21/3 The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

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The City Mouse and the Country Mouse

Description:

An educational mobile game targeted for kindergarten kids to study and play at the same time. This game aims to help children understand complicated concept through playing and to help parents to teach their children by using interactive and cute characters to engage the children.

The game will be based on the story “The City Mouse and the Country Mouse”.

(Story can be found here)

The Player will be playing as the Country Mouse. Throughout the journey, player will be taught subject like English/Math and moral values. The Country Mouse will guide the player by reading to the player, instruct and teach the player.

Game play:

As the Country Mouse, player need to help it to finish its journey by making the correct choice. These choices are related to the story line and the correct answers are the correct grammar/vocabulary/numbers.

This mobile game will come with a toolkit with random blocks or cards inside. Using AR technology and the materials from the toolkit, the characters in the story will be reflected on the objects in the toolkit to trigger certain animation to tell the story. Throughout the game, player will meet characters formed by alphabets to help children remember spelling or to understand mathematics concept.

Aim for using AR:

To build motor skill by incorporating physical toy, a toolkit with random cards/objects to activate the NPC into the ‘real world’.

With physical blocks/cards, children can build random structure (motor skill) based on their own imagination and interpretation of the space. Children can shift around these objects to see how the character interact with it, like they are playing with a virtual friend.

2. Find at least 3 projects that you can use as reference for your own project. These are works done by other artists or designers that will help illustrate the direction and inspiration of your project proposal. Describe clearly what aspect, technique etc. of each sample work is useful for the development of your own project proposal.

Dora the explorer 

A talking protagonist that reads the story, explain, instruct, encourage and praise the player. Player can interact, sing along, dance, and answer questions. Dora also teaches Spanish, counting, team work, persistence and many other things.

Another interesting point about Dora the explorer is that it is able to engage restless young minds and hold them spellbound with these strategies:

1. Present a Compelling Mission – Each episode begins with a challenge that Dora and her friends are compelled to overcome.  They discover they must get from where they are to a distant location while avoiding a series of obstacles along the way.

2. Gain Clarity of Direction – To find their way, she calls on help from ‘the map’ in her backpack. The map comes alive to provide very clear directions with relevant landmarks. The map repeats each step three times, asking the viewing audience to join in and recite them a final time.

3. Appeal to Diversity – Dora realizes that not everyone watching speaks English, so she pauses periodically to repeat a phrase in Spanish. Wanting to build teamwork, she asks her English speakers to learn it and repeat it back to her.

4. Stay Positive – Even when faced with unexpected adversity, Dora and her sidekick both keep smiling and keep pressing on.  There’s no lack of work ethic in this crowd.

5. Celebrate the Victory – As they reach the established goal, each episode concludes with Dora and all her companions singing and dancing to the song, “We did it! We did it!”  This would brings children to their feet to join the celebration. With all interactivity, children feel as though they are an integral part of the team that has emerged victorious.

Table Ice Hockey

A Playstation Store’s top rated AR games is pretty self-explanatory. Table Ice Hockey uses the Playstation Vita to literally put an entire hockey rink on any surface the player wants it to be, where player can view the action from any angle.

Drakerz-Confrontation

An AR version of trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Pokemon. Peoleo Entertainment broke the mold with the next generation of trading card games. Their new game Drakerz-Confrontation, uses AR to bring trading cards to life as 3D animated monsters called Drakos. Using a computer webcam, the 3D monsters pop off the cards to throw down in an epic battle. The camera reads the images on the cards, which look like any other deck of trading cards, and then it makes some animated magic happen on the computer screen.

The fantasy card game lets you play with physical trading cards that you put on the table in front of a PC with a webcam.

PulzAR

PulzAR is a different take on puzzle games. Available in the Playstation Store for PS Vita, this game uses the Vita’s camera and built in AR capabilities to create dynamic puzzles. The puzzles are aimed at guiding a laser around a series of obstacles until it can be redirected into space to destroy an inbound asteroid

  1. AR card – Place a AR card on a flat surface to create a PulzAR missile testing facility on screen.

2. Panning/camera angle – Able to see the danger.

 

3. Using one of the gantt charts or project development tools that I posted on OSS, create a production schedule for your project starting from April 2017 to May 2018. Include as much detail as you can think of such as including important dates and deadlines, team members or collaborators, tasks, what you need to research, technologies you’ll use for development, sound, visual materials, editing, interaction design etc. Though this schedule may be adjusted, it’s important to start creating a timeline for your FYPs. This will help guide you through your calendar and give you a way to identify and plan your progress.

(View timeline here)

 

Proj_Educational Game

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To develop an Educational mobile game so that children can have fun studying.

Aim of the game:

  • Help children understand complicated concept through playing/having fun
  • Using interactive and cute character to engage children
  • To ease parents’ trouble to teach their kids

Concept:

Player will follow a fairy tale’s protagonist to finish its journey. Throughout the journey, player will be taught subject like English/Math and moral values. The Protagonist will guide the player by reading to the player, instruct and teach the player.

Game play:

Player will help protagonist to finish its journey by making the correct choice. These choices are related to the story line and the correct answers are the correct grammar/vocabulary/numbers.

Similar game play to Dora the explorer:

The series centers around Dora, a 7 year old American girl, with a love of embarking on quests related to an activity that she wants to partake of or a place that she wants to go to, accompanied by her talking purple backpack and anthropomorphic monkey companion. Each episode is based around a series of cyclical events that occur along the way during Dora’s travels, along with obstacles that she and Boots are forced to overcome or puzzles that they have to solve (with “assistance” from the viewing audience) relating to riddles, the Spanish language, or counting.

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_the_Explorer)

Game approach 1:

An interactive protagonist

  • Player will be able to change the appearance and the clothes of the protagonist, so the kids will be attached to the character.
  • Player can interact with the protagonist by touching it to trigger certain animation and answer to the protagonist’s question and gets a reply.

The aim of this interactive protagonist is to give feedback to the player and keep the children engaged. Even if the player is not interested in continuing the task, they can just interact with the protagonist.

Similar concept to Talking Tom :

The goal of the game is to take care a little cute kitten named Tom. At the beginning, the user is invited for growing these kitten up interacting with him by different ways: feeding him, taking him to the bathroom. Tom can repeat words spoken for up to 25 seconds at a distance of 10 meters from himself using the synthesized voice, “leaning against” his ear to phone`s screen.

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Talking_Tom)

 

 

Game approach 2:

An augmented Reality NPC + toolkit (random cards/objects to activate the NPC into the ‘real world’)

 

Throughout the protagonist’s journey, protagonist will meet characters like the alphabets below.

Using AR technology and the materials from the toolkit, these alphabets will be reflected on objects in the toolkit to tell the story.  These Alphabets/numbers characters will join together to form certain words/numbers to help children remember spelling or to understand mathematics concept.

Aim for using AR:

Children can interact with the characters by shifting the toolkit’s materials around, like they are playing with a friend.

Teamlab, Future World show

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An interactive art gallery which also encourage interaction with other users and is able cater for all the age group and genders.

Of all the 15 installations, one of my favourite is the Flutter of Butterflies Beyond Borders. A stunning installation, visual appealing art piece. This installation brought me to a garden in a fantasy world, where I was surrounded by flowers and butterflies with a sweet aroma. What captured my attention the most is the level of interaction. I recalled looking for the motion detector that was monitoring our action and location, which I could not locate it. In this gallery, every movement we made caused the flowers to bud, grow, blossom and eventually wither and disappeared. Similarly, the butterflies die whenever someone touches it, this simulates the relationship between the nature and human in the present world. The cycle of birth and death repeats itself, continuing for eternity. The entire work changes continuously. But the same state will never be repeated.

Another memorable piece is the Crystal Universe. An eye-opening experience, a dream come true, just like entering the space. With thousands of lights blinking, it was like walking through thousands of diamonds or a palace made of diamond. When we first see the rolls of LED light, I was overwhelmed by it, I felt blissful just by looking at it. There is 2 parts to this installation, first being in the rolls of LED lights and viewing them from a distance. Both ways gave me a very different experience and I enjoyed both experience equally. To experience this installation completely, one has to view it both ways. In the rolls of LED lights, it was like travelling in the space with the stars attracting to me. Discovering diamonds and more of these diamond charging towards me. The colours and intensity of the light changing for me. Viewing the piece outside as a whole, it was as good as watching a fireworks directly in front of me. The changing lighting represent a person life, a person going through different phrase of life and change when a person enter (into your life), which impact your life. The action of controlling the lighting is similar to a person controlling his own life with the pattern of his life changing by the people in his life.

W4

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Part 1

The aim of this project is to tackle the problem Singapore is facing now, such as aging population, climate change, economic restricting, changes to buyer’s behavior, land scarcity and urban population growth and pressures on public finances, which will hinder the growth of Singapore. By implementing this Smart Nation project, Singapore would be able to use technology as a tool to resolve these issues and at the same time, provides citizen a more pleasant environment to live in. Taking advantage of Internet of Things, the citizens are able to give feedback effectively. With the feedback, improvement can be done faster and create more possibilities for enterprise.

Smart Nation will benefits the senior citizen the most, however it will not affect this generation of Senior citizen but the next. Hence, long term wise, Gen Y will benefits the most, as we are used to technology and when the project succeeded, fully implemented and being accepted by the citizen and that will be when the Gen Y become a senior citizen.

Singapore’s life expectancy is one of the highest in the world. Its older population (age 60+) is projected to grow from 814,000 (15 per cent of population) in 2012 to 2,308,000 (38 per cent) by 2050.

Secondly, just within Asia, Japan, South Korea and China have implemented this project and have been seeing result. Hence Singapore will need to follow suit in order to keep up the pace, or it may hinder Singapore’s growth in the future.

Part 2

How can I contribute to Singapore if I am a …

Concept: Connecting 2 people from 2 different places through projection on bus stop’s advertising panel or MRT Station’s platform barrier. Through the projection, the 2 party will answer the question “How can I contribute to Singapore if I am a (the other party’s occupation)” The projection will project the other party dressing to represent their occupation.

Aim of this project: Through answering the question, we will be able to collect feedback from the citizen. As citizens are answering in a causal setting, feedback receive will be candid, limitless/without boundary/unrealistic. Though the feedback may be candid, it is very valuable as these are what the citizen wants.

Benefits: Publicity for Smart Nation and to collect candid feedback from citizen as data. Encourage interaction from other commuters.

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When someone stand close to the bus stop’s advertising panel or MRT Station’s platform barrier, the program will prone people to start the activity by connecting it with their phone.

 

 

 

 

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With 2 commuters connected, they will enter their occupation with their phone and the projection will project the opposite party’s dressing to simulate that they have change role while the glass still reflects their own face.

 

 

 

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Next, “How can I contribute to Singapore if I am a (the other commuter’s occupation)” will surface on the panel, the commuters will then need to key in what they think by entering it into their phone. The other party will receive what the other commuter key in as while and that statement can act as a motivation for each other as it may be the reason why they chose the job or just for a good laugh. When there is no one to connect to, the program will project a random occupation like transport minister, education minister and etc. The feedback received will be filter and release as infographics and these data allow us to come out with more ideas for Smart Nation project.

 

W3

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Part 1:

Hemali Bhuta’s multi-disciplinary practice is primarily concerned with the notion of an ‘in between’ or ‘transitory’ space and the elements that contain or create those spaces. For Bhuta, ‘in-between-ness’ is a plane where the limitations of dimensionality do not apply and there is a possibility for transcendence. Bhuta’s work often references ritual, both religious and domestic (building off her earlier experience as an interior designer), and she uses materials of ritual, from wax, to alum, to soap, to transform spaces and to draw attention to its often forgotten corners and architectural details.

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Hemali Bhuta’s Growing

Made from incense sticks of different fragrances that are strung together and suspended from above, this work is a reaction to and continuation of a previous work, The Shedding (2008). The constant cycle of shedding and growing reflects on ideas of growth, life and death, and the state of ‘in-betweenness’. Growing is also informed by the Buddhist concept of dependent co-origination: human beings are a unique species, yet form part of the larger whole that is Nature; both are subject to the same cycles of birth, growth and death. In this respect, we are like the single incense stick that aspires to be singular and ‘pure’ with its own novel fragrance, yet is also part of a larger perfumed environment. The work also alludes to ideas of tangibility, fragility and temporality. Bhuta’s use of unusual materials reaffirms her interest in the transformative power of vernacular everyday materials and their aesthetically generative possibilities.

 

My version of Hemali Bhuta’s Growing setup

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Hemali Bhuta’s other work

Hemali Bhuta’s Shedding

Shedding depicts long brushes, made of black horsehair, that hang from the ceiling. The artist created vibrations that caused these brushes to shed their hair and accumulate in a thick, black carpet on the floor. Shedding references the hair of pilgrims, which when cut in religious centers, is an act of devout belief and personal sacrifice – which is further commodified and exported in the form of wigs used for a variety of transformations by its future users. The artist takes a closer look at the manifold strategies with which we hide, expose or transform ourselves, giving in to society’s constantly changing demands for individuality and belonging. Beyond an impressive aesthetic play of form and process, Bhuta raises important questions about the manipulation and the covering up of reality.

 

Part 2: Thoughtful interaction design

Previously, Kim Goodwin’s “Designing for the Digital Age” mentioned that a good design has to satisfy human’s needs and wants and design only happens when there is a issue, while in Jonas löwgren and Erik Stolterman’s Thoughtful Interaction Design, a good design is defined in relation to societal laws; regulations, agreements and contracts, and in relation to ideological considerations such as democratic, cultural, and environmental ideas. To bind them together, a good design would refers to a well thought solution that satisfy the end users and their society.

Jonas löwgren and Erik Stolterman’s idea of a thoughtful interaction design refers to the process that is arranged within existing resource constraints to create, shape, and decide all use-oriented qualities (structuarl, functional, ethical, and aesthetic) of a digital artifact for one or many clients. To create a thoughtful interaction design or a good design, the designer has to learn to overcome challenges, push himself to the limit and to has a critical mind. The designer has to study the man-computer interaction and formulate their own thoughts, considerations and actions for the interaction. Designer need to be flexible in their design, as their target audience may be different and different users will have different habit, traditions, and practice, and therefore every design process is unique.

 

A thoughtful designed interactive experience: Snap Chat

  1. Layout: Jonas löwgren and Erik Stolterman mentioned that the complex can be make less complex by organizing, structuring, and categorize, the design must be neat and categorized accordingly in order for the user to be able to use the product with ease. Snap Chat organize it’s content so that only the content the user want to see is displayed on the front page. As a designer, you might also need help in creating order and meaning in a complex world.Snapchat allows/encourage users to film with their phone vertically, which is more convenience for most phone users as we tend to keep our phone vertically. Beside being more convenience, it is also quicker to take video or photo without rotating the phone.

 

2. Privacy: Something today society needs. The contents that the users sent out using Snapchat will be deleted the servers and the receivers’ phone, a feature which will prevent people from getting trouble from social media. Users can choose which friends they want to send to or whether they want to set it as their story, which will be visible for a day and disappear. The main concept of the Snapchat is to encourage user to create casual video or photo and send to their friends. Users don’t have to stress about having the needs to create quality video or image and do not need to worry about not receiving enough likes or views. Snapchat convinces users that it is alright to share content that is only temporarily interesting.

 

3. Facial recognition: Snapchat is one of the pioneer in video filter which users can easily used it to spice up their video or image. Snapchat facial recognition can read up to 2 faces, by doing so Snapchat encourage users to interact with their friend and through this interaction Snapchat received free publicity.

Overall Snapchat’s function is fairly simple and straightforward and I will say the design of it is well thought out, users are able to use the product without too much explanation.

 

W2

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Part 1: 

Singapore Biennale 2016: An Atlas of Mirrors

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The exhibit that I find most interesting is Growing by Hemali Bhuta. Growing is informed by the Buddhist concept of dependent co-origination: human beings are a unique species, yet form part of the larger whole that is Nature; both are subject to the same cycles of birth, growth and death. I am personally attached to this exhibit because this installation is made up of a unusual material, incense sticks and because I am a Buddhist myself I find it intriguing that someone actually used incense sticks in Art. My impression of incense in always something very holy, something I will not touch unless to worship the god or the dead. However Hemali Bhuta used incense sticks as a connection to the dead which represents death. And because the installation is made of incense sticks of different fragrances, I could smell it from far away and I was very curious where does the smell came from. This smell represented us as living beings taking most spaces.

This installation is made of Incense sticks, monofilament threads, metal weights, tape, staple pins and hooks. Hemali Bhuta is process-based artist, she loves to explore the colours, textures, sizes and smells of various objects and tools. She is also interested in the tactile qualities of vernacular everyday materials, and their potential to be transformed into aesthetically pleasing artworks that provides a new perspective to the viewer.

Project URL: https://www.singaporebiennale.org/pdf/artist-folios-pdf/Zone1_HemaliBhuta.pdf

Part 2:

In response to Kim Goodwin’s “Designing for the Digital Age”, I agree that Art and Design is different. He mentioned “design is a craft because it is neither science nor art, but somewhere in between” and Art is something personal which “expresses the inner vision of the artist” and there is no right or wrong ‘answer’ to Art, but there is bad design when the design failed to serve its purpose and it does not matter if it is about the designer or not.

This is a very interesting concept which clearly explain how is Art and Design different, it is also a very important discovery for myself as this help me to understand what I want I actually to do and clear my doubt about whether my works are good design or are they a piece of art. I also like how she mention that design can only happen when there is certain constrain , as Art is something more personal and design is about solving a problem to help the fellow human beings, animals or the environment. Therefore Cooper has came out with Goal Directed Design which I feel is a great tool of a guide to help the way designers think, so that it is more effective and faster.

Cooper’s Goal Directed Design is breakdown into 4 parts: Principles, Pattern, Process and Practices which can be apply to my thinking process in the future

Principles: Asking appropriate questions about my design.

Pattern: The vocabulary of design from research, exposing self to other’s work and through experience.

Process: The right Personas

Practices: Working with Clients, Colleagues and Engineers

This 4Ps will boost designer thinking process and minimize designing on the wrong direction.

Questions

1. Why do designers need such a long time to master the technique?

2. How to work well with the Engineers and not let them get into our way?

Illustrative Wanderlust

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This website is a personal travel blog that break away from the usual blog design. This blog aims to provide reader a better scope of what they need to know before visiting a country (how much to bring, the location of an attraction and how to travel to the attraction. Travelling information are layout with illustrations instead of text, this is so that reader can visualise better and it is more engaging.

Index Page

IntroReader will first enter the country selection page where reader can select which country they wish to find out more. Country that the blogger has visited is depicted with illustration. Upon clicking a country, reader is navigated to an introduction page of the country where blogger show a general statics of the country. This serve to provide a guide to determine whether the country is worth visiting. Reader that has decided to visit the country can learn more through the life hack and experience columns.

Blog pageThe blog style of this site is built upon a vertical timeline and a map. The timeline and the map are layout side by side for easy reference and east viewing. The map’s pins show where the blogger was at the of point posting so the blogger can point out exactly and clearly where is the attraction. The timeline allows reader to access to the location’s information and the time of the day the blogger visited the place with no trouble. The content of the blog’s post can be in the form of a quote, long text, image or trail that the blogger took (which airport or terminal blogger been to and what transportation is being used).

GalleryA gallery of pictures taken by the blogger are layout together to inspire reader on his/her next trip. The reader can find inspiration to have what for dinner, where to go and what to do. Most important it is for reader who want to travel overseas but has no idea where to go, this gallery will come in handy for these reader.

A project that shapes my life : The EA Sims series

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How it inspires me:

After playing Sims 2, I fell in love in building houses for my Sims and I realised that I have a passion in space design and as a result I decided to take Space and Interior Design in Polytechnic. While I was in Polytechnic, I learnt 3D-modelling, subsequently I started making custom content for my Sims. I started with making simple pattern to furniture and eventually clothing. After which, I wonder if I could further enhance the game play by creating mods for it and bought me here, Interactive Media in ADM.

The Sims game series have help me discover myself. It makes me wonder what kind of game I will make in the future that will be better than the Sims series.


The Sims 2 is a 2004 strategic life simulation video game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The Sims 3 (June 2, 2009) is the third major title in the life simulation video game developed by The Sims Studio and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to the best-selling computer game, The Sims 2.

Game URL: http://www.thesims3.com/