Art & Technology - Game Controller

I really enjoyed the game controller project we did.  It came easier for me to create more than the game, perhaps because of our previous experience with Makey Makey.  I did like how the game controller and game brought our Scratch, sound, programming, animated gif and Makey Makey projects all together to work cohesively as one thing.  For my controller, I chose to create a spherical ball reminiscent of the crystal ball that the Goblin King uses throughout the Labyrinth movie, and the one that Sarah is trapped in during the ballroom scene.  I used an old clear plastic ornament, and attached metal clips to it as the "buttons." Inside, I used a phone wire with 4 small wires inside to attach to the Makey Makey for my four controls in the game - up, right, left and the space bar.  I wanted to be able to use the controller in one hand (my second hand use in the video is only to steady it).  I painted it white to conceal the wires inside as well. 

The game creation itself came together in the end, even though it was more simple than I originally intended, and it was interesting to play it with the controller because it added an element of difficulty.  I made the controller to fit my hand too, so it also has an element of customization and uniqueness to it that I wasn't expecting for some reason.  It definitely adds to the artistic quality of the game, to have a one of a kind controller. 

As art teacher, I look forward to incorporating multiple artistic techniques into single projects.  I feel like this adds an element of dynamic learning that helps students realize their strengths and overcome their challenges. Working on large scale projects like this collaboratively would also be a great way to teach about teamwork and getting along with peers.  Although I think technology can be combined with traditional art making practices, projects like these completely redefine the way we can teach in an art classroom.  It truly combines many disciplines, and is aligned with STEAM curriculum.  I look forward to using new media in my classroom in the future.  

Art & Technology - Scratch Video Game

The project I found to be most difficult in my art and technology class was the video game made with the online program Scratch.  Not having any experience with video game coding, it was a lot of trial and error.  I also feel that I bit off a little more than I could chew at first with my video game plan.  Originally, I wanted to make a platform game similar to Super Mario Bros. but with the characters and theme from the movie Labyrinth (1987).  However, I came to realize that although the code blocks in Scratch are easy enough to put together, the more complicated the game gets, the amount of code you need grows exponentially.  With our time limits in the class, I was not able to get all of the features I wanted in my game, however, I did end up with a simplified version which I will post below. But first - a little background...

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, Labyrinth is an 1987 children's movie made by the dynamic duo of Jim Henson and George Lucas.  It is a fantasy story of a young girl who is forced to babysit her baby brother, and wishes for goblins to come kidnap him.  She doesn't truly think it will actually happen, but when it does, she realizes her mistake and goes on a quest through a giant maze to where her baby brother is being held - the castle of the Goblin King.  Throughout the movie she makes friends and defeats goblins and overcomes tricks played on her by the Goblin King, who is trying to stop her the whole time. It is similar to the story in the Wizard of Oz.  However, one scene she gets trapped in a bubble that is actually a magical ballroom, where the Goblin King is trying to distract her with fancy costumes and dancing.  At the end of the scene, Sarah remembers her brother and throws a chair through the bubble wall, and breaks it to free herself and continue the quest.  My game is based on this scene.

One of my favorite things about the movie Labyrinth is the feminist theme running through it.  The hero of the story is a girl, she overcomes a male authority figure by saying "You have no power over me" and gains self confidence and maturity and friendship.  She isn't won over by some handsome prince and she doesn't need to be "rescued."  At the beginning and end of the movie, the Goblin King transforms into a white owl, which classically is the symbol for wisdom, patience, secrets, mystery and observance, all of which are running themes through the movie.  Wisdom is her final prize in the end.

My game ended up as a single screen game, where the goblins come to dance with Sarah, which she defeats by hurling chairs at them.  Then, the Goblin King appears and throws hearts at Sarah, which stun her from moving.  She has to simultaneously throw chairs at a few cracks in the wall (look like lightning bolts), before the time runs out.  At the end, the Goblin King turns into the white owl and asks Sarah to obey him, but she responds with her signature line.  There are a couple glitches in the game, which I left in for now as an homage to glitches in general, and also because I have yet to figure out how to debug them!  I found the game to be a bit more enjoyable and challenging while using my controller for it, but I hope to go back in and make changes and updates as I investigate further into the Scratch program.

My frustrations were a lesson for me as a student, but also as a future art teacher.  I realized that my issues I had may be ones that my students have some day with lessons like these or other art and/or technology media, and the fact that I can say "I was frustrated at first too" is one of the best ways I feel to reach someone that you are trying to teach.  As a program, Scratch is great way to see how video games are created through simplified code, but also to see how they are much more complex than one might think.  They are a lesson in patience, creativity, problem solving and the ability to adapt and be flexible.  All of these traits you would find in a traditional art classroom, but combining them with a new technology greatly modifies how these lessons are taught.

Screenshot of my game with some of the code in Scratch. If not working visit https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/221756998/

Art & Technology - Thoughts on Body Movement and Engagement in Digital Game Play

"Edutainment, for example, stands to benefit from methods aiming to support and facilitate task related movements in the user" (Bianchi-Bertouze, et al., 2007).

In the article "Does body movement engage you more in digital game play? And Why?" by Nadia Bianchi-Bertouze, Whan Woong Kim and Darshak Patel, the authors conclude that

"body movements appear not only to increase the players’ level of engagement but also to modify the way they get engaged. The combined results demonstrate in fact that the controller itself plays a critical role in creating a more complete experience." (2007)

I have played several video games in the past, including ones that use non-traditional controllers, such as the guitars in the game "Guitar Hero."  Although I can't speak to the nuances of the level of my engagement in every video game I've ever played, I can say with certainty I definitely felt like more of a rock star while holding the pseudo instrument, more than I may have felt like a plumber jumping over pipes in Super Mario Brothers.  This immersion in games has been even furthered by the advent of Virtual Reality, where the visual and audio is part of the game, as well as the operations of the hands and feet, as the games often react to where you are reaching or the hand movements you make. 

However, when I think of the what children use today for entertainment on a daily basis and for much of the day, even in school, it is not a video game console that is dedicated and has specialized controls.  It is the mobile tablets and phones that have games and videos that they can take anywhere and interact with on a more intimate level.  Although there are stylus pens that can be used with these devices, most of the game play is with touch of a finger or two.  The "educational" games work in much the same way, and focus less on physical tasks and more on academic or thinking tasks.  I don't know what the future holds, but for now there seems to be a burgeoning disconnect between what the children are playing on and how it teaches them to complete real world practices. Not that Guitar Hero taught me how to play guitar, but it was closer than pressing a button on a screen.

My professor, Nicholas Leonard brought up an interesting point - are the physical tasks we are asking children to learn going to even be necessary in the future? (Leonard, Personal Communication, 2018).  Are we perpetuating an old stereotype that in order to live a full life, we must be able to engage with it on a concrete, physical level, or can we live completely with minimal effort from our bodies?  That is something that I think will continue to be a subject of debate as we advance more into the technological future, and things will become easier and easier.  Will our bodies evolve to adapt to these changes?  Will the inevitable failure of our technologies (because we all know how unreliable technology can be) be the downfall of our humanity if we grow too dependent on it?  Being a person born in the 1970's, I have lived through a time where cell phones as they are today did not exist, and now practically everyone has one.  I am starting to forget a time that there were no cell phones, and feel like I can't function properly if I do not have my phone on me.  Are we perhaps becoming integrated with our technologies and will there ever be a step back?

Those ideas are big ones, but can definitely be addressed in a classroom of artists.  They can make up their own ideas on what the future holds, and critically examine our lives today and in the past.  How we interact with each other and our bodies and minds seem to be an afterthought as technology takes over.  The students can then redefine their own curriculum and their own lives, based on what they would like their future to look like.

Art & Technology - Thoughts on Video Games "Play That Can Do Serious Good"

"For instance, in the Mario Kart racing video game series, players who are further back in races will often receive more helpful items than players who are towards the front..." (Eichenbaum, et al., 2014)

Video games can be effective teaching tools.  They can teach us about technology, but also about storytelling and aesthetics. They can also foster a sense of self confidence and teach us physically through eye hand coordination.  There are several aspects of video games that are positive, and they can be utilized through creation of games as well as through the playing of games.  I feel that self confidence is one of the most important things a person can have.  Art often is an outlet for emotions and can also provide a rewarding feeling when we feel we have success.  Video games can have the same effect, and can be combined with art education to redefine how we see the world of game play. 

The quote above resonated with me because I thought of the time in my life I used to play video games in my younger days.  Although I am not convinced that the games I played were modified necessarily, I did have experiences of playing and losing quite often to my fellow video game playing friends.  After a while, I played and started to win.  I was not aware of the game getting easier for me, and I believe that my hours of playing probably resulted in me getting better at the game, however, if I had been playing a more current game, I may have had a bit of help from the programming itself.  This would have resulted in a quicker delivery of satisfaction, and perhaps for some people who were not as persistent as myself, a greater desire to continue playing and not just give up.  This more or less false sense of self confidence could lead to the real thing, especially in younger players.  Although I believe in hard work, I also feel that some help can be beneficial in getting over that initial sense of inadequacy.  It's not that they are unable, but rather there is a need for players to have confidence in themselves to know they can complete a task, no matter how simple.

I feel this happens a lot in art classrooms, and the result is often that students give up on art making in general.  During the middle school years, children tend to feel the worst about their abilities, especially in more traditional art making practices such as drawing.  Having alternatives to art making using newer technologies can even the playing field for a lot of these students, and give them that boost of confidence to stick with art and perhaps eventually come back to more traditional methods once they know they have a strong foundation of newer media techniques to fall back on.  

Reference

Eichenbaum, A., Bavelier, D., & Green, S. C. (2014). Video Games: Play that can do serious good. Retrieved from: https://webcourses.niu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-5043803-dt-content-rid-37831815_2/courses/20182-ARTE-343-----1/Eichenbaum%2C%20A.%2C%20Bavelier%2C%20D.%2C%20%26%20Green%2C%20S.%20C.%20%282014%29.pdf

Art & Technology - GIF Animation using Piskelapp.com

For one of our projects in our art and technology course, we created animated GIF using using Piskelapp.com.  I found the process to be fairly easy to create and edit, having no previous experience creating pixel art nor animations.  I based my image on the character of "Sarah" from my favorite movie Labyrinth.  She is "walking" in her ballgown she wears in one of the scenes.  Her hair sways back and forth as she steps, and the "sequins" on her dress change with her movements as if shining in the light.  I found this very similar to stop motion animation, but with a digital twist.  I feel that my future students would really enjoy this simple to use program, and it would teach them the basics of animation with a vintage flair, since it is reminiscent of the pixel animations used in old video games such as Super Mario Bros.  It modifies the traditional animation practices of pencil and paper or claymation by adding in the computer element.

Art & Technology - Thoughts on 8 Bit Video Game Audio, Then and Now

I grew up in the 80's and played video games (or watched my older brother play them) as far back as I can remember. Although I don't always remember every nuance of graphics or gameplay, the songs that accompanied the games I played are always recognizable and ingrained on my memory.  Back in the 80's, the limits of technology (or at the time, they were seen as advances), added a certain aesthetic to the music of video games that puts it unmistakably in the decade of decadence, where everything felt like it was from the future or "in the now."  That aesthetic translated into very memorable music, and those tunes are ones I hum even to this day.  Super Mario Brothers, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Paperboy, among others, were all part of my daily routine.  The music was simple, yet usually held a driving beat that kept me motivated to play the games over and over and over, speeding up when the time was running out, getting more mysterious as I entered an underground level, or illustrating that my foe was from a different country than the one before. 

All of the songs were used to augment my experience with playing the games, make them stick in my memory and motivate me to play them multiple times.   The one similar aspect of all of the soundtracks was the use of looping to create short bursts of sounds into longer melodies.  Not only did this mimic how popular music was made at the time, it also created auditory cues for how I experienced  the gameplay.  For example, the short victory tune at the end of a Mario level, when he jumps on the flag and enters the castle.  This always gave me an almost Pavlovian response of relief and joy, as if I had been holding my breath while playing and could now relax. Or when the timer came to less than 100 seconds, the music speeds up to warn the player that they need to go faster.  Gameplay doesn't speed up, but the automatic response is to run and jump over obstacles and enemies much faster.

"It would appear, then, that rather than being the consequence of the limited memory available on the systems, loops were, at least in part, an aesthetic that grew as the games became more popular and more complex." (Collins, 2007)

Nowadays, students are still playing the "retro" games of the 80's and experiencing it as a sort of nostalgic aesthetic, rather than a futuristic or current one.  Even though music soundtracks on games have greatly surpassed the level they once were, there is still a fondness for the way things used to be.  In that, we can teach students that often when technology becomes "obsolete", it can be used in a new way or how we can use it to modify or redefine what we already do, rather than lost and forgotten.  Appreciation of older technology can create that greater respect for the way things are now.

Reference

Collins, K. (2007). In the Loop: Creativity and Constraint in 8-bit Video Game Audio. Cambridge University Press.