragons, Black Sabbath and DOOM</a> are accursed.<br />
<br />
A game designer takes on many roles. The nuts and bolts of a game as a system are like the instructions. The environments, artwork and music are the box and the board. But the designer must also consider the life of the game outside what it physically <i>is</i>. All the surrounding ideas that would make a player desire to have the experience. The designer must create the mythology.<br />
<br />
ELIZA offered users a safe space to open up. If they believed her to be a psychiatrist they placed trust in her. If they believed her to be a smart AI they felt the safety of anonymity. ELIZA was meaningful because users believed in it, not because it was a functional piece of technology.<br />
<br />
If they believed she was neither psychiatrist nor a smart AI, perhaps it was sufficient for users to play along. Nevertheless, for those users belief was still there. They believed in the engineers who had created the experiment, and the vision that talking to a chat-bot would be beneficial.<br />
<br />
It’s not the code that makes the game work. It’s not the physical object. It’s not the computer system. It is the players.<br />
<br />
In all of these experiences the players are empowered to make what they want out of what they are given. The designer’s role is to create a situation where players desire to participate in the way that creates the most enjoyment.<br />
<br />
Trusting players to interpret our work in their own way empowers us to come up with new experiences. It empowers us to create works that will be meaningful to them on an individual level. The challenge is to create that trust. We need players to trust us that taking part in the game will be meaningful to them.<br />
<br />
Especially when we work with new and experimental modes of play, players need to be convinced that the emotional payoff will be worth the effort of trust.Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-54847646289694485752017-02-06T19:57:00.002+00:002017-02-06T20:02:59.417+00:00The Incredible Playable Show comes to Screenshake AntwerpThis Saturday I'll be bringing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9hMqFkcH4o">The Incredible Playable Show</a> to the <a href="https://www.screenshake.be/">Screenshake 2017</a> festival in Antwerp, Belgium.<br />
<br />
The show takes place at at 6pm at <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Het+Bos/@51.2273717,4.4102074,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xf35f29852b64b240?sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj3kN6cofzRAhVFGZAKHepSCfkQ_BIIjAEwEA">Het Bos, Ankerrui 5-7, 2000 Antwerp</a> - taking over the Local Multiplayer Hall for one final digital extravaganza before the evening's Screenshake Party.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRLSII5dNuqWS_fOw7x21f3V2SlkdLy9XIEHspNrIGkTUuL0POY1Pga-gxYN9-tJfoHJIa-9zJPJen8F_6zqwytPYQ0Ec7q58VwVAkWqZrMkqkuMbiBWfutd4Wxp5VzB6KUyGXqTSyKkak/s1600/WP_20161027_10_49_53_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRLSII5dNuqWS_fOw7x21f3V2SlkdLy9XIEHspNrIGkTUuL0POY1Pga-gxYN9-tJfoHJIa-9zJPJen8F_6zqwytPYQ0Ec7q58VwVAkWqZrMkqkuMbiBWfutd4Wxp5VzB6KUyGXqTSyKkak/s320/WP_20161027_10_49_53_Pro.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Tickets are available from <a href="https://www.screenshake.be/">www.screenshake.be</a><br />
<br />
Come along and prepare to be part of an incredible playable experience you will not forget!Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-55373425584783069222016-11-29T18:54:00.002+00:002016-12-01T17:44:16.778+00:00The Mega Cooperator - a Teamwork-Fuelled Custom Controller<i>The Mega Cooperator</i> is a custom controller I built for Sega Mega Drive consoles. It plugs into the console's controller port and mimics the actions of four buttons. One button is randomly assigned to each of the four players. Every 30 seconds the actions switch around, so players need to communicate to figure out who has what, and to operate the game.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I’ve been excited for a long time about re-interpreting classic games in new ways, seeing them as a canvas to be explored rather than as finished products. I’ve also been inspired by the amount of teamwork that was present in <a href="http://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a>.<br />
<br />
By adapting the 4-button custom controller I made for that game, I found I could take existing single-player games and turn them into comedic teamwork experiences.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l9QdRw7emYo?rel=0" width="400"></iframe>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div>
The video above shows the buttons being mapped to Left, Right, Down and A on a Mega Drive controller, to play Sonic the Hedgehog 2. No player knows what their button does and can only find out by pressing it. To keep players on their toes, every 30 seconds a loud buzz sounds and the buttons' roles switch around.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sonic is a game about swift flowing movement, and designed to make the player feel empowered. Basic motion should be easy, but now even simple obstacles require a lot of communication and forethought.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The team needs to be in sync to time actions such as a running jump or to avoid projectiles. They must listen to each other, perhaps forming a leadership structure.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJzLjcjlBixCbrwEKfrR3QGajLluqLG3UIRn34SHe-zxroe8fmwQFWbDteVyp7ckT_c6ak2mP5i_2-Cxu-rJXj8KlEJFI9QLreqkdgPr_oaRRVWuermYNMPn-40Zrp2U3VUa0X-uS93c61/s1600/Mega+Cooperator+shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJzLjcjlBixCbrwEKfrR3QGajLluqLG3UIRn34SHe-zxroe8fmwQFWbDteVyp7ckT_c6ak2mP5i_2-Cxu-rJXj8KlEJFI9QLreqkdgPr_oaRRVWuermYNMPn-40Zrp2U3VUa0X-uS93c61/s320/Mega+Cooperator+shot.jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mega Cooperator prototype connected to a Sega Mega Drive console</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div>
To find out what your button does you need to press it, but everyone pressing at once creates misleading information. Because players need to listen to each other as well as act as individuals, it naturally creates a situation where players need to resist their impatient urges!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The regular shuffling of the buttons is a moment where the whole team needs to reconfigure. The team is given only enough time to get into a flow momentarily, producing an ebb-and-flow of drama. Peaks and troughs form as players go from rapid back-and-forth chatter to their plan coming together for a short period.<br />
<br />
The accompanying buzzing gives the sense of panic, and the tension of knowing that change is going to come any moment. Much like designing a game, creating custom hardware is an opportunity to engineer drama!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because of the need for teamwork, simple obstacles become complex communication tasks almost by accident. The stand-out challenges of <i>Sonic the Hedgehog 2</i>, for example, were not the same ones put there by the designers. So these challenges feel organic rather than being designed learning goals.<br />
<br />
The team gets to feel they have overcome adversity entirely by their own merits - not because they had been trained to.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oXusOSkspII?rel=0" width="400"></iframe></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The controller also creates a kind of comedy, with what should be simple suddenly becoming very hard. Watching Sonic casually stroll into a spike pit, for example, is funny because it is an action that would be ridiculous in real life.<br />
<br />
Sonic becomes the unwitting foil of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Numskulls">Numbskulls</a>-like farce, where four different pilots struggle to operate a single character.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Indeed, one of the unique features of the control system is that it’s perfectly possible for a player to press the wrong button. When the team usually wants to move right, for example, one player may be pressing Left. Unless they can work together as a team they're liable to sabotage themselves! </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 works particularly well because of its forgiving level design and recovery mechanics. It means these tests of teamwork need not be damningly hard - the team can get by operating a clumsy Sonic until more complex hazards (such as Dr Robotnik) appear later in the stage.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless the kit is not limited to one game - it can be reprogrammed to suit all games in the Sega Mega Drive library, and can even have extra buttons attached to it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The racing game <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rej19h2VzXY">Micro Machines 2</a> works really well with a setup using six buttons. In this version of the game, three out of six buttons are randomly mapped to the red car - for Left, Right and Accelerate - and the other three are mapped to the blue car. Two teams of players must climb over each other to get to the buttons they need. It takes a game about driving and turns it into a physically-intense, Twister-like experience.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Mega Cooperator works on an official Sega Mega Drive console, by plugging directly into one more more controller ports.<br />
<br />
The video below shows this in action. I wasn't able to get friends round to show this in action, so for the meantime the best demonstrator is me playing with my feet!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cbTbTOnPBdc?rel=0" width="400"></iframe></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the current prototype there are are two Arduino boards - one to interpret the input from the buttons, and another to send signals to the Mega Drive controller ports. This is a useful tool for the prototyping phase, as it allows me to use a computer as an intermediary.<br />
<br />
With the computer in-between I’ve been able to experiment by adding other input sources including microphones and barcode scanners. In the upcoming versions the kit will run off of a single board.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As well as putting everything on a single board, the next version will allow the user to configure exactly which Mega Drive buttons are activated using a set of switches on the hardware. In the current prototype a different script must be loaded onto the Arduino board for each unit, which obviously needs to change. It would also be great to give it a nice black-plastic casing to match the original Sega console.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The whole process is a lot of fun to do. It’s allowed me to find new modes of interaction in games that are almost 25 years old. I like the idea that the controller used to play a game can completely change what that game is about, and I’m excited to explore this further with more projects.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-23850740904108321382016-11-27T14:19:00.006+00:002017-06-06T17:21:22.449+01:00Welcome to the Incredible Playable Show!<i>Current show dates for The Incredible Playable Show <a href="http://playable.show/">are listed on the show website</a></i><br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/playableshow">Follow The Incredible Playable Show on Facebook</a> for news on upcoming shows and events!</i><br />
<br />
This October I made my way to Nottingham for <a href="http://gamecity.org/">GameCity</a> once again. I’ve always loved the GameCity festival, with its focus on creativity and hunger for experimental work. Its audience mixes children and families among academics and industry professionals, and new unknown works sit side-by-side with established names. It’s the home of <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/dash-bash-goes-live-at-national.html">Dash & Bash</a>, one of my favourite pieces of work, so it was a perfect choice of venue to debut my latest project: <i>The Incredible Playable Show!</i><br />
<br />
The idea of a playable stage show has been on my mind for years, as the next logical step from touring local-multiplayer installations. I’m keen to explore the opportunities the stage offers as a space for games, and to find the best ways to mix performance and play.<br />
<br />
Over the four days of the festival I ran the show six times, and was given GameCity 2016's Spirit of the Festival award.<br />
<br />
The trailer below, filmed at a subsequent performance at the <a href="https://improvtheatre.co.uk/">Bristol Improv Theatre</a>, should give a good feel for what the show is like!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H9hMqFkcH4o?rel=0" width="400"></iframe></div>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">What is The Incredible Playable Show?</span></h2>
<br />
The show is takes games of my own invention - involving physical interaction, running around and unconventional homemade controllers - and puts them into a theatre context. Spectators are invited onto the stage to become players, and must interact with each other and the audience to progress.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDTf6a_cUFTe63fcu0SDjrbrIxmc6ls3PgCIfFiPnC8e7-dhW3W2k1uTOuvuyZ_TJG78cOXbgcdF8tdb-X-zpKaIzBZPE181IYrGnPIS_agM6WizpGRKxAMjmCBDqQ5n_Wdiz-2Q-lZ12f/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.16.30.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDTf6a_cUFTe63fcu0SDjrbrIxmc6ls3PgCIfFiPnC8e7-dhW3W2k1uTOuvuyZ_TJG78cOXbgcdF8tdb-X-zpKaIzBZPE181IYrGnPIS_agM6WizpGRKxAMjmCBDqQ5n_Wdiz-2Q-lZ12f/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.16.30.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Still from BBC Click, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08450vk/click-quiet-zone">26 November 2016</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Sometimes players take the role of human controllers. Other times they must climb through the audience, who have become real-world obstacles in a digital game. In the final act the audience must work together to solve coded messages, getting out of their chairs to pass clues to each other and share ideas.<br />
<br />
Each set ran for 45 minutes. As well as operating the tech, I donned a ringmaster's jacket and drew upon my improv skills to become The Incredibly Playful Showman.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The ethos is the show is that everyone in the audience should get to feel involved in a real way. Even if you weren't on the stage playing you should feel like you made a meaningful contribution to how the show played out.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HRF2im8rLdQQC0b5S8TlwmXZ4iCZZhNzhqa8TGSgOfCESI5MONUJC3oYihNsKe-WhOITr0K1NnDfTWlMdaTXCxGFyRUjySEhaapX6NS5IEwy_8dctLy7hEEIYglXZoqB8cuLdEoSjT9-/s1600/match+me+if+you+scan+IPS+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HRF2im8rLdQQC0b5S8TlwmXZ4iCZZhNzhqa8TGSgOfCESI5MONUJC3oYihNsKe-WhOITr0K1NnDfTWlMdaTXCxGFyRUjySEhaapX6NS5IEwy_8dctLy7hEEIYglXZoqB8cuLdEoSjT9-/s400/match+me+if+you+scan+IPS+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Match Me If You Scan - Photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/raygungoth/albums/72157675309403431">Gemma Thomson</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Additionally I stuck to a design goal of keeping every game relatively low-tech. It’s not about flashy hardware, but rather what can be done by combining simple technology with a theatre space. The charm is seeing games like you've never seen before, after all. So it's important that every spectator understands exactly what is going on in each game, so that they can be surprised and inspired. No networking issues, no lag, and no anonymous voting - game feel is as important here as in any other context.<br />
<br />
Similarly, each game was designed to feel significantly different in terms of how players and audience interacted with the stage, with the technology and with each other. I was there to explore, to learn and to inspire, so the more the dynamics varied the more there was to learn.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Games</span></h2>
<br />
The best way to describle what the show was like is probably to explain what the games themselves were. Each game was roughly 8 minutes long, with a period of setup and improvised chatter in-between.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyiVi4vRzUznMKaSw9SrDRVBWG5jedbzODgB1lqIiTN49HvtibgmylHEB_WSKfmlm9hKYosyWeZ_Dqwcg3-o2p3n0_HDRZgp4hFLncAJ1q3YS73S3DttQ_CLOJ2r8UP0ryVNhJ0hWAou_A/s1600/go+power+team+IPS+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyiVi4vRzUznMKaSw9SrDRVBWG5jedbzODgB1lqIiTN49HvtibgmylHEB_WSKfmlm9hKYosyWeZ_Dqwcg3-o2p3n0_HDRZgp4hFLncAJ1q3YS73S3DttQ_CLOJ2r8UP0ryVNhJ0hWAou_A/s400/go+power+team+IPS+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Go! Power Team! Photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/raygungoth/albums/72157675309403431">Gemma Thomson</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3>
Go! Power Team!</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Four players are invited up from the audience to wear coloured power belts. By donning the power belts they become the four Rangers, and effectively take on the role of human buttons. One player is invited from the audience to become Hero of the Galaxy.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On the screen, giant monsters are shown attacking a city. To defeat the monsters, the saviour must press the power belts in the order shown on-screen. However, every time a new monster appears the four rangers are given a new command by the computer. For example, they may be told to "lie on the floor," to "join hands and spin" or to "hi-five everyone in the audience."</blockquote>
<br />
The challenge for the player is to deal with a physical environment that changes as the rangers move around of their own accord. Each time a player fails, another hero is pulled out from the audience to help them, until the team runs out of lives.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Z1mdYq2VajiMv-H_Tp9Zj0Sbs-kx7fhIxrlFGQcbr2GnXl6NpMbobwkcM_0XAuEjW9hnBqg_Az94h_GyniQdtKOZGUDfdvptrYM0CSC8P-9lUHpOL6xUcyCx8B_5SjBO08b_7ALZ4icx/s1600/go+power+team+IPS+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Z1mdYq2VajiMv-H_Tp9Zj0Sbs-kx7fhIxrlFGQcbr2GnXl6NpMbobwkcM_0XAuEjW9hnBqg_Az94h_GyniQdtKOZGUDfdvptrYM0CSC8P-9lUHpOL6xUcyCx8B_5SjBO08b_7ALZ4icx/s400/go+power+team+IPS+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Go! Power Team! - Photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This game grew out of an <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/enter-button-power-team.html">experiment I did at JOIN in Berlin</a> last year. I’d been inspired by how the audience found ways to interact with the performers. Rangers get to express themselves creatively in how they interpret the commands the computer gives them, often to make the audience laugh.<br />
<br />
When the computer prompts Rangers to enter the audience the audience gets to interact with the Rangers too. They also get to help the heroes out by shouting out the colours. The audience’s interaction with the game is loose and flexible, which makes sense in this game. The magic of <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/enter-button-power-team.html">Go! Power Team!</a> comes from how the participants interpret the real-world rules.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8I0q_rWhTmpZYn7eLKzF4qQVObcukK0paZMmWgJS2Y6UavCUMgziZHWRrQDDDe3U3TJfrJj_it2btya9fUkD9vVFnDRfngCUqQ3l2sLMud5aQczTqgoDl6FEB7CYByZ2iVkfk9QLtYjnY/s1600/alan+with+scanner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8I0q_rWhTmpZYn7eLKzF4qQVObcukK0paZMmWgJS2Y6UavCUMgziZHWRrQDDDe3U3TJfrJj_it2btya9fUkD9vVFnDRfngCUqQ3l2sLMud5aQczTqgoDl6FEB7CYByZ2iVkfk9QLtYjnY/s400/alan+with+scanner.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Match Me If You Scan - Photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<h3>
Match Me If You Scan</h3>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One member of the audience is selected as the Floor Manager, and given a barcode scanner. Ten members of the audience are selected to be Consumer Products. They remain in their seats and are each given a netball vest with a barcode on it. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
During the game, the Floor Manager must to clamber between the members of the audience, scanning their barcodes to make cards appear on-screen. Their goal is to find three pairs of matching cards each round. Every round all the Consumer Products are allocated new cards, with each set of cards becoming harder to tell apart.</blockquote>
<br />
<i>Match Me If You Scan</i> was an opportunity to explore the audience as a physical presence. The idea is that the audience, whether they are consumer products or not, form the obstacle course that the Floor Manager has to negotiate.<br />
<br />
When designing the show I was keen to vary the soft skills each game drew upon. So while the Floor Manager’s role in the game is very physical, the Consumer Products interact through memorisation and visual reasoning. As the game goes on they’ll need to pay close attention to spot and remember what makes their card different from the others in the set. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTATrvOldioSEiiTytL2nzWH7gVc32yQC6ozjcLoCwXHkY8yI58rKW17hnXePqdYJlDUXX4N5nw0LZpm526s9wDcMDm7711x2b7amm21If9pl6hPzirTYpZQS2sooLj05Hn3IFw_sNZPui/s1600/match+me+if+you+scan+IPS+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTATrvOldioSEiiTytL2nzWH7gVc32yQC6ozjcLoCwXHkY8yI58rKW17hnXePqdYJlDUXX4N5nw0LZpm526s9wDcMDm7711x2b7amm21If9pl6hPzirTYpZQS2sooLj05Hn3IFw_sNZPui/s400/match+me+if+you+scan+IPS+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Card images ranged from the wacky to the terrifying - Photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Playing the game gets a lot of strangers to cooperate with each other, which I love. When an audience member spots a match they would shout out a description of the two people who need to be scanned. This human element highlights that the game world is made of people, and not of purely digital components.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOminPFD21G2xecLpNokYaYog99p8iBoDTDcU_2nTRcV_Nddc4PXrMpLujb2dFKxh1FVJH1P7gIlQmL3gyShWpJ8ezOlv94SSFZ52NgCRCAEJzt4xeBZd_P9fqpUKECXa9g6HXlZ6iPZ6M/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.26.51.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOminPFD21G2xecLpNokYaYog99p8iBoDTDcU_2nTRcV_Nddc4PXrMpLujb2dFKxh1FVJH1P7gIlQmL3gyShWpJ8ezOlv94SSFZ52NgCRCAEJzt4xeBZd_P9fqpUKECXa9g6HXlZ6iPZ6M/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.26.51.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still from BBC Click, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08450vk/click-quiet-zone">26 November 2016</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
Sonic Buttons</h3>
<br />
This is the act that changed the most over the course of the event. It’s actually a custom controller for a Sega Mega Drive, so much of the challenge was finding the right combination of game and control scheme. In the end I decided <i>Sonic the Hedgehog 2</i>, with the following setup:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Three members of the audience are invited up onto the stage, and each take a button. Each button corresponds to either Left, Right or Down on the controller. Every ten seconds the buttons change their roles, so the team needs to pay attention and communicate. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Meanwhile, the audience control’s Sonic’s jump by shouting “Jump!”, which is picked up by a microphone and processed as a press of the A button on the controller. Once the team is past the first level, the role of the microphone input is randomised alongside the rest of the buttons.</blockquote>
<br />
<i>Sonic the Hedgehog 2</i> works really well for experimental input devices given its forgiving levels, and its easy-to-interpret physics-based gameplay. Controlling Sonic, which should be easy, becomes difficult when the task is spread among a team, making a great source of comedy.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKZB5x09eMAYq1HABUx1ky3tfVVirP_mJ94NN_54LCbzFQkXUTwvVZPS61-UrnEBnQX4BlyH8tPqb_G4v0lyAntOTr_YVo0kK0LzFS8D0d9vPLTfRS0XEQaVgI5RzU43Q_m3KablGB-1LP/s1600/Sonic+Buttons+IPS+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKZB5x09eMAYq1HABUx1ky3tfVVirP_mJ94NN_54LCbzFQkXUTwvVZPS61-UrnEBnQX4BlyH8tPqb_G4v0lyAntOTr_YVo0kK0LzFS8D0d9vPLTfRS0XEQaVgI5RzU43Q_m3KablGB-1LP/s320/Sonic+Buttons+IPS+1.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sonic Buttons - Photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
One of the funniest moments came up when the team had been struggling for ages to get up a simple slope. When they finally managed everyone in the audience clapped and cheered. The microphone was, at that point, mapped to the left button, sending Sonic right back down the very same slope he’d just reached the top of.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR17c5-XesW1g20yMnFpW-keVDf3eJC-k-IJE17C99VRXyL2wiYObSkNjWCAwa4ke9UzTpvebeLrE0MfD30ZPCPtGr2HccXbN1iBjnK_cp8LD8P9tAHmqUqWS0rWy_mXcY7MBzcFgEWX0m/s1600/DSC09273.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR17c5-XesW1g20yMnFpW-keVDf3eJC-k-IJE17C99VRXyL2wiYObSkNjWCAwa4ke9UzTpvebeLrE0MfD30ZPCPtGr2HccXbN1iBjnK_cp8LD8P9tAHmqUqWS0rWy_mXcY7MBzcFgEWX0m/s400/DSC09273.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Codex Bash - Photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h2>
Codex Bash</h2>
<br />
The finale of the show may be familiar to followers of my work, as I often run it <a href="http://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">as an installation</a>. For the finale of the show I used a special version, which put the focus predominantly on puzzles involving real-world props. These props were distributed among the seats before the show started.<br />
<br />
To see what would happen, I decided not to tell the audience how to play the game before it began. I liked the idea of passing the mantle onto the audience at the end of the show, so that the finale belongs to them, not to me. It was very effective in generating communal spirit.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Four coloured buttons are set up on stage. A button sequence appears on the screen which must be input by volunteers from the audience. As the game progresses the on-screen buttons are replaced by symbols, and audience must decipher which symbol matches which button. The clues get more complex as the game goes on, and start to involve physical props hidden around the play-space - including punchcards, circuit diagrams and photographs.</blockquote>
<br />
The magic of the game is in the amount of communication the audience have to make with each other. To succeed, everyone needs to communicate what props were near them, or what they think the team needed.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipjwxaMT7SpAJ1ZED0JtyjMsVe-iAv03jZA0c9xm1rd9x6wuGGi2UmvRTJi48gSPksVU3tfMYNOk_5-RK4cD2QTkWum0OaU6Jpfpil-TIl9wMBAS-QE-kOE6mRaUMyxXrKxy6cAScEDhaY/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.54.42.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipjwxaMT7SpAJ1ZED0JtyjMsVe-iAv03jZA0c9xm1rd9x6wuGGi2UmvRTJi48gSPksVU3tfMYNOk_5-RK4cD2QTkWum0OaU6Jpfpil-TIl9wMBAS-QE-kOE6mRaUMyxXrKxy6cAScEDhaY/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.54.42.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The result was the majority of the audience standing up, out of their seats, passing documents around. They were talking, clambering between the seats, and really making the space their own. It really demonstrated what I'd set out to uncover - a fresh take on interpersonal interation made possible by the theatre.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Evolution of the Show</span></h2>
<br />
One of the reasons I’d wanted six shows was so that I had a chance to learn from each performance. Doing local-multiplayer installations has taught me that you never really understand your game until you see it in its real environment. As a designer you make assumptions about the venue and how players will connect to what you're presenting them. You'll be amazed how many flaws will seem obvious in the cold light of day, so it's important to accept your own lack of knowledge and be ready to adapt and change.<br />
<br />
The biggest issue of the first few shows was the running order, which placed <i>Go! Power Team!</i> as the first act. It's the most physically active and expressive game. At that the beginning of the show the audience are, quite reasonably, shy, quiet and tentative. They don’t know what to expect, and haven't warmed up to the idea of being silly on a stage.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijrV8UXtuVLD06zpbywUreIp7LqbHIJbpTFQJ4gsEVCVVuvvFjodfFDNToO7u2Zj35BBrcdyOiiwCd0nFpadqd9npROZ8fWoRao0O3bwqfsEGbt-K9c8y1WhvukBfHHsMG7EP7MGMxEy4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.28.13.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijrV8UXtuVLD06zpbywUreIp7LqbHIJbpTFQJ4gsEVCVVuvvFjodfFDNToO7u2Zj35BBrcdyOiiwCd0nFpadqd9npROZ8fWoRao0O3bwqfsEGbt-K9c8y1WhvukBfHHsMG7EP7MGMxEy4/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-11-27+at+13.28.13.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still from BBC Click, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08450vk/click-quiet-zone">26 November 2016</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For performances 3 to 6 I made <i>Go! Power Team!</i> the third act. Instead, I opened the show with <i>Sonic Buttons</i> - a far stronger warm-up act. The three volunteers on-stage don’t have to do anything that drew too much attention to them. The audience get to scream and shout and express themselves from the comfort of their chairs. Meanwhile, those audience members who would enjoy being silly and being the centre of attention have their appetites whetted. They get pumped for the more expressive games to come.<br />
<br />
<i>Match Me If You Scan</i> evolved over the course of the festival too. Originally I invited the barcode-wearing volunteers up onto the stage, but I found they clumped together in a corner. This was visually uninteresting and there was little physical movement for the Floor Manager. Keeping them seated was far more exciting to watch, and highlighted the role of the audience as physical obstacles.<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Incredibly Playful Showman</span></h2>
<br />
I was surprised by how quickly my stage persona took form. In my head I became Richard O’Brien from The Crystal Maze after six cans of Red Bull - wide-eyed, mysterious and uncontrollably excitable. I think this reflected the personality of the games themselves!<br />
<br />
I’ve always been very confident doing conference talks, but doing a 45 minute set of game demos with audience interaction, and improvisation is not something I’d done before. It required a lot of energy and I had to be able to think on my feet, either when the tech went wrong, or when there was an opportunity to respond to the audience.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmUJpVWKjoo3t7qcMoyiucZ6YCeJsMmJ29EJMbubjQwgUDf44R0viNN5ZNlvGGE9yb-vD_iQ9z308aZ35kgibK-SN3DWH5eaMpnIADvgEVusIBXHbSPHuwRWzi0T2iOYb-869xMyc57g8P/s1600/IPS+presenter+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmUJpVWKjoo3t7qcMoyiucZ6YCeJsMmJ29EJMbubjQwgUDf44R0viNN5ZNlvGGE9yb-vD_iQ9z308aZ35kgibK-SN3DWH5eaMpnIADvgEVusIBXHbSPHuwRWzi0T2iOYb-869xMyc57g8P/s400/IPS+presenter+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Getting people into the right spirit is a really important part of all my games, so one of my tasks was to arouse that enthusiasm and team spirit. So from early in the show I got a spectator to give the audience a team name, and got the audience chanting it. Each game had a little improvised intro involving back-and-forth with audience members.<br />
<br />
Much of each intro would build up the game as a chance to live out some kind of ambition - even if that ambition is childish or banal. For example, recruiting volunteers by shouting “who has always wanted to be a Power Ranger?” stirs their imagination and creates context. It’s the difference between just running around with a tablet and embodying the ridiculous spandex-suited heroes of our childhoods.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVfrsV4TWF2dnUU_OHo5Qehy-yv-Mft3djAcGlrafjkFHPHS5kYOTToSy_hd-vo9cHregXHvkYEB66vyxX_57bTbAbuUzBa8hjfLYFrfI_qUuRJZWZCsR69_OXyBslbrj5kI9OWY2Be33k/s1600/IPS+presenter+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVfrsV4TWF2dnUU_OHo5Qehy-yv-Mft3djAcGlrafjkFHPHS5kYOTToSy_hd-vo9cHregXHvkYEB66vyxX_57bTbAbuUzBa8hjfLYFrfI_qUuRJZWZCsR69_OXyBslbrj5kI9OWY2Be33k/s400/IPS+presenter+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still from BBC Click, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08450vk/click-quiet-zone">26 November 2016</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
As host I was also commentator, reiterating what was going on in case anyone didn’t understand. Games are often learnt through participation, so I had to fill that gap for spectators. Similarly, I had to be emotionally responsive to participants' needs. If one player seemed uncomfortable appearing silly on stage I could help them into the spirit by being clearly more silly than them, or by acting as a visual shield between them and the audience, helping them feel more at ease. <br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Audience as a New Kind of Participant</span></h2>
<br />
One of the biggest lessons of the stage came from understanding the mentality of the audience as they go through the experience. A designer you must respect that visitors do not approach a theatre as they would games on a phone or console. They come with expectations - in particular that the show will be a largely passive experience. When first invited onto stage they feel trepidation, knowing they have agreed to participate in something that they know nothing about.<br />
<br />
Indeed, they have entered the room, but they have not entered into the magic circle. It is the role of the show and its host to coax people into the magic circle - to build up their trust and make them feel it’s okay to come onto the stage and look a bit silly. Meanwhile, you have to respect that not all of the audience want to enter the circle. Some simply want to spectate.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizB0ByAJ9GQhMg6j48Uao6h2am6VMWKmOYOf_CeES22z-sbCzOUdAiUAYd4eywbDobSIYEb7r5xhrrH0rSLIB5xvXT5RyWPMuryP9wk0hE1_xIt7KO76U-zI8pUr404_c5JRuqIInC6xSz/s1600/IPS+setup+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizB0ByAJ9GQhMg6j48Uao6h2am6VMWKmOYOf_CeES22z-sbCzOUdAiUAYd4eywbDobSIYEb7r5xhrrH0rSLIB5xvXT5RyWPMuryP9wk0hE1_xIt7KO76U-zI8pUr404_c5JRuqIInC6xSz/s400/IPS+setup+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Setting up Go! Power Team! - Photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The other thing that stood out about the theatre as a play space is how many roles were offer for participants to embody.<br />
<br />
An example of what I mean is in <i>Go! Power Team!</i> Four Rangers were performing in front of an audience, doing silly physical actions by order of the computer, and often trying to get a laugh from the crowd. The Hero of the Galaxy was running from place to place to press buttons, their attention directed more towards the technology than the crowd. The host took no active role in the game itself, but motivated players and the audience to interact. Finally, the audience themselves had an opportunity to shout out the colours from their seats, and try to interact with the rangers. That's four wildly distinct roles, four wildly distinct motivations, all in play at the same time.<br />
<br />
Within the rich web of roles for participants are different levels of activity, of attention, and of responsibility. Players coming onto the stage choose to be subject to the gaze of the audience, where they may embarrass themselves or make others laugh. They can show themselves to be a good sport, and express their personality: taking the lead in a group, for example, or teasing the Hero by being an uncooperative Power Ranger.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthkZ2b8iI0il8c39GKZkz7IdMmpGj2B6-AOVJYJO6e9mKPpkFGLbvq2PA-Ap7ue7zK_LxbD84BZOSL-nLow0pSpa0C-bZlvgm7i9ihcylWPCQblSM1YDRCf75tuJAqLgu8d3Vk9IKVGfd/s1600/IPS+crowd+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhthkZ2b8iI0il8c39GKZkz7IdMmpGj2B6-AOVJYJO6e9mKPpkFGLbvq2PA-Ap7ue7zK_LxbD84BZOSL-nLow0pSpa0C-bZlvgm7i9ihcylWPCQblSM1YDRCf75tuJAqLgu8d3Vk9IKVGfd/s400/IPS+crowd+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For some players, for the game to be meaningful they wanted to get stuck in, pressing the buttons and wearing the power belts. For others being able to interact in a fairly passive way - shouting at Sonic, for example - was enough to feel like they were part of a unique experience. Indeed, being a good sport carries a level of responsibility - the Rangers can't be too defensive lest they make the game dull, but the Hero can be as wild as they like in order to win.<br />
<br />
This is a rich tapestry of human interactions and player roles. As a designer, this excites and inspires me. It raises an opportunity for new kinds of games that experiment with participants’ roles. It's not limited to the theatre, but having so many available participants makes it possible.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Future of the Playable Show</span></h2>
<br />
I am itching to take The Incredible Playable show to new venues and explore what can be done with it. I’m keen to bring it to new audiences, both within and beyond gaming circles. I may expand the show to one hour, and I may even look to do a run at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm certainly open to suggestions!<br />
<br />
The great thing about the show as a project is that it can be more than one thing. I can adapt it to each venue and each timeslot, each interest group. I can make it educational, and I can bring on guest comedians. Long-term my vision is to experiment and evolve - every new version of the show I perform is an opportunity to better understand the space where play and performance meet.<br />
<br />
So here’s to a playful 2017!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRLSII5dNuqWS_fOw7x21f3V2SlkdLy9XIEHspNrIGkTUuL0POY1Pga-gxYN9-tJfoHJIa-9zJPJen8F_6zqwytPYQ0Ec7q58VwVAkWqZrMkqkuMbiBWfutd4Wxp5VzB6KUyGXqTSyKkak/s1600/WP_20161027_10_49_53_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRLSII5dNuqWS_fOw7x21f3V2SlkdLy9XIEHspNrIGkTUuL0POY1Pga-gxYN9-tJfoHJIa-9zJPJen8F_6zqwytPYQ0Ec7q58VwVAkWqZrMkqkuMbiBWfutd4Wxp5VzB6KUyGXqTSyKkak/s400/WP_20161027_10_49_53_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The next appearance will be at the Bristol Improv Theatre on 2nd December, where it’ll be the closing act of the Christmas Improv Jam. The show will also be running at the National Video Game Arcade once again in the near future.<br />
<div>
</div>
Alistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2732854710270941028.post-49394340435861341332016-11-10T16:56:00.001+00:002016-11-27T14:20:06.856+00:00Winner of the GameCity Spirit of the Festival AwardAutumn 2016 has been a busy season for me and <a href="http://www.alistairaitcheson.com/games/codexbash.html">Codex Bash</a>! September saw me jetting off to Abu Dhabi to run it at an <a href="http://amazestuff.tumblr.com/post/150121129564/a-maze-abu-dhabi-pop-up-at-the-district">A MAZE popup</a> at the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thedistrictme/">Discrict Me</a> festival. October took me to <a href="http://gamecity.org/">GameCity</a> in Nottingham to run it as part of the fringe, as well as running a brand new project called <a href="https://gamecity2016.sched.org/event/8gJk/the-incredible-playable-show">The Incredible Playable Show</a>. Then in November I turned to bustling Hamburg to show Codex Bash at the <a href="http://hamburg.playfestival.de/play16/">Play16</a> festival, where I also ran <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/enter-button-power-team.html">Go! Power Team!</a> complete with morphsuits.<br />
<br />
In particular, <a href="https://gamecity2016.sched.org/event/8gJk/the-incredible-playable-show">The Incredible Playable Show</a> was a roaring success, and I took from it a great many lessons about how digital games where we take them into completely new contexts. And it saw me earn the coveted Spirit of the Festival Award at GameCity - a great honour indeed!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNBMmLR-IN5hYej7R9iBmr_3S1luIgw4wM5Hvts55D12HIjl96UTVyiGAkodroXvEjhNR157cYLjgqj7Y1Kp5G5aTohwwGTRpttT7LUQNHRPH8CDZYS7781z5PnfvZ3PPLon9oq4Akk1af/s1600/WP_20161027_10_49_53_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNBMmLR-IN5hYej7R9iBmr_3S1luIgw4wM5Hvts55D12HIjl96UTVyiGAkodroXvEjhNR157cYLjgqj7Y1Kp5G5aTohwwGTRpttT7LUQNHRPH8CDZYS7781z5PnfvZ3PPLon9oq4Akk1af/s320/WP_20161027_10_49_53_Pro.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
To give you a bit of context, The Incredible Playable Show is a stage show made up of physically-active games I have developed, usually involving custom hardware. Members of the audience are invited onto the stage to be players, but the games also involve a lot of interaction from the audience. The human buttons of <a href="http://aitchesongames.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/enter-button-power-team.html">Go! Power Team!</a> make a return, and are joined by my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXusOSkspII">randomised Mega Drive controller</a>, and a brand new game involving clambering through the audience with a barcode scanner.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8isg2wu3Zqp5W8JFd29B8HUZPrCux_ALJRedHSoTwxTU3T_8rzsaHuTW9Pb-bGt3RCZvSdE_jyym8IuKOQ23Wx9kdbL3d3ZbCK89tgOfjsQWKLA3aU7Mrdg4j5cmbPtDad4wFe_kisJR0/s1600/alan+with+scanner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8isg2wu3Zqp5W8JFd29B8HUZPrCux_ALJRedHSoTwxTU3T_8rzsaHuTW9Pb-bGt3RCZvSdE_jyym8IuKOQ23Wx9kdbL3d3ZbCK89tgOfjsQWKLA3aU7Mrdg4j5cmbPtDad4wFe_kisJR0/s320/alan+with+scanner.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Match Me If You Scan</i> in action - photo by <a href="https://twitter.com/Samathy_Barratt">Samathy Barratt</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I ran six 45-minute shows at GameCity, usually with an audience of 25 to 60 people from a range of age groups. I took the space at GameCity as an opportunity to test out lots of different material and work out what worked best with an audience, but despite it being openly a prototype version of the show it proved very popular with visitors.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwWU2uk7eaByrKCFWq35F79O36oLO0YUL8xrLLORcHQmgFrNhUNj5qvdkmHWREKFfneWXULN1SMzToZ3PAp1bYH1HkUxAtB5ALqSHymYaYt2VGX0TFBSXsQqNDAZvGr2U2tjSAWwRuCtFz/s1600/gamecity+award.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwWU2uk7eaByrKCFWq35F79O36oLO0YUL8xrLLORcHQmgFrNhUNj5qvdkmHWREKFfneWXULN1SMzToZ3PAp1bYH1HkUxAtB5ALqSHymYaYt2VGX0TFBSXsQqNDAZvGr2U2tjSAWwRuCtFz/s320/gamecity+award.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Indeed, for my work creating and performing the show, and the success of it and Codex Bash with visitors, I was awarded the GameCity Festival's very first Spirit of the Festival Award.<br />
<br />
Thank you very much to the GameCity team for giving me this award - the festival has always been an important date on my calendar, and to receive this kind of affirmation means a lot to me. A massive thank you to the staff at the venue who helped set up the space, take care of technical issues and draw the crowds!<br />
<br />
GameCity takes place every October at the <a href="http://gamecity.org/">National Videogame Arcade</a> in Nottingham, UKAlistair Aitchesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02159733474382930299noreply@blogger.com