As we near the specification of the inputs and outputs of the “game,” we still have yet to determine the mapping the between them. While several good ideas are being passed around, they are all so far in text or diagram. So, for the previous week I’ve worked on a platform in Processing that may be used to animate the different ideas being passed around.
Click here to try it out.
As it is, the three “rings” are more or less being used as touch sensors (a little work may get them working as “wheels”), and the output mechanism is the array of pendulums.
More personally, as I read other ideas for the structure of a game, I am torn farther and farther away from complex systems. While the game must not be trivial to play, or to complete, or “win,” the gameplay must not be mechanical. The controls must be intuitive, or, if the user must be taught to use them, have the user learn through interaction, not by a set of instructions.
The game must present a challenge, but the presentation of its contents must be elegant. Why not, then, offer no instruction and have part of the challenge be to figure out the game? If the gameplay must fit an analogy, why not address the cluelessness of the average user in regards to his/her effect on the ecosystem?
I’ve offered no instructions for the crude game above, but I expect it is not difficult to cycle from beginning to end. I hope that I may gather some other ideas and incorporate them into this system, so that we may get closer to the final specification of the game.
