Author: Rachel M

Open/Shut Case

Open/Shut Case explores the narrative consequences of spatial arrangement. Play as Cora, a woman incarcerated, as she tries to reconstruct the story of her arrest and the murder of her husband. Construct your appeal, or your confession, by pinning the documents surrounding your case to your cell wall. Link important information to other important information, and discard the falsities. Uncover and form your identity in relation to your family and friends, as you recall your life before the murder.

Escape: Exit Game and Return to Menu

Click: Pick Up/ Interact

WASD: Move

Mouse: Move Camera

Both Mac and Windows builds in this Google Drive Folder.

 

 

 

Mac Build:https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-oiAcuwx5ZraWhMUmRZZ1NvdzA&usp=sharing

PC Build: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-oiAcuwx5Zrb1NEbmxCbmJxclk&usp=sharing

What is there: grabbing documents, posting documents on the red wall, examining documents closeup(press space to enter and exit this mode while hovering/holding document), moving documents around the wall, “flushing” documents, document’s unique subtitle commentary that is revealed after you read the document up close, lines drawn between documents.

 

When I tested the prototype, I found that a logical way to explain the game’s auto linking between documents mechanic was that the links and documents form a mental map. I’ve decided to focus on this with a subtle color coding system in the documents that highlight what paths of possible truth pertain to it. For example, if one strand of truth in the narrative is suicide (yellow), and another is satanic sacrifice(red), then a document that hints at both paths will have some subtle shades of orange. This will be made more evident in saturation changes within each document. In contrast, the environment will be mostly grays, with simple, low-poly models with low opacity textures of concrete and worn surfaces.

Heather Kelley/ Perfect Plum

Heather Kelley is someone I would classify as an artist working with games (as opposed to a game designer working at the cutting edge or something. She’s blurry, and that’s why I like her, though I think she would disagree.) Right now she’s working on using smell, and other under used senses as alternative interfaces in games as well as VR. Her work revolves around issues of feminism, sex, social behaviors, and innovative play.

Heather Kelley is from Austin, Texas. Though she’d had an on-again-off-again relationship with computer games all her life, Heather Kelley got into the games industry with the company Girl Games in 1995. She was hired to do research for the game after the company’s found showed Kelley’s resume to her mom. She had done research for “the female gaming market” since 1993, for friends making games at Georgia Tech. At Girl Games, Kelley ended up transitioning from a research position to a production position on the project “Let’s Talk About Me” a program in which girls made their own games. She worked there until 1998 (in one interview she claims to have began in games in 1997), then moved on to design/production roles at Human Code, Sapient, and Ion Storm studios until she took a game design job at Ubisoft. At Ubisoft she worked on AAA titles like Star Wars: Lethal Alliance and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. In 2008 she became a visiting professor at CMU’s ETC. From this point her involvement with the AAA industry drops off, and instead she works with more game art crossover spaces, experimental games and tech, and “games that change the world.” In a 2009 talk, she expresses this as wanting “an opportunity to make a game that changes behavior.” She has also claimed this switch was because she wanted to make things that “wouldn’t have come into existence until I did them.” So she made her own business: Perfect Plum, by “bugging” her lawyer/business friends from college. Her alternative/experimental game involvement can be traced back to 2005, when she started experimental game collective Kokoromi, and her own art game practice which deal with sex. Kokoromi produced a series of massive art, music, game, and new media party events under the name Gamma, which were groundbreaking as a legitimate platform of curation for games. Currently Heather Kelley works at the ETC as a visiting professor.

Kokoromi (Heather Kelley, Phil Fish, Cindy Poremba, and Damien Di Fede)

Super Hypercube VR (one of Heather Kelley’s current projects.)

get read:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6zDHsj-dvU

http://www.perfectplum.com/

https://books.google.com/books?id=Y5_cbfm3YfYC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=heather+kelley+interview&source=bl&ots=pghLWzy4Bk&sig=IYELgB0uJwBkTntSNkMZ5lX7w10&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDwQ6AEwCWoVChMIsqHCr_L8yAIVwjwmCh1VFwrr#v=onepage&q=heather%20kelley%20interview&f=false

https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherjkelley

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/by_genre/developerId,135957/

http://www.rapport.moboid.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Kelley_Mechanics_of_Change_2009.pdf

https://twitter.com/perfectplum

https://www.hcii.cmu.edu/news/seminar/event/2015/09/hcii-seminar-series-heather-kelleyc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-pSLpCc2Rk

http://www.etc.cmu.edu/blog/author/heatherkelley/

Working Title: Open/Shut Case

An exploratory, narrative driven game in which the player must sift through the documents of their own life the find their identity, crime, and motivation. Confined to an isolation cell after committing a sensationalized murder, the player must spatially chronicle piece smuggled in documents from family, attorney, and past self to find their version of truth. These spatial arrangements of evidence, the links between media speculation and reality, may form the player’s confession or release them from imprisonment.

I want to make an experience that is slow and thoughtful, and that relates to my own body of work (in theme.) So, in this game, the narrative will center around a female detective who finds herself in prison over the death of her husband. The player’s role will be rather passive, as this is a game in which the player’s main activity is reading and interpreting connections based on the baggage they bring to the story. The details of the crime will be addressed from different sources, all of which with their own motivations for crediting or discrediting the player character, but (in a narrative sense) serving to obfuscate the truth. The player’s passiveness will be explained through her emotional state, and the atmosphere of the game will reiterate this. Visually, the cell will be drab and unsaturated while the documents will be colorful and busy. All of room will be 3D, while the documents will have all 2D renderings. The documents themselves will have subtle color coding indicating possible lines of connection. The player will be able to use their daily rations to place these documents on the wall of their cell, draw lines between them, or to mark the passage of the day. These lines of connection are meant to serves as an in-game record of where the player has been. They are the manifestation of the player in the world.

Game References:

1. Herstory: The player drives the narrative: all of it is laid out before them and they make the connections. When I played the game, I ended with a pile of sticky notes indicating which terms I had searched. I want a player to feel that same depth of interest in the narrative of this game.

2. Gone Home: The use of static text and images to create a sense of discovery in the player. Though the great narrative is narrated, its up to the player to find the subtlety of the narrative in the details.

3. Papers Please: Documents that hold information about a person, and the power of the player to judge that person based on that brief encounter.

Non Game References:

1. Thin Blue Line, Errol Morris: That external forces, particularly the media, can retroactively change the outcome of a crime.

2. Serial (the podcast): That media can change public opinion about a crime, and attempt to change the outcome (and fail.)

3. Orange is the New Black: Setting, politics, and environmental atmosphere. Not so much the humor, narrative structure, hope/fear cycle, sensationalism, or tone.

I Never Had a Lesson (Restricted to 1366 x 768. One to two minutes.)

An autobiographical experience about my dad and me.

 

 

 

Idea #1:

I recently played The Beginner’s Guide and had a short exchange with its creator. This has really made me want to make something autobiographical, specifically something tragic yet funny. So for this idea, I want to make a small experience based off my relationship with my father. This is not a concept for a walking simulator. My dad is a trombone player and when I was a girl I joined middle school band and played trombone to please him. In the game, the player will hold a trombone and be able to slide the slide back and forth, as well as turn in space (but otherwise not move.) Across from the player there will be a larger trombone, set higher up in space, that looks down at the player. When the player moves the slide, text will come out of the trombone’s bell. The text will be actual quotes that I said to my father during that period of my life. Accompanying the text will be a mangled trombone sound or other ridiculous noise. Then the other trombone will respond in the same manner, with a clear trombone tone, with actual quotes my father said to me. As the text leaves the trombone bell, it will push each trombone further from the other in space, until the trombones are so far apart that you can’t read or hear the father trombone. I want the background of the space to reflect the subtext of the dialogue, so I want it to change color/imagery during play. This is a linear experience, no longer than 2 minutes. I have a trombone model.

Idea #2:

Play the demo

I will expand on my current tech test, a humorous journey through a gut passing over what a woman ate, which ends with her husband. Features I’d like to add: animated villi (either modeled or have animated textures), more relationship stage signifier models (lockets, house key, pacifier, etc.), more nonsense models (food), a digestion sound, a longer tract to explore, and using terrain elevation and lighting as a metaphor for relationship turbulence. This would be an exploratory experience, 1-2 minutes.

I resonated with the notion of notgame, but the world’s not ready for it. Even at CMU I find there are people who hold staunchly to the separation of art and game, based mostly in their inability to take a game “seriously.” And of course, if your AAA product tries to be meaningful, its commercial ties negate it effects. This is a problem I find in interactive art in general. I talk about my work as “interactive systems/objects” rather than games and toys. When framing an artwork under “game/toy” as a tool of exhibition, I often get viewers (which I define as those who critique and gaze) who refuse to be players (which I define as those who critique and interact) because, “you don’t touch the art.” I have to put up a sign telling people to play, which introduces language (which is a whole other animal) and authority over the work, or I have to beg, really beg, in a statement (which, let’s be honest, no one reads) to get the viewer to make that leap. To accept “permission.” At the moment though, inhabiting that in between space of “notgame” is tricky, because I feel like only those who like/make similar works currently understand what that means. An uneducated viewer will default to whatever they are most familiar with and critique the work along those norms. This can work for games/arts that use these expectations to their advantage, works in the relational/antagonistic aesthetics/social/political genres. However, works that don’t use those conventions are still up a creek in terms of acceptance. Changing this is a matter of world view. In Tale of Tales spiel, they speak of how Modernism destroyed everything regarding the acceptance of the divine conundrum (The simultaneous acknowledgment that creation is an act of divinity/ transcendence the practice of creation as a human.) They speak of how a world view changed perception, and how they wish to change it again. But I don’t think a single person can change a world view. That’s what makes it a world view. Yes, there will eventually come a day when these distinctions and defacto rules around rule systems are no longer present. When no one will care to categorize what you made, because the fact that you made it at all at the time you did will prescribe meaning to it. It’s silly to think that a work’s value is solely put in place by those who write articles on it. However, right now the notgame distinction is necessary to rebel against other interactive system definitions so that the idea can later be assimilated into a spectrum and cease to be relevant.

Mystic South: Irma

Issues have been addressed, here’s new builds.

A woman visits the matriarch and patriarch of her community to abandon her daughter.

Note: There is sound. It is very important.

Note #2: I made this in Unity, because documentation. To play this game: 1) Download the zip file appropriate for your machine: Mac or PC. 2) Unzip. 3) Double click the executable. 4) A window will pop up. Set the drop down menu to your screen resolution. 5) Profit?

 

In this non-linear chapter based narrative, the player character changes at each chapter, not the characters the player interacts with. There are two chapters planned, each revolving around Irma and Iris-Jane, twin sisters, visiting the elderly leaders, Mr. and Mrs.Oseye, of their community of Mystic, Alabama (fictional.) The language of the game will follow the vernacular of it setting, and the Oseyes will change in appearance depending on who is approaching them. They are a manifestation of the force of death and guardians of the door of the afterlife.

In one chapter, the player character is Irma (the player never actually sees the visuals of Irma) and is dropped in to the scene as she approaches the Oseye house with her infant daughter Sarah. The elderly couple reveal to Irma that her sister is coming back into town, and Irma spends the rest of the chapter wrestling with her rocky relationship with Iris-Jane. In the end, Irma may decide to welcome her sister into her home or cast her out.

In the other chapter, Irma again approaches the Oseye house with the infant Sarah, but is met with hostility and disappointment. Through dialogue choices, the player may or may not learn that Iris-Jane has murdered her sister and assumed her life. In the end, Iris-Jane may admit her deed and turn herself in, or Irma may continue to live with the guilt forever.

Tall, Dark, Handsome Stranger

You want to know actual truths? Gaze.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuu1OntyQ54

The video contains the section I’m talking about. Ignore the commentary.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an environmental narrative experience centering around the player character’s search for the boy who summoned him to the town the game is set in. With intense and mesmerizing graphic detail, the game world uses sound and context to lead the player from narrative event to narrative event in a patchwork collage of nonlinear, non-apparent character development. The game begins with the words: “This game is a narrative experience that does not hold your hand.” This fourth wall breaking introduction is an atmospheric undercut, but forgivable since it precedes all other events in the game. However, this sentence is an accurate description of the game’s difficulty and how it uses difficulty as a medium to tell subtle elements of the story. For example, there is no conventional death in the game, just simply noticing and failure to. Sections of the game function on separate mechanics, and figuring out these loosely defined puzzles also provides a layer of agency. In these sections the player “solves anomalies.” These anomalies are faintly noticeable traces of the extraordinary, events you may fail to notice as you progress, and provide a significant chunk of the game’s more nuanced character development. The series of actions to progress in these areas are all different, yet they share the same feel with only one exception. The scene called The Curse of the Sea-Thing destroys all of the subtlety and meticulous layering of environment and narrative with the most seductive of mechanics: the jump scare. Of all the anomaly solving scenes in the game, this one is by far the most cheap and the most scary. The player approaches the location of the scene by descending a long, barely lit tunnel in the earth, spiraling down for several minutes. At the end of the tunnel the player is confronted with a written warning: Turn back, the ritual failed. Candles freckle the tunnel before the player and water pools at his feet. The music changes into something yet to be heard. In sync these elements form a cohesive, anxious precipice; all done with atmospheric and environmental cues. Yet, if the player marches forward, ignoring the warning, his character is met with a single rasping wail and a slenderman archetype at his soggy heels. At first play through, the player may continue ahead at a self controlled pace, and is caught off guard by this figure who rudely disrupts the ambiance of the world. On subsequent playthroughs this figure becomes an active excuse to ignore all environmental elements and tear through the tunnels with abandon. This is a major break in the flow of play and is not effective in a game that is, on all other accounts, an environmental narrative. For a game that claims to not hold your hand, this section relies heavily on pre-existing, easy-to-scare horror tropes that here fall flat. From a design perspective, this break in flow, which is never repeated, is an annoying blister, since it is required to finish the game. From an artistic perspective, this section is a fault in the metaphors of death (from the perspective of the dying) that this game addresses. Yes, this portion forces the player to feel fear, and death can involve a great amount of fear. Yet that fear is short lived, anticipated, and entertaining (that’s why that trope/mechanic has been so commercially successful.) Death, especially the sort of deaths that the game talks about, is not short-lived. It is permanent. And certainly dying is not entertaining. Terminal events are not fondly reminisced about by the deceased.

Ouija Lawn

Two desperate dudes go through “some life and death shit right here” in order to jimmy their way out of a series of wrong place, wrong time encounters.