Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Party People

They're animated. CLICK THEM!





They live only commit unspeakable horrors upon the world and
also to dance with you if you're cool. You're probably not.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Mosh Pit: The Alibi of Tyrants

Mosh pit is an action game, made in flash,where players control two characters trapped in an alternate reality 1988. The characters follow the paths drawn by the player in order to attack and build combos. The player builds combos by rebounding off of enemies which in turn rebound off of other enemies and the crowd.







Gameplay:
- The winning conditions are met by the player being able to eliminate all of the enemies on screen. Points are awarded based on how long the player can keep the enemies bouncing off of each other.

- If the player rebounds off of one enemy and into a second, the second enemy will have more damage done to it. This can happen a max of 3 times the normal amount of damage.

- There will be no health bars instead the health of the player and the enemies will be displayed in 3 character animations: Healthy, moderate and near death.

- This a real time game, the enemies will be moving around and attacking themselves. I've carved out 3 varieties: Large guy who will have a high defense and be able to shove the players throwing them off their line, fast guy that will attack constantly and stationary scene kids who will flail at set times and can only be attacked when not freaking out.

- The strategy is in keeping a large combo going to defeat the enemies before the song time runs out sending a wall of death in which crushes everyone and triggers a game over.

- This is something that I probably won't have time for but I'd like the player to be able to have time to prep their team. There would be people with different stats that you could pull from.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Rebug Interface



It's looking pretty sweet with Grace's help doc added to it.

Monday, March 2, 2009

My Omar and Ingrids Yearbook Proposal

ABSTRACT
Yearbook Revisited is an installation that reinvents the yearbook photo experience to recreate the awkwardness of social interactions based on high school identities. There are two elements are at work. First, the experience of taking a portrait photo, and second the stereotypes prevalent amongst high school students. The audience member’s portraits are taken in a similar manner as a yearbook photograph. The portraits are then randomly assigned a stereotypical high school identity. These identities are then used to group the photos as they are displayed, however, guests are instructed that there is special facial recognition software involved in the sorting process. As participants circulate through the exhibit to find their picture, cliques are automatically formed to create a model for high school interactions.


OVERVIEW

Yearbook Revisited is an interactive art installation that explores identity and social interactions from within the context of traditional high school stereotypes. Viewers of the exhibit are asked to participate by placing themselves in the scenario of a yearbook photo shoot.

1. Portrait
Guests enter the exhibit through an anteroom where a camera, intensely bright lights, a stool, and a backdrop have been staged. A terminal is setup with a prompt to enter a first and last name. After a name is input, participants are instructed to pose for their picture in a typical yearbook manner, by an automated instructional video. Through observation it was determined that the predominant yearbook pose is one in which the body is turned away from the camera, no more than 20ยบ, so that the right shoulder is closest to the lens. The subject’s gaze is turned back toward the camera with their head slightly tilted towards the left shoulder. Once the instruction set has played the system asks the subject, “Are you ready,” and waits for a response. In reality there is no function behind the voice communication, it is actually just a count down that is well timed. At the end of the count down the system states, “I am going to take your picture.” After the photo is taken the participant is then prompted to continue to the next stage of the installation and the system is reset for the next guest.

2. Projection
In the next part of the installationviewers observe the portraits taken in the anteroom being projected on one of four walls in the main room. Each photo is assigned a stereotypical high school social designation or category at random, although the audience is told that there is a special logic at work here. Each wall represents one of four categories: Jock, Prep, Nerd, or Burnout. Prop images are superimposed over the photos that help illustrate and exaggerate these categorizations. The layout for the photos will follow the grid like structure of a yearbook page and cycle with a page turn as more photos are added. A randomly chosen subcategory, of type ‘most likely to’, is associated with every photo to add extra dimension to these groupings. As guests file through the room to find their photo these social categories will begin to take shape in reality amongst the crowd.

3. Identity & Social Interaction
It is often that people cannot help how others perceive their identity. Even though there are many facets that form a person’s identity Yearbook Revisited is designed purposely to reduce people to very simplified terms. This is setup by an illusion of the technology in place powering the installation. Viewers are told that special facial recognition software is used to profile them and place them in the predetermined social categories, but in reality this is a totally random process. As viewers pool themselves into the various cliques created by the exhibit there is an opportunity to observe how people react to the identity determined for them. It can also be seen how people interact with others within their social circle, and how they interact with people from other social circles.


SCENARIO
John sauntered into the dim light of the gallery, the day had gone well and he was in high spirits. The first exhibit to catch his eye was Yearbook Revisited. Yearbook Revisited promised to predict his high school identity exactly, by means of complex facial recognition software. John was immediately intrigued. He moved to the entryway where a camera and bright lights where setup. He entered his name into a glowing prompt and then an authoritative voice instructed John on how to pose as it snapped his picture. Bewildered by the bright flash, he stumbled away from the machine and into the next room where he saw portraits of other people from the gallery. He looked around finding his among the Jock category, a smug smile formed. It faded immediately when he read his tag “John: Most Likely to commit date rape”. Confused and enraged he started talking with the other people viewing his wall. They all began to talk about the other walls and how they must have gotten a better result. Subconsciously, a clique is formed and John experiences memories of social awkwardness from his days in high school.