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Process Journal
1/19/2018
My initial goal to build a disco ball has failed. Could maybe try and continue but tbh disco balls have lost my attention, and i'm starting to think I could come up with a better intervention that doesn't involve trying to build a completely separate object.. augmenting the elements that are already in TANKS! will be good enough. I am having trouble conceptualizing an intervention by the way of lighting and camera. This kind of block is unusual for me, but I'm pretty sure it's because I rarely work with games, and am intimidated. Because of this I'm going to start with the first thing that comes to mind (in relation to camera angles and lighting) which is the short films of Maya Deren. I'll start by re watching some of her films. brb.
1/22/2018
Continuing to explore visual tropes of black and white cinema within TANKS! in unity. So far I've set the camera to steadily pan around the game space. ("steadily" is basically just "slowly" in Unity, there's no physical camera to shake, everything is already very still in unity). I think It would be worthwhile to try and integrate camera cuts into the game. For lighting, I found some some code to imitate campfire on the Unity forum. I've applied it to the main light and it decently imitates the flickering of old film. I still do not have a title for this game.
1/29/2018
Slow going. I think I've gotten the lighting to a nice state. Am still trying to integrate camera cuts into the game. I think having the camera cut to a close up while the tank is firing would enhance the cinematic imitation, or at least like, incite some ambiguous emotional response. (cutting close to the action right). For now I'm going to continue working on the sound, I'd like it to compliment the lighting intervention. I'm gonna start by wiping the unnecessary sounds to create a more sparse soundscape. (getting rid of the music, charging sound). Will maybe try and alter the sound samples to something a little more subtle.
- have second camera target 2 tanks when they shoot at each other (just get rid of third tank)) Slow going. I think I've gotten the lighting to a nice state. Am still trying to integrate camera cuts into the game. I think having the camera cut to a close up while the tank is firing would enhance the cinematic imitation, or at least like, incite some ambiguous emotional response. (cutting close to the action right). For now I'm going to continue working on the sound, I'd like it to compliment the lighting intervention. I'm gonna start by wiping the unnecessary sounds to create a more sparse soundscape. (getting rid of the music, charging sound). Will maybe try and alter the sound samples to something a little more subtle.
• have second camera target 2 tanks when they shoot at each other (just get rid of third tank)) For the first prototype, I started by looking at old experimental and surreal black and white films (Maya Deren, Ingmar Bergman) mainly because lighting is an unavoidably central component in black and white media. This prototype features augmentations that evoke a more cinematic look and prioritize atmosphere over gameplay. Shadows are long and pronounced, the camera pans slowly so that the viewer can absorb all the details of the scene (not a lot of detail... but more that can be seen with the steady pan). Lights flicker mimicking the aged quality of film. For the lighting and camera intervention, I plan to keep experimenting and push the film like, dreamy aspect.
Continuing from the first prototype, Tanks of the Afternoon adopts the characteristics of an old black and white film. The camera moves around the scene in a steady slow pan, allowing for a cinematic view of the game area, as if it were a scene in a movie. At the same time, there is no playable character in the game, adding to the sense of voyeurism and observational quality of the game. The user us more of an observer rather than a player. Throughout the gameplay the shadows slowly grow shorter and longer, rooting the game in a dawn-dusk time frame, and although one tank will eventually kill the other, no tanks will respawn, leaving the “winning” tank to forever wander around alone.
Feb 5th Start of sound project Would like to incorporate the idea of radio, radio transmission and signal into game. Integrate it into gameplay? maybe.
incorporate poetry? radio-news art culture propaganda storytelling.
dry summer wire hum ambient sound
DIEGETIC SOUND and EXTRA DIEGETIC
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would like to incorporate different soundscapes/radio stations and have them be diegetic win the game… just don’t know how to do that yet.
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keep preexisting sounds, but alter them to make them more subtle? or alter them to be all time warp and weird…
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something about poetry and intonation, maybe i could incorporate that into the tank movement? (FFT?? tracks something like speaking (or action equivalent to speaking?))
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maybe continue idea of propaganda… radio transmissions. Tank has to evade the propaganda AI tanks… must turn up volume of other station… Here there’s a bit of a narrative starting to form. I think having audio sources on the ai tanks could be interesting… like they have audio sources already but you know like… interesting ones. This might end up being like.. a war of sounds though. the namespace is small as it is. might be hard to incorporate THAT many sounds into the game. Will start by adding the audio sources to the other tanks and see how that looks/sounds.
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initial ideas of radio, propaganda and media transference
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radio as a tool of violence (thinking of actual violence like jonestown (isolation, only communication through radio, radio broadcast also used to mobilize people) or rwandan genocide where radio was used to persuade people tp murder their neighbors. As well as war of the worlds where although it was fiction, many people went into mass hysteria.
In the case of War of the Worlds: Finding truth, deception.
link to propaganda.
For this iteration of Tanks, I was inspired by radio transmissions and mass hysteria (and radio being used as a tool for violence- which has a strange and grim history). My iteration is more of a meandering experience with no explicit direction given to the player and no signal that they have won or lost. Using clips from the original radio broadcast of Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” several “Radio Tanks” emit soundbites of performed information (sounds of panic, aliens, scientists, and reporters). The player is no longer explicitly in a tank, and has no body, leaving the player to determine who they are in this scene, as well as setting up a binary within the game. There is the player and the “others” (The tanks). The player is encouraged to evade the sounds that berate them and seek out moments of silence, by moving away from the Radio Tanks. However, these moments of silence are always interrupted by the Radio Tanks which continually follow the player. Hopefully the game provokes players to think about the kind of information we hear, how we hear it and having to navigate seas of noise and (mis)information.
Feb 12th
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tank can only shoot in silence maybe? Must escape chaos and loudness in order to shoot. can maybe do this using microphone input? no actually absolutely not that would complicate things necessarily ugh.
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attach audio sources to the AI tanks (Have a queue and randomly select samples? seems difficult.
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get rid of shooting? objective of game is to find silence, listen to own tank thoughts (ALTHOUGH tbh in the game who knows if the player is actually a tank, camera is first person perspective.)
– want to rework an old processing game I made in 2014 where the objective was to take photos of cops commiting dirty cop acts. – Use of AI tanks, chasing patroling – commbine other aspects of game like soundscape, lighting. Lets start with lighting and the tanks. Want to create more of a city scape. – City chaotoic soundscape, audio clips of cops? Maybe the “bad” acts will be indicated through sound. Idk. Several cars will be patrolling.
Tasks: – fix shooting bug – alter pllayer tanks shooting to imitate a camera tanking photos. (probably gonna have to make a game object that flashes? Worth making an object? Or maybe a really large light that flashes when tank shoots – work on soundscape, cop car seirins, possible other city soundscape? – Maybe add other tanks, prey tanks? Random tanks rolling around? And points only accumulate when player tank shoots a photo of the cop tanks.
Refrences:
- old processing game I made in 2014. The objective of the game was to take photos of cops commining dirty cop acts. The player's objective was to click on the cops to gain points. The game was only a small prototype, and didn't reach the full potential I wish it could've filled.
- Keywords: Power dynamics, scale,
- PAC MAN: being chased? Slenderman? Limited POV. Silent Hill? Vision is obscured, creates unknown space.
player seems small chased by massive cop tanks. I like how the concept of shooting is recontextualized as a camera. the idea of taking action is (vaguely) recontextualized as something that is stationary, reserved.
Desc. in Snap! You’re Caught you are given the choice to be active or passive. The game explores the idea of power through technology and documentation. While there is no specific prompt or goal to the game, the player is able to tank photos, “shooting” the environment. Armed with a camera, the player is given the opportunity to disrupt the scene.
Sound in game. Decided to use audio cues to add clarification to the game. Combing through police audio is a very depressing and sickening activity. I really really startlingly realized that I cannot use preexisting audio of police harassing an individual. Doing so would destroy the original context, and turn it into something like entertainment, which is basically just an evil thing to do, and also tasteless. Still, listening to the clips of police violence was least research (unpleasant, cringey research). I decided that I'm going to use a text to voice simulator to create the audio dialog.*
- finished game only has one audio cue "Stop, Back up" after a photo is taken
Anecdote: On March 23 I saw 6 cops arrest one black man on mont-royal outside the SAQ. I stayed and watched a hoard of people recording the scene with their phones. I asked a few people what was going on but no one knew and he man getting arrested didn't know either, he repeatedly asked the cops why they were arresting him very loudly. It's the only information I could understand, and really distressing to hear. Later that night at a punk show one of the bands had a large banner that read "There can be no peace in a world they rule with violence." Thinking on this type of activism(?) I really wonder how this game will sit in a larger pool of art that is politically engaged. I think both my game and the banner strike me as what what I can only describe as "lazy activism." Or maybe it isn't lazy? I'm unsure of what a project like this game or a banner at a punk show actually contributes to anti-police violence. Likely very little. Or any art in general actually. Unless someone in parliament happens to stumble upon this janky game or an illegal show venue in montreal, these pieces will likely do nothing except confirm what people who see them already think (cops suck).
But I guess the message of my game isn't actually meant to convert anyone into a cop-hating anarchist, it's meant to serve as a simulation of a protest action. And taking photos is a form of protest and protection. Acting this out with a mouse and space bar? Dumb possibly. But clicking a fake camera and seeing an immediate reaction (the cop tanks freezing/stopping) is at best a pipe dream parable of reality. Which I guess is something.