This is the utility space of Tania, Micah and Steve working our hands and minds in Shamanic Powers… the first output from the Virtual Incubator Project. You’re welcome to have a look around! Oh, and by the way… Tania paints, Micah composes music and Steve engineers software, should you be hiring!
I’ve been doing this work in the area of network theory, especially small worlds theory (Buchanan, 2002). Then I was applying small worlds theory to Snakes and Ladders, the popular children’s board game. So think of the pyramid like 3D snakes and ladders, and that’s how I’m thinking about the software. The implementation, at least for the prototype we’re building in 2008 is definitely in Flash. If you’re familiar with the MVC pattern (Jeffries, 2007) you’ll know exactly what I mean if I say Flash provides the Views, Flash and PHP together are the Controllers, and a MySQL database stores the model. The student-player is modeled (Cockburn, 1999) as a finite state machine (FSM), moving from node to node by the edges (connections) described by the storyline. According to your discipline, each node can be seen as a scene in the play (dramaturge), a set (art director and sound designer), an activity using one or more resources (educationalist), or as a node (software engineer). Each way of getting to the next node has a cost, and may be called a transition, a connection, or an edge.
I’ll extend this article as my thinking about Virtual Incubator’s software architecture and implementation matures.
Buchanan, M. (2002) Nexus: small Worlds and the groundbreaking science of networks. New York: Norton.
Cockburn, A (1999) Characterizing people as non-linear, first-order components in software development. [Online] Available from: link (Accessed: 17 October 2007).
Jeffries, R. and others (2007) Model View Controller [Online] Available from: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ModelViewController (Accessed: 26th January 2008).
Art… Tania write a brief article like the one on software telling us where you’re coming from. Log on and edit this post. Update 15th Feb 08 I have now set up an art gallery (haven’t dressed it to match yet, but will). Have started uploading some of your images, will do more at the weekend if wet.
Sounds Design/Music/Sound FX..
Ideas so far :
End format : MP3 loops that can be easily imported into flash & manipulated using fade and pan in flash to blend together the various loops and allow the sounds to change as the user moves around. (making use of actionscipt commands that can manipulate the sound file as the character moves etc).
Loops will vary in size from maybe 10sec to 45sec long?
this should give enough time to have files fading in and out and create soundscapes that change over time etc and are seamless, and also using loops will help with file size as talked about in one of the earlier meetings)
Loop Catgeories :
Will add more to this soon
Level 1: Interior pyramid. Act of be acted upon.
It’s a pretty scary place inside this pyramid… plenty of aggressive NPCs on this level. NPC (Non Player Character) is otherwise called an AI (Bungee the Halo team talk about “AIs”) or Mobiles (Richard Bartle talks about “Mobiles” in Designing Virtual Worlds). In our jargon NPC = AI = Mobile.
The purpose of Level 1 is proactivity:
This is achieved by:
SP[14] must act… or be acted upon. Any ideas? Again, use the comments to put forward suggestions.
Level 0: Exterior Day. Market. Orientation.
The student-player (SP hereafter) [14] (age in square brackets)… SP[14] moves around amongst the stalls and sellers… finds a storyteller who gives the SP the narrative so far… and a list of items needed on his quest to attain greatness.
To save boring gender stuff (putting him/her, his/hers) I will refer throughout to him, by which I also mean her.
Tania we discussed this some weeks ago and had decided to go with a gender-neutral student-player. I have in mind Keisha Castle-Hughes as PAI in Whale Rider, a tomboy-ish figure, David taking on Goliath. That’s in this SP[14] mode which extends to Level 2. Taking on a little more shoulders by Level 3 SP[16].
The purpose of Level 0 is orientation:
This is achieved by:
Let’s discuss the things he needs… use the comments to do this… I’ll kick it off… a thing like a compass which helps the SP find his way through the game (remember the compass which points to the thing you most desire in Pirates of the Caribbean? Which disturbingly for Elizabeth one time points to Jack)…
Level 10: Exterior night. Sacrificial platform. Fly.
Level 9: Interior pyramid. Find your voice, reach out to others.
Level 8: Interior pyramid. Reflect on your journey.
Level 7: Interior pyramid. Strengthen body, mind and soul.
Level 6: Interior pyramid. Share knowledge with friends.
Level 5: Interior pyramid. Listen before you speak.
Level 4: Interior pyramid. Negotiate with the gatekeepers.
Level 3: Interior pyramid. Be thorough in your preparation.
Level 2: Interior pyramid. Look where you are going.
Level 1: Interior pyramid. Act or be acted upon.
Level 0: Exterior Day. Market place. Orientation.
Moses was found in a basket? What’s this guy/gal called? Anyway he/she is found in a basket when the men are sweeping up after the market. A tattoo on her arm suggests she’s of Royal Blood, but it’s not clear what comes next until our protagonist (each individual player, without knowledge of the others until Level 6 ) decides to go on a quest to claim her rightful position. Only a whole lot of stuff happens along the way…
Thanks for the meeting. Tania wins the prize for the distance most traveled. For me the stone walls going rubbery and turning into a teleport and transitioning into the vision quest was cool, I can really see that. I can also see the vision quest being an important educational component too… I don’t think there’ll be any problem putting up a case for this. The rain (or waterfall) was just so superb, and I felt transported to the jungle… all those ideas worked for me and I note Micah’s request that soon we list the scenes. I think we should all contribute to the narrative and the gameplay, and I’ve made a category called narrative to that end. Over this weekend I will list all the educational content, so we can build that seamlessly into the narrative. Once that’s done we’ll be able to identify any missing characters, and define the scenes, and define the soundscapes.