xami122x

[xami122x]

Week 11 - Prototyping

This week, I translated my game design into a board game and got some pieces cut and made as potential elements I could use. I found some inspiration in The Ecology of Attention by Citton and considered translating some of it into my game or data visualization. I have some elements still waiting to be printed, and I will update this blog as they are made. I considered adding 3d elements to the game but that was more related to my interest in data visualization sculptures. I want to clarify my research linking to my game further with a better metaphor.

[xami122x]

Week 10 - Prototyping

This week I spent a lot of time sketching out specific scenes and then mapping out how I would like to cross-stitch or create different material scenes. I also wanted to explore a paper drawn version of pixel art this time to continue a more physical approach to prototyping. I do feel as though I did not receive too much specific feedback and mostly was told to continue working on it. I think having a real cross-stitched item with fabric would be more convincing for the testers that the game is cozy. I wonder if straying from typical farming tasks would be more interesting since it is so commonly seen in cozy games or would it be more impactful to have it stay farming-related to remind the audience it is meant to be cozy. I would like to research audio next week and potentially grabbing sounds from nature on my own.

[xami122x]

Week 9 - Prototyping

This week I worked with other game designers I know and workshopped a new idea based on the feedback from last week. I got a full concept down with some minor holes I plan to fill for next week. I included the notes for the game design here. I decided that after embroidering and crocheting crocheting would work better however, I would need to get some more materials because my attempts were fraying my yarn and I would need a lot more colors for my patterns. I would crochet the cozy, free parts of my game background and the rest would be pixelated or vector art. This time I tried pixel art. It seemed like more people were receptive to the pixel art overall and wanted me to workshop the design to be cuter and friendly. The embroidered pieces needed more detail to better convey the cozy vibe. I also was told that some of the elements make more sense in a digital space so I need to make sure my next iteration is better communicated. Next time I also plan to work more on the sounds and haptic of the game if possible and want to have more crocheted pieces. I have been wondering if I should try pixel art differently for the prototyping, but I am unsure how- maybe Legos.

I have started iterating digitally in conjunction with these prototypes as well.

[xami122x]

Week 8 Prototyping

This week I decided to meet Jeff and discuss more ideas for a cozy game and how to research to build upon this concept. I decided I wanted to make an open-world game, a decision-based tell-tale, or an interactive novel game. Any of these choices requires a map and outcomes so I began my prototype by mapping out a decision tree with locations. After researching the games of interest, I thought about how I would like to incorporate texture into the game to communicate "cozy". I decided that some locations will be knit or crocheted landscapes whereas the other will be pixelated and fully digital. The player can then end on a reality that is fully pixelated, fully knit or crocheted, or a mix of both. These are all based on choices they make to get an instant reward/gratification or to explore a freer space.

I plan to push this further next week by adding more geographical and thematic relevance to the places on the map, developing the textures more in real life (samples), playing with new texture elements, and making game pieces. I also want to solidify some more of the choice elements. I may also make versions of the story instead of the decision-based game and the open-world.

I am unsure whether the prototype should or shouldn't be able to be translated into a board game because this is how it was read.

[xami122x]

Week 5 - Ambient Digital Spaces, Unseen Infrastructure, Cyberfeminism

This week I spent a lot of time looking into the work of Chia Amisola again and wandered upon her inspiration- Maya on the Internet. Both artists created digital spaces exuding feminine qualities that were both nostalgic and trendy somehow. I really wanted to work with the pieces they have and read into some of their interests and processes when trying to make digital spaces. Chia focused on taking things unseen and unheard and giving them digital life. Filling digital spaces with natural elements. So I took some time playing with p5.js and edited a rose garden blooming interactive space with some "whispers" that are poetic statements or messages from the plants. Consensus - cool but coding is hard and annoying

I also read Ingrid Burrington's pieces about the physical internet infrastructure we ignore every day just walking around the city. I took some sketches of manholes that she made and found a way to make them these relaxing mandala art patterns to take something unseen and make it a larger, never-ending pattern. Not only did it feel similar to the way it has always been all around us, but it makes us think more about the little things we miss everyday. I feel as though I am finding some more links connecting my concepts and want to spend more time learning more digital art I can experiment with. I also wonder if textiles can be incorporated in my work.

[xami122x]

Week 4 Oct 4 - Testing

This week I spent more time trying to get my hands on actual materials. Most of the artists that inspired me focused on more of the ordinary things we see or the mundane so I wanted to try emphasizing the opposite. I started with a digital collage of juxtaposing images of the current ordinary spaces we see and trying to find pictures of the future of these spaces without attentional freedom. I used Photoshop to generate the imagery I was thinking of with an overload of digital screens and ad placements. This was inspired by seeing the architectural-focused art pieces linked below. I also tried to focus on the mundane more with a video edit of a flower blooming which was an example in the literature I read. I took the video and juxtaposed it with digital notifications popping up within the video. I found that both gave me a direction to try to emphasize the possibilities of the future if we do not strive for more attentional freedom. I also wanted to try to incorporate more nature imagery because even though it may seem as though we do not need attention for it- a flower requires our attention for us to make it bloom. Maybe letting something grow on its own can be another focus for creation and time-lapsing natural growth or decay without interference. I also hope to look more into calm technology and maybe redesign a website to be "calmer". Conversely, I am creating prototypes for a gamified application on both Figma and PowerApps. They are not the cleanest version of the app I hope to make, but they are a start.

Calm Technology

The weather project • Artwork • Studio Olafur Eliasson

Here Are 13 Awe-Inspiring James Turrell Skyspaces Around the World That Don’t Get Enough Attention, and What Makes Each One Unique

[xami122x]

Week 3 Sept 27 - Friends of Attention - Art, Time, Technology, Action

This week I spent some time looking into the differences in the beliefs of magic in the West vs. East. Most of the East has beliefs engraved deeply into their religion or culture, whereas the West takes magic and places it into areas of play or related to being childish. This, of course, relates to the ways Western culture dominates the world and overshadows as well as changes the perspective on Eastern beliefs to make them look seemingly "primitive" or "uneducated/backward". In reality, there is much more cultural and religious history and depth to using spiritual and "magical" beliefs in Eastern culture. This also leads to my idea that magic can be much more than a simple card trick. The diversion of attention could be translated into a much greater context. This led me to research attention. Friends of Attention emphasizes the violation of our attention. I read a few of their articles and enjoyed the fuse related to our burnout and cognitive overload. I also loved their message about attentional freedom and being able to control our attention more and not have something constantly gripping us like TikTok. We could have time to take in what we are used to seeing daily. I am still confused about their entire message and have been looking through their links and sources but still want to get to know more. I also explored the work of Chia Amiscola who makes vintage and nostalgic internet HTML-based art that reminded me of a time when overload was not as frequent so the pieces do not take too much visual attention. It felt nostalgic (even though it was a time when I was not even using the internet heavily) and was appealing while still being simple. Is this better for attentional freedom? I took some time to look at the inspiration for some photography that is less visually stimulating and represents the open spaces they talk about in the 12 theses of attention. I also wonder about how these relate to how the 12 theses mention the human interactions that take time and attention like growing plants. Overall, I was not able to create as much as I would like this week and I have a lot of thinking to do about the things we went over in class. I planned out the ideas I have for what I want to make and then before the time of the next class, I am going to post a bit more research and work I do.

[xami122x]

Week 2 Sept 20 - Magic, Beliefs, Occult, Unity, Game Dev

This week I spent some time delving into Unity with instruction from more experienced Unity users and watched some beginner video tutorials on working with Unity and writing scripts in C#. To really delve more into the software, my friend and I began creating a 2D platform game for the game design club's learn jam so I could get feedback and improve my skills using Unity. I also spent some time learning about level design and drafting my own during a game design club meeting.

I also looked into serious games and found little current controversy around them with a lot of individuals supporting the concept and only finding confusion with the literal word "serious" instead of "educational". However, some users on Reddit clarified this is due to the use of these games in other instructional environments for workplaces that are less educational and more of a simulation experience.

Beyond that, I began delving into research about illusions and magic. I found a lot of links between illusions, psychology, and magic. I researched academic journals that studied psychology and illusions which linked perception, cognition, free will, and motor skills to magic tricks. I also delved into the rich history of magic and the fact that Houdini used to be a clockmaker made me think of the whimsy and mystical themes that connect magic and illusions and how those all connect to cognition, attention, and perception.

I then began to read about research among those who believe versus skeptics. The main connections and points I listed in Miro include

exposure to magic tricks (portrayed as demonstrations of psychic powers) increased belief in psychic phenomena used magic demonstrations to investigate magical thinking in both children and adults

memories of apparently impossible events can be related to memory distortions over time

Magical thinking refers to a thinking style that “involves reasoning based on some sort of misconception about, causality, or about natural laws more generally”

individuals high as compared to low in magical beliefs more frequently see patterns in random noise, show enhanced illusory face perception or misjudge the probability of events 

Moreover, believers are more likely to accept bogus personality descriptions, report on events that have never occurred and need more time to understand the truth in sentences that violate core knowledge --> Such cognitive biases might link with the propensity of magical believers for remote associative processing, fantasy-proneness, and openness to experience

 both the public and scientists can be fooled into attributing psychic powers to ordinary and amateur magic routines, and that attributed psychic powers might prevail, even when the performer labels himself as a conjuror.

All these points led me to link the occult, magic, illusions, perceptions, cognition, and belief together. The power of belief is so strong that it can impact our cognition and perception. It also is important to note the number of skeptics who were so skeptical of being a skeptic that they began to believe and how their exposure to certain things could change their beliefs. Sigmund Freud, for example, had mentioned he believed in thought transference even though he was a skeptic.

The article also had information about the amount of skeptics who admitted to experiencing anomalies.

"While these perspectives might be comfortable in our Western, highly educated society, they are not supported by studies investigating magical and paranormal beliefs and experiences in the wider adult population. For instance, only about 10% of the general US population would label themselves as being skeptical toward the paranormal (Rice, 2003). In Europe, 90% of a Swiss sample reported having exceptional experiences, and the German public seems pretty open-minded about exceptional experiences, and more than half of the German public report having had such experiences"

after experiencing anomalous events, Western adults typically deny magical beliefs on an explicit level, but frequently acknowledge implicitly, that an anomalous event had occurred

I highlighted the difference in the language used around the West because the authors of an academic paper chose to write about Western society as highly educated. I found it really odd that they described Western society this way especially to emphasize that believing in paranormal and magical beliefs is not an "educated" or typically Western belief (It favored Western culture oddly for a scientific journal). I also found it interesting that the two statements are almost contradictory. Even though the first statement proves that most are not skeptical and have exceptional experiences, the second statement found that Western adults were highly skeptical of magical beliefs after admitting to experiencing anomalous events. Are they separating paranormal and occult beliefs from magical beliefs? Why is the paranormal more accepted in the West than magical beliefs?

Overall, I found a lot of new interesting themes to explore within my first two topics. I decided to link them because of the great overlap. I also made progress in new software and am creating and learning a new skill that could potentially be used later. I made a lot of interesting discoveries and hope to look further into Western beliefs vs NonWestern beliefs around magic, illusions, and the occult, more about the occult + magic, more types of illusions like magic, cognitive biases of believers, game design around these topics, and develop more of my current game.

^^ Developing a platform game where the player is a cat collecting fish. Rough name - Catformer

[xami122x]

Week 1 - Sept 13

Topics - What are the effects of gamification on cognitive load and emotion, Illusion/Perception-Bending

Because I am basing my capstone on my thesis research question, I have a lot of different sources and an entire literature review (rough) to look through. However, I wanted to avoid limiting myself to simply that research question and started exploring the major topics within the questions and cast a wider net for more creative inspiration.

I began looking through this article about cognitive and emotional research in relationship to gamification and serious gaming. I was drawn to the topic of "inattentional blindness" (the tendency to miss a second stimulus after detecting an initial visual stimulus) which tied into my second topic of illusions or any sort of perceptual manipulation that may trick the brain's processing of images/information.

"Additionally, emotion may prevent “inattentional blindness,” i.e., the tendency to miss a second stimulus after detecting an initial visual stimulus"

"Immersive first-person shooter games enable faster and more accurate attention allocation. Focused attention is key to achieving cognitive absorption or “flow” " --> ties into flow theory (providing positive incentives at varying intervals aligns with human nature, which is driven by internal motivations stimulated by external rewards).

After reading about inattentional blindness, I wanted to research illusion science and history more. This article included some history of the origin of illusions, the use of depth, movement, and color in optical illusion art, and important types and figures of illusion art.

"According to BigThink, there are three main types of optical illusions: literal, physiological, and cognitive. "

"Literal illusions can be seen in two different ways, such as the duck and rabbit image. Physiological illusions use sensory overload to trick our brains into seeing movement and depth that aren’t actually there. Cognitive illusions trick both our eyes and brain with impossible shapes and logic, such as Oscar Reutersvärd’s “Penrose Triangle.”"

I hope to look into more game designs because I was able to research Superliminal a bit this week and found that was a really interesting design to confuse players using perception and "tricking brains."

I also feel like next week I will be looking more into software for game design and playing around with that for a while.

Works Cited