#Int2017

[alexablisshq]

New Alexa interview via NewsHub

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Further projected thoughts

Introducing a firm proposal for my personal project: Hero | Be the hero in your own story. It is an app game playable across multiple mobile platforms, which gives users a mechanic to envision and defeat their worries. 

In addition to the episodic quests to defeat worries, the background narrative of the game will be of a world reborn. In Shadows of the Colossus, your avatar nd the world grow more grim and broken with every quest you complete. This game would take the opposite approach, with the world and your avatar bloom and thrive as your quests are completed. This additional level of engagement will keep players coming back to the game.

The game would be free to play and I would seek government funding or crowdfunding to develop it. Once the game was on the market, there would be DLC which customers could choose to pay for. However, this DLC would only offer additional customisation options rather than locking non-playing payers out of aspects of the game. 

[alexablisshq]

New Alexa interview via The Baltimore Sun

[alexablisshq]

Alexa on Talk Is Jericho is here!!! (x)

P.S. She’s on at the 13:40 mark

[annaisinteractive-blog]

So, this is interesting. Are there some places that interactivity shouldn’t go? This journalist sure thinks so. I was having a conversation the other day with someone about how introducing interactivity (particularly to an educational activity) can bring with it confounding factors which lessens the impact of a narrative. Maybe this is a similar sort of idea? We want a structured, satisfying story and sometimes interactivity might make that more difficult. 

[annaisinteractive-blog]

Mental illness monsters

I was pretty set on a simple cartoonish style for the graphics in care bounce (That working title is bugging me, I’ll come up with something better soon, promise). BUT then I saw these mental illnesses drawn as monsters in that slightly high-fantasy, fairytale style.

http://www.boredpanda.com/mental-illnesses-illustrated-by-monsters-by-toby-allen/

AND they are beautiful, and now I’m wondering if I could something similar to that instead. It would be another way of setting my product apart from the functional, utilitarian mindfulness apps dominating the market, and resonate with the strong sense of narrative I want the app to convey. That would work for the monsters, and then to keep the style consistent across the app, the breathing exercise path could project ornate little hot-air balloons with augmented reality rather than plastic party balloons. I don’t know what this would do to the project in terms of costs and processing power needed to run the thing, but that story-book aesthetic would be amazing if I could achieve it.  

[annaisinteractive-blog]

The internet of things and other exciting concepts

I really, really like learning things. While there are certain things that are less fun to learn (like health and safety policies, for example) and certain contexts in which learning is less welcome (like learning about flesh-eating bacteria just before bed), generally learning for me is the one. So, when I type in this little box that Gill White’s workshops on the internet of things were one of my favourite learning experiences thus far, you can rest assured that that’s some pretty serious typing. 

The workshops themselves were great fun and I loved the way they got me to thinking about creating in a slightly different way. As a creative writer, I’m used to a private creative process, and one that’s in my slippy grasp pretty much all the way through (particularly as an unpublished creative writer!). Working collaboratively to create a story, both through the randomised clues left by the other groups during the #sherlockiot exercise and in a more directed way in the Sherlock-murdery sort of week and the place-making week was such a breath of fresh air. It’s so lovely to get excited about stories *with* other people. It did become slightly riotous towards the end of week 1 and I had to duck out the room with a nosebleed (I never get nosebleeds! My face apparently just has a finely tuned sense of the dramatic...), but the sense of energy and urgency in the room was really special. Although a wee bit more time might have resulted in slightly more polished performances, I think there’s a lot to be said for pressure cooker fun.

Speaking of performance, personally both the drawing and the performing put me slightly out of my comfort zone. And (surprise, surprise..) I thought this was great! By the time I have giggled with my partner about my extremely rubbish drawing of a traffic-light-cum-library-self-issue machine invention (Dragon’s Den is *not* missing a great contender), a large puddle of self-consciousness has evaporated, and it’s a lot easier to be in that playful headspace where great ideas happen. So yes, thank you Gill! Hooray for playfulness and post-it notes.

https://twitter.com/AnnaIbbotson/status/832194858911748096

[annaisinteractive-blog]

There’s nothing a worry hates more than being seen

You can take the girl out the library, but you’ll never take the library out of the girl..

So I was work the other day, and spied a book in the self-help section called the ‘The Huge Bag of Worries’ by Virginia Ironside, which is about a little girl who starts being followed round by a bunch of worries she doesn’t know how to handle. It’s simple, and great, and the worries look a little something like this: 

Which is an aesthetic with some similarities to that I’m envisioning for my app. Not exactly the same,I want my visuals to be cartoony but very clean and not picture-booky exactly, but it’s a nice reference point for now. And Catriona mentioned in class about a game where you can use different non-violent actions to solve problems. So I now need to look up Undertale, because I thinkt that would be a great wee mechanic to include, and perhaps one could be blowing a kiss, like the kindly old lady in the picture? Something for me to consider.

[annaisinteractive-blog]

Care Bounce

Right, first things first, the working title definitely needs more... working. Yes.

With that said, I’ve been having some *thoughts* on how my digital worry doll app could be most effective...

First of all, I think I need some kind of soundscape as part of the app, and I might look into ASMR (https://www.reddit.com/r/asmr/) to see if I can incorporate these ‘sounds that feel good’ although the wikipedia page is currently flagged for deletion because of ‘pseudoscientific nonsense’ so I will perhaps tread carefully... Also, sounds will of course have to be optional, because I want the app to be as flexible as possible in how and where it can be used.

Secondly, I thought it might be nice to include a social ‘you are not alone’ aspect to it.. Although of course given the sensitive nature of the topic, this would have to be heavily moderated.

Thirdly,  I believe there may be a strong case for duty of care with this app, because again of the sensitive nature of the way I hope it will be used. Because of this, I’m thinking that it might be good to tag certain words / phrases / repeated trigger words as concerning, and perhaps have an ability to send a nudge to the user’s phone saying something like: ‘Are you OK? If you are struggling with frequent feelings of [insert trigger here], it might be worth visiting your doctor. Once this message had flagged up, you could dismiss it (perhaps by pressing ‘I’m getting help. Thanks’ or similar?) but it could be a way of engaging directly with those who might be struggling to cope.

[annaisinteractive-blog]

The dinosaur of technological limitations

After what Brian was saying in class today about web browsers being platforms in their own right, I was reminded of one of my favourite wee easter eggs on chrome. 

I’ve been haunted by this dinosaur for many years: it informs you that your internet connection is gone and you should probably take the chance to go outside / go make a coffee and cry. BUT I recently discovered that this is no static dinosaur! It’s actually the starting screen for a funny little game! It is super simple, you are a dinosaur and you can jump. That’s it. Your dinosaur runs towards some cacti, which come increasingly thicker and faster and you jump over them. Needless to say I’m rubbish at it. But I really love the idea of giving people a wee thing to fiddle with and destress when they’re halfway through a complicated job application and the internet goes down. 

[annaisinteractive-blog]

App proposal

Anyone who is going to steal my brilliant thunder and make their millions can look away now. Please? Thank you.

OK, with that out of the way, my idea for the app is in the area of mindfulness. An area that is well supplied, but the apps available at the moment are very serious and humourless. Which is great if that’s what suits you, but I find humour and personality great tools in busting stress, so I’d like to bring that in too.

I’m basically conceptualising the app as a ‘digital worry dolls’ idea. So you can go into it, completely anonymously type in your worries, or say them out loud with voice recognition if that’s more your thing. The app then generates either monsters representing your worries, which you can beat up, or balloons, which you can make float away by following a breathing exercise (I think that this could be an augmented reality thing? Partly because I’m just really in love with the idea of AR at the moment).

I think something like this would live or die on a couple of things. How the app was packaged and the style it was written would be important. Also, the animation style is going to make it, and I can’t draw for toffee so this would have to be collaborative to the max. 

[annaisinteractive-blog]

Interesting stuff. This is a really nice study looking for actual evidence on the impact of ‘screen time’ given there’s so much hyperbole on the subject at the moment. Given that screens are such a ubiquitous part of our environment now, I wonder how possible it is to untangle their effects on our behaviour. If a teenager does not use a smart phone, the likelihood is that this is a conscious choice. Could this introduce confounding factors into studies such as these? 

[annaisinteractive-blog]

Broken age

So at the moment, I’m about halfway through Broken Age, which is a point and click adventure by Double Fine Productions. It’s got a dual narrative going on: you switch between playing as two characters but they don’t directly interact (so far, anyway). It’s got all my favourite things in a game: a great story and a cheeky sense of humour. It’s also visually stunning (although the style of the characters’ noses kind of annoys me, but I’m just a bit like that). 

The gameplay typifies what I love and what I find frustrating about point and click games. They basically provide you with a series of puzzles to solve: you have to take the right things to the right people or places to progress. When you solve each wee piece of the puzzle, it’s pretty much the most satisfying thing you can do with a computer. It’s great that you get that sense of satisfaction because sometimes it can take a loooong time to solve the puzzle pieces: some things just demand a lot of trial and error and ploughing throught loads of dialogue until you say the right thing to move you forward / get a vital piece of information.

I think Broken Age strikes a good balance in that it’s challenging enough to bend my mind slightly, but you get a crumb trail of wee mini successes which add up to making a big step forward. Keep the rewards coming, the dopamine hits keep coming and it’ll keep me playing! The logic is also consistent, the things you need to do make sense within the context of the game. 

But mostly I keep coming back to the game because the story is so great, I just want to know what happens next! The game is made up of three acts and there’s a great twist at the end of act one. There might well be one at the end of act 2 as well, but don’t tell me what it is please because I haven’t got there yet! 

[annaisinteractive-blog]

A temporary work of limited genius

Trouble sleeping? Given that this is a random tumblr blog, the magic eight ball would say all signs point to yes. 

It’s fairly standard advice for the insomniac to clear out everything in the bedroom other than lavender pillow spray and duvets. Compartmentalisation is king, right?

{insert logic leap}

I get the compartmentalisation thing. As a chronic procrastinator, the minute I get the chance to waste some time, I squander like a cartoon pig in mud. To be productive, I need all distractions shut down. Having grown in the age of the internet, the world wide web is one of my favourite places to waste time. Does that mean any attempts at productivity with a wireless connection are doomed? I’m sure it’ll be fun to find out! 

[annaisinteractive-blog]

I forgot how much I loved this wee youtube video. It was a PSA for safety around trains in Australia, but it was just so *whimsical* and with such a great attention to detail.. You could download a wee accompanying app and play little mini-games with the characters, too. A very cute and creative way to stop people getting themselves run over by trains.

[annaisinteractive-blog]

Group pitch reflections

So the group pitches on Thursday were really fun and I enjoyed seeing what everyone else had come up with. It was interesting that everyone came up with such different concepts and probably reflects on the breadth of possibilities for creativity within interactive media. On the one hand, this is massively exciting. On the other hand, the scope of possibilities can be a bit intimidating and paralysing. Where do you even start when the possibilities are so vast? David described this feeling perfectly in class a few weeks ago as a kind of vertigo. As with most things, the answer is probably just to start somewhere. 

With this in mind, I was also struck by something the Flat Broke team said on Thursday about keeping the graphics simple to stop an app hogging battery or processing power. I am going to have to work this into my app idea. There’s no point having a beautiful app which no one is going to play because it drains your battery before you can even get to work. Pokemon Go kind of got away with it, but they had pokemon and I do not. So, I need to work out a balance between the user experience and technological limitations.