Continuum

motor

Starting with Pure Data

ISMA 200: Game Project

This is the final version of the game project we made with my partners by collaborating our skills. Britney made the sound effects and the background music, Kerstin; images, and myself; coding, animations and fixing of a couple of glitches. The game environment consist of a cardboard collage background image which designed on a triangle grid. the player is a white triangle which changes color each time it collides with a coin type of object. at first it was just a plain brownish colored triangle, with no animation, i tried to break the dulness by trying to create a visual story by making him change its color related to the scene. in the woods it turns to green, in the city it turns to grey etc.coding part took a lot of time. I already knew a little AS2 and decided to challenge myself learning AS3 and create a game that requires advanced type of coding. The most difficult parts were making the character jump by using physic rules like gravity, movement speed and interfering with arrow keys, and collisions which triggers different functions in different package folders.You can download the .swf zip from the link below. I also wanted to add the .fla and .as files for those who are curios about the coding part of the game.SWF File : DOWNLOAD    FLA and AS Files: DOWNLOAD

Reading Response On Brenda Laurel’s Essay

In her essay, Brenda Laurel explores what kind of gaming experience takes interest of female and male players. Likewise, I have always believed games that has narrative construction used to be underestimated probably because of the incapability of going further then pressing a couple of buttons to save the princess or shooting the villains. However as a formal video game player I think things have started to change along with the improvements in graphics and progression has taken in programming of games and of course the awareness of the sector about the possibilities of such genre can create. I recall that in the late 90’s most of the games i had were the games you put in a situation to complete very similar tasks, for example the best seller games were always first person shooter or third person shooter games which you were always required to beat villain characters until you make it to the final boss and beat him as well.I sort of understand why female players in general wouldn’t want to engage with this kind of playing experiment. But not like Laurel I think it’s not just the missing narrative construction what used to keep them away. the other change in the early games i realized is the fact that  they mostly used to be games where you expected to play only the male main character which is usually very muscular only girl character  was always a girl to rescue like super Mario’s princess. The only game I remember has a female character is The Tomb Raider series. It’s not very difficult to see traces of male gaze in the design of the main character Lara Croft; she has the unrealistically perfect body proportions and wears her really short and tight outfits even in the levels where she comes across with her enemies on the mountains of Nepal. Ah, and the task is still the same; beating the villains with various kind of guns. I had a conversation about this issue with a female game player friend of mine, she mentioned that those dated games used to have bold and darker colours that she couldn’t find the interest to engage herself with such atmosphere.I believe the game industry started to take female players big attention by Electronic Arts’ release of The Sims game. This game was a real life simulator where users were able to create surrogates called Sims. Sll the real life events could able to happen and It was possible to create each sim with a unique personality and interfere in their relationships to career decisions. In addition, the game had another part where players could design their own house and customize how it looks. The games basically didn’t have an end it was possible to play it for a really long time. Even with the fact that the game had male players, it was considered as girl game by most of the game players. Electronic released the Sims 3 in 2009 and still updates the game with variety of expansion packs that allow users to do different stuff like having a pet or expand the career options and life goals in the game. It seems like each gender has different expectations in games.Today video games have much intensive scenario flows that react to the players’ behaves and decisions during the game. It is possible that each player might experience a different game play and finish the game with a different ending. Also it is possible to customize the main character and choose its gender. these important improvements not just allow games to take attention of both genders. I think it also carries the narrative construction to a higher level where it can challenge with the film industry and maybe take its place in the future

ISMA 200: Google Earth Project

Download the .kml file

Reading Response on Ryan Griffes’s Essay

Ryan Griffis briefly analyzes what locative media is and its impact on new media arts by his essay “For an art against the cartography of everyday life”  the writing explores what locative media stand for and its impact on individual and how it opens the gates of social network and shares the everyday life experiences with other people. Also the reading explores how locative media creates new possibilities like investing and representing the location and movement of  people and events.However, i found the way of Ryan Griffes’s writing over complicated for a topic like this. Even the very superficial details narrated with a very sophisticated language.

“Walk the Line” by Antti Laitinen

“Walk “Walk the Line”, 2004-2007 by Antti Laitinen. Self portrait in Athens, Gateshead, Helsinki, Kielder Forest, Luukaa Forest, Newcastle, Oulunkyla Forest and Pointbum Woods. Antti Laitinen printed his portrait on various maps and then walked along the lines of his face. The GPS system he carried recorded his journey, drawing the path he walked.

“Windwalks” by Tim Knowles

Windwalks, (2007) is an art piece by Tim Knowles, it represnts a series of walks directed by the wind and filmed and plotted by GPS. to be honest the idea of following the wind didn’t realy excite me a lot at first, however afterwards i realy took my attention how the artist got help from the gps technology to keep the track of his walk  path which led him to create a drawing that maybe he couldn’t have without this technology.