User:Senka/Experiments

Break into the Data Center

An idea for an asymmetric game through which a shared output is made.

Sick Host

This is a kind of visual essay with gamified elements. The main idea is that the reader goes through the content of the essay through choice and interaction, while still stumbling upon disturbances that would lead to custom error messages.
I've drafted the essay based on spaces in which hosting happens (on the phone, in the hallway, at the dinning table, in the sink etc) as points of entry to read about what a practice of chronically ill hosting can be liek/mean for a technical practice.
A lot of inspiration her was gained from Johanna Hedva's Sick Woman Theory, talking with Ren Loren Britton, and talking with friends who have also had the embodied experience of sick hosting whether that be because of mental or physical illness or neuro divergence.
I guess the notion of care rings out through this semester as I consider how much care I provide and receive in my collaborative practice outside of xpub. The collectives I work with are really intimate, and depending on each other for support and care is something that proves necessary time and time again.

Good Host Bad Host

Game I made quickly
Idea behind it: I wanted to briefly reflect on my own fear of being a bad host (in the physical/culinary meaning). It is kind of a choose-your-own-adventure game in which the results of not being vulnerable and panicking over the implication that you are a bad host lead to comically bad outcomes. Only the final scene has some ASCII art, but for the most part it is just a text adventure coded with python.

Electrifying

Game with Thijs
Idea: We made a kind of escape room, I'm which you have to find a way out of a server room in which you and sleeping chopchop are.
Before running the terminal game you have to run the script which has the aliases which change the cat command into look, so that the game will be mor e immersive.
We've hidden clues in each area you can 'look' in such as direction on where to look, what commands to use and passwords to apply to discover new places.
It was quite interesting to consider how a user might navigate and find the fine line between putting answers in plain sight and hiding them to neatly out of it. I did a test run with my cousin (who has never used the terminal) playing it and it was evidently a fast play that did need a bit of background info on terminal commands to engage with fully.
We did include, as Thijs refers to it, 'narative flavour' to enhance immersion and use and made ASCII art to create the separate parta of the 'room' the okayer is stuck in. At the end the player is stuck with a question about whether they should take chopchop with them, which would require them to cut its life force (unplug it) or leave it to remain in the claustrophobic server room.

Quilting

Game with Michel
Idea: Based on Michel's interesting in physical quilting we tried to make a game in which you could use ASCII art characters and emojis as elements of a digital quilt. During the class we made two options of actions/items you can use: fabric and scissors. Fabric builds the quilt while scissors cut it in half. We exchanged that this could somehow be printed on fabric again, and that adding quotes and elements of the reader would be quite interesting.