Rhonda Bowlin ITGM-705-OL Interactive Design and Media Application Unit 1 – Exercise 1: An Interactive Digital “Artifact” Marbled – Artist Statement Introduction In the online multiplayer physics-based game called Marbled, you, brave warrior, have an arsenal of marbles at your disposal. They are located in bins. Some marbles are bigger/heavier than others in your bins, but they are organized accordingly for quick and easy grabbing. On the stage is a bunch of floating platforms. None of them look particularly stable. Gameplay This is what you need to do: Balance the highest total weight that you can of your own marbles onto the platforms before the timer runs out in the round. The problem for you is that other players have their own marbles and are trying to accomplish the same goal. The winning condition is to be the player with the most weight in marbles on the stage at the end of the round. Everyone else is considered to have lost the round. The total number of marbles does not matter in the end – ONLY the total weight. The action of dragging and dropping the marbles onto the platforms occurs in realtime. There may be a rule implemented in which marbles cannot be picked back up once they are on the stage. Players can bounce other marbles off the platforms. Because of this, you can attack your competitors, knocking their marbles off the playing field. Also, remember that these platforms are quite precarious - you can accidentally tip over the platform and take out your own pieces in the process. This can be an entirely legitimate strategy if the sacrifice of tipping the platform over benefits you overall. Gameplay would occur in a simple 3D view with camera navigation buttons off to the side. You can reset the view to the default ¾ overhead at any time (this is the view that the round begins with). There are N different levels to choose from, each showcasing a different array of platforms to challenge your balancing act. There are also N different marble weight classes (perhaps 3 – light, medium, and heavy). Each class has its own bin to pull from. The lighter the class, the more individual marbles are in that class. For example, if there were just the 3 classes mentioned, there would be many more lightweight marbles than heavyweight marbles. The heaviest class may only have one individual piece, or it could be variable based on the level. The final design details would rely on results from prototyping and testing. The advantage to using the lightweight marbles over the heavier weight marbles is that there will sometimes be platforms that are too long/skinny to accommodate the heavier ones. Also, some players may find the lighter weight marbles to be more expendable, thus using them as weapons to “protect” the heavier weight pieces. This is merely one possible strategy for you to consider. The maximum number of players that can compete in a round is N people (the initial number can be 20 for testing but would be adjusted as necessary) with a minimum of N
players. The number of marbles in your bin may (or may not) change depending on how many other people you are playing with. There can be N instances of the game running at a time so that visitors to the game site can play ASAP even when other rounds are in session. The level will either be chosen at random, or players can vote on which level to play (but only if there are not too many) before entering the round. Only round-winners will take their place on the Marbled leaderboards. There will need to be one leaderboard per level since some platform layouts may make matters easier than other layouts. There will also be a master leaderboard to honor multiple-level winners with the highest combined totals. “Marbled” As Part of the Digital Medium The digital medium as defined by Janet Murray’s four characteristics is represented handily in almost any online browser game. Marbled is no different in this sense. •
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Participatory – This trait is likely the most obvious, but for a couple of different reasons. Not only must a single player elect to play the game before the true product (the experience) even exists, but a group must interact with each other while playing Marbled. The latter brings a human and decidedly non-digital element to the play session. Procedural – Marbled is built upon programmer’s code (presumably Flash/ Actionscript) and follows the rules within it. The identity of the game is based on these rules, and example being the physics calculations for both the marble and platform behaviors. Without the source code for the user to alter, Marbled will always have the particular features of Marbled, and nothing else. It will not be DOOM, a paint program, or a music player. Encyclopedic – Marbled itself does not retain much in-game information other than the real-time decisions that dictate each specific round. However, there are the leaderboards to catalog the winners, which may count enough as archiving information in an encyclopedic way. Spatial – Players use the interface of to drag and drop their marbles into the play space. The interface is the game; it is integrated into the experience and is intended to seem somewhat tactile. The player sees the result of the code and interacts with it without needing to directly interact with the underlying structure. The players are, in a way, choosing to occupy the game’s own little world via these methods. Other players help to populate this mini-world’s space.
Concept Illustration Guide The first concept illustration is the main gameplay screen of the game (the player would have encountered a title screen before this point). The second shows a basic example and explanation of game play. The third explains how to navigate the 3D play space. The fourth shows how players keep track of each other (so that they do not manually have to count out the marble weight present in the play space).
- N grams - N grams - N grams
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1. You are represented as a hand. Hovering over a marble highlights it in some way (here, it is slightly darkened). The others players will either be shown as dulled out hands, as another icon altogether, or only as their respective marbles. Only you have access to your marble bins! 2. Left-clicking and dragging picks up the marble. That marble is removed from the total amount. 3. The player holds the marble over the desired area where they wish to drop it. The end position is marked by a shadow. 4. Releasing the left mouse button drops the marble. The marble hitting the platform has a physicssensitive result. Here, the formerly tipped platform is straightened out by the move.
The “View” navigational area: - Since the play space is 3D, the player can edit the camera view via the View buttons. The round starts off in a 3/4 overhead view. If the player ever wishes to get back to this default view, they can click the “RESET” button. - To use a view button: 1. Left click on the button and HOLD. The hand cursor will now change to whichever view button is selected. It will remain in this mode until the left mouse button is released. 2. The direction of the navigation depends on the mouse movement. a. For the pan button, moving the mouse is 1:1 for direction - forward being up, left being left, etc. b. For the rotate button, the vertical movement is inverted like in an airplane (pulling the mouse back rotates the view up, pushing forward rotates the view down). Left and right are 1:1. c. For the zoom button, mouse right OR mouse up are zoom in. Mouse left OR mouse down are zoom out.
- The game viewport will show the player when there is additional playspace that they are not viewing at the moment (for example, if they zoomed in a lot into one area). A subtle arrow will appear on that side of the screen to indicate that there is more to the level.
- 12 grams - 10 grams - 8 grams
- 14 grams - 10 grams - 8 grams
- The Current Players list shows everyone playing the current match. Their marble color/style, user name, and weight of marbles on the stage are all indicated. -The list is in descending order of player with the most amount of weight to the player with the least amount of weight. If two players have the same amount of weight, they are sorted alphabetically by user name. -The list is updated in real time so that everyone can keep track of who to watch out for and whose marbles to target. Note here that “nutherplyr1” added 4 more grams of marbles to the stage, while “rhondabee” lost 2 grams.