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Video graffiti, video projectors

December 11, 2003 / Klint Finley

A couple weeks ago I metioned the idea of video graffiti, and the expense of video projectors, to Sauceruney. He sent me this link: build your own LCD projector. They link to a guy who claims to have built a 8,255 lumen projector for under $200. Sounds too good to be true.

I’ve been poking around looking for rental information for projectors and plasma screens but haven’t come up with much… everyone wants me to call them to get a quote. I did find one place with some numbers online but lost the link. It would run about $800 to rent a 5,000 lumen projector for a day through them. And I think a 2,000 lumen was about $200… so building one seems like the way to go.

After seeing Steve Safarik‘s Laser Space Wars at Dorkbot last week, I realized that shooting for perfect video quality might be too much at this point. Although Safarik’s laser stuff is also quite expensive (the mirrors for his project cost $2000), I realized that other light experiments could produce interesting results. Particularly interesting about Safarik’s work is that it’s interactive (it’s just an arcade game, but interesting none the less). See also: LaserMAME (link currently down) and More Laser game anyone?

Idea-blogging: games as musical interface

December 9, 2003 / Klint Finley

I’m gonna do some idea-blogging over the next few days, trying to get some ideas out there for some feedback (or at least so I don’t forget them).

I’ve had this “games as musical interface” idea for a couple years. A number of “generative” and “fractal” music programs out there (check out this listing). Mostly the interfaces consist of typing in numbers, moving sliders around, or dragging something around the screen randomly. These don’t seem like engaging interfaces.

The idea of using games for an interface isn’t new: this guy has a 3D fractal music game: however, I’ve never been able to get it to run on my computer, and now I can’t even find the download on his web site. My idea is to use a series of constantly changing classic games clones – Pacman, Space Invaders, Tetris, etc. The position of different game objects act as the random data for a music and graphics generator, making it easy for almost anyone to create music and visual compositions; even if they’re not good with music or at playing games. It also creates a game in which the goal is not to “win” but to create interesting music. This could also work as a multi-player game, with the data being split between the two players.

One important aspect is that the “voices” should be configurable. Output to MIDI, or to a set of samples (a la MOD tracking programs) .

A bit of a head-trip feature I’d like to see in the game: the games constantly morph into each other. One minute you’re playing Tetris, moving a block around, and then suddenly the blocks you’ve stack start to look like a maze and your block is pac-man. Then ghosts show up and eventually the whole game is Pac-Man. You play this for a while, then it starts to turn into Space Invaders. Which then turns into Astroids. The changes are random, Tetris sometimes turns into Astroids or Space Invaders instead of Pac-Man.

Jeremy Winters doesn’t think Max/MSP is powerful enough to create something like this. I would like to see it done in Flash, but I kind of doubt that’s possible either.

See Also

Audience Participation in Music

More audience participation in music

Tonite’s Dorkbot

December 4, 2003 / Klint Finley

Just got home from Dorkbot, and realized I never posted anything about last month’s Dorkbot. A couple very cool things I may write some more about… tonight featured Steve Safarik talking about his very cool Space Wars project, and Jeremy Winters of the Madness Machine talked about Max/MSP and showed some of the stuff he’s done with it.

A related Wired story by Erik Davis, for personal reference.

Writing Game

August 10, 2003 / Klint Finley

This message is for Brenden Simpson – I don’t have access to ICQ right now, and I’m never sure what your e-mail address is. But, anyone interested is welcome to reply.

While I’m waiting for the perfect Live Journal narrative idea and video graffiti idea to strike me, how about:

1. We write an outline, with say 10 landmarks (more might be necessary).

2. We setup a content managment system.

3. We take turns writing 250 – 500 word chapters.

4. We plan it out so that we alterate hitting landmarks.

5. The idea is, to make it challenging for the other guy to execute his assigned point on the landmark without doing ridiculous things.

6. Also, keeping consistent with characterization will be a challenge.

7. We should probably write the outline ourselves, but it would be fun to invite more people to play.

8. One chapter a week?

Live Journal as an interactive narrative tool

August 9, 2003 / Klint Finley

Thoughts on the Live Journal interactive narrative idea:

1. I don’t want to do “the story game” (where each person writes a piece of the story).

2. I don’t want to do a simple novel serialization like Class of 91 or a “writing in public” exercise like Listener by Ellis or Unwirer by Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross. But, I wouldn’t rule out the idea of doing a project using Movable Type, a wiki, or some other collaboration ware. (Brenden, you game?)

3. I’m thinking of trying to work with non-fiction (to be true to the journaling purpose of the community). But I don’t want to duplicate the Fray or City Stories and the like.

4. I want to find some way to integrate filters, social network features, commenting and so on.

5. Perhaps a sort of non-fiction role-playing game? Or a game with “assignments” to be carried out in real life, and then reported on in the journal?

osGames: An Alternative to War Games

August 16, 2002 / Klintron

R. Buckminster Fuller foresaw a need for a world peace game as an antidote for war games, and it’s eventually lead to osGame’s “Global Simulation Workshop.” Twenty teams, representing geopolitical regions, multinational corporations, and non-profit organizations, work together or in competition to manage the earth’s resources.

o.s. Earth: The Global Simulation

Do Computer Games Effect Kids?

August 9, 2002 / Klintron

Who first said “Computer games don’t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music”? Was it British comedian Marcus Brigstocke? Was it Kristian Wilson of Nintendo Inc in 1989? Or was it Karen Price of Nintendo in the same year? Or perhaps it was the design portal k10k?

Erowid: Computer Games Don’t Affect Kids…

Playstation 2 game to emulate psychedelic experiences

March 3, 2002 / Klintron

Rez, for the Playstation 2 and Dreamcast, is designed “to create a sense of synaesthesia” by combining trippy visuals with pulsating techno. The article mentions “vibrations” a couple times too, so I assume it will also be taking advantage of “rumble packs.”

BBC: Gamers set for sensory overload

(via Fark)

Chaos Science Meets Music Meets Video Games

November 2, 2001 / Klintron

There’s an article on Shift.com about a new piece of software called Venharis. It’s a 3D game that generates fractal music.

Navigating with the arrow keys, you round a corner. You are inside a large alien room with moving panels and a floating fractal hologram. Suddenly you notice an alien hovering nearby in a flying saucer. With lightning-fast reflexes, you target the alien and punch the mouse button. But the alien does not explode into a thousand gory pieces.

It plays you a song.

Phil Thompson’s Venharis, which was completed last week, is not a shoot-’em-up. Venharis is a music composer and generator wrapped in a 3D gaming environment — with a plot. In it, you’re investigating an artifact that leads you to a meeting place between two worlds, where different species communicate through music. There are different areas to explore, and each area has a different utility in terms of the musical composition. In the hologram area, you create pieces of music. Then it’s down the elevator and through some doors to the nebula area to adjust the temporal aspects of your piece: Change the tempo, schedule starts and stops. Although it’s not a game in the strictest sense, it looks and feels like one.

Shift: musimatician

Update: I can’t find the software anywhere, but here’s a track composed using it.

Game over for Ong’s Hat and the Incunabula papers?

March 29, 2001 / Klint Finley

Joseph Matheny, who has been bringing the Incunabula Papers and the legend of Ong’s Hat to cyberspace for years has announced he will author his final chapter of the Incunabula Papers titled Game Over? The final chapter will apply game theory to the Ong’s Hat fiasco and will question whether it is really over.

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