Notgames Forum

Hi Notgamers,


I've been inspired by Notgames.org and Tale of Tales for quite a while and now I feel ready to introduce myself. I'm Patrick, I live in Berlin and and I just started running the site Maybe It's The Lighting. It's a site to explore and create new things to play.

I would like to introduce myself with the first project that will be a challenge to all of you :) It's called The Lake and not only is it not a game but it also never changes. Yes, Followers of the Procedural, take a deep breath ;D it's challenges like these that keep you sharp! Please have look here where you find text, image, movie:

http://maybeitsthelighting.com/the-lake

Now  :D  this is by no means a stand against procedural art forms, it's just a single experiment. Let me tell you how it came about: I was fascinated by the idea of turning a single playing card over and over again. I was actually doing this in real and what fascinated me was that when I saw the front side for the second time I didn't feel the same when I saw it the first time. The card was still the same but I changed. I expected the card to stay the same and so it came but I didn't feel like this when I saw the card the first time.

Then, I started working on ideas. You would have to solve some riddle, or the playing card would magically change and lots of other things. Procedural ideas, interactive ones!

But every time I had to admit, that the original idea was the most fascinating to me. That actually nothing changed at all with the playing card but within myself lots of changes happened. When turning this same card I first wonder what would happen, then I expect the same, then I'm getting impatient, angry maybe, then I give up, I drift away with my toughts and all of the sudden I catch myself still turning this playing card!

And that's what I tried to explore with The Lake: All you've got is a playing card and all you can do is turn it. Nothing changes. But somehow, you do along the way. (And then you die.)

I hope you like it! Thanks for this nice forum, I'll try to engage in some of your discussions although I have to admit that I often feel that a lot of the questions here on art can only be answered with a specific piece of work. I'll try though :)


Best!
Patrick

Looking good, though I don't have an iPhone or iPad so I can't test it. I like projects that focus on sound (though I'm afraid sound in my own projects way too often comes as an afterthought).

Nevertheless, welcome to the site.

Thanks Chainsawkitten! (How great the internet is where I can say something like this  :D)

This is an important point I want to change for next time: Developing for the iPhone exclusively gives you an interesting market on one hand and a nice environment to develop for. On the other hand you exclude people who don't have one of these expensive things.

I hope I find another platform for next time.

But for The Lake it is a perfect fit. It has the size of the card and the device has some fetish quality to it which is interesting to exploit. Like ToT did with Vanitas.

Hello and welcome. I don't have an iOS device either but it sounds interesting.

Aw, snap! In my description I forgot the other important half!

Of course there is the actual soundscape, the journey you're travelling through. Each time you turn the card you delve deeper into this journey. And what exactly happens there is of course an important counterpart to the basic idea. But for that you'll have to actually try it out, it's difficult to describe.

Basically you travel through three spaces: Arriving in a car and approaching a forest, walking through a forest, arriving at a lake behind it. In total it's ten steps, you flip the card ten times to reach the lake. After that it restarts from a scene close to the beginning.

Also, you can only take part in this journey when plugging in your headphones. If you're headphones are unplugged, the card behaves and rotates differently.

Maybe I should make a video for you...

Nice work!

We had a similar process when making Vanitas. Our original concept also included events that would happen when certain objects would touch each other for instance. But in the end, we got rid of all this interaction, in favour of just making "a box with stuff in it" (a world, not a picture of the world).

We made this decision partially because we were running out of time, though. I still dream of a more interactive version of Vanitas. It's just a lot more work, isn't it? Relying on the imagination of the audience is a lot easier. And while I think this is a very legitimate way of making art, I also know that it limits the size of one's audience. But sometimes this is necessary. Some pieces demand it.

It does limit it indeed. Even people working in the same field won't understand it because I feel there is a very narrow expectation of what interactivity is supposed to be like. To me, most interactive things just always feel the same. They feel "interactive", that's all.

Don't get me wrong, interactivity and procedural concepts are some of the most interesting elements in this field. But I'd like to use their whole range and not pray to them. Doing things close to the border to not being interactive as an artistic statement.

But I also think that it is important to now just do the next thing. I think it's okay if somebody has a problem with The Lake because now it stands alone as a single project. The best thing I can do is to continue working. And through this body of work, later, I believe, it will be easier for others to understand what this is all about.

Patience! And onwards!

And yes, my next project looks like it's going to be more interactive  ;D  (I'm caving in, I'm caving in, oh noooo...)

I see what you mean with Vanitas. First I thought that adding interactivity to Vanitas would be nothing more than surface polish. But now I understand, it isn't that simple… if you create an object to play with, it's a good thing if the object accomodates a certain freedom of dealing, playing, toying around with it. That way the user can make it truly theirs. Did you mean that?

p

I disagree with relying on the user's imagination being easy, though. I think it's very difficult balance between being precise enough and yet leave the right room for the reader's/viewer's/user's imagination.

Do you mean when adding interactivity, it becomes even more difficult to leave the right amount of room open to the user?

Not so much as we wanted to create a sense of curiosity and a feeling of wonder and surprise.

I just meant it in the very technical sense: everything the user can imagine, we don't need to build.  :D

You're of course correct that playing with the user's imagination comes with a set of design problems.

Welcome Patrick! Your project sounds really interesting, I hope to be able to check it out some time.

We'll be here for critique if you need any...eh? ;)