Two players operate paddles to collect normal heads, and deflect toxic heads towards their fellow player! Heads become toxic by consuming money or food objects and then drain the player’s opacity on contact, but when normal they add to the player’s color, signifying a positive life influence. Toxic heads revert to their original colors after a short time, representing how we can make amends to unhealthy lifestyle choices. However, if enough toxic heads come into contact with the player, the player’s head will disappear, again representing the significant impact of the people we surround ourselves with.
Update:
This project was selected for exhibition at MCC’s mediaWorks_2018. We rebuilt the project for this event and switched all the obstacles to money to make things more cohesive. It received an overwhelmingly positive response from the crowd, and served as a large attraction that stood out due to its interactivity.
Development:
For our video mapping project, me and Lisha decided to create a game that would interact with real world objects. We went through a variety of gameplay concepts and began with platformers. Originally we were thinking of a Mario-like platformer where players would play on a rotating cube with a different part of the level on each side. From here we got into the idea of a platformer featuring an ant who was tunneling around this cube and building up a group of other ants in order to traverse greater distances:
This morphed into a Fez-like platforming game, which ended up proving to be quite a difficult design challenge.
Therefore, we went back to our core idea of interacting with real objects and found inspiration in one of the most elegant games of all time, Pong.
However, after seeing all the lecture examples of video art having social messages and deeper meanings, we sought to combine interactivity with a message we both valued.
The resulting project is Overconsumption, a game in which two players operate paddles to defend their head from toxic heads and collect non-toxic heads. Heads become toxic by consuming money or food objects and then drain the player’s opacity on contact, but when not toxic they add to the player’s color, signifying a positive life influence. Toxic heads revert to their original colors after a short time, representing how we can make amends to unhealthy lifestyle choices. However, if enough toxic heads come into contact with the player, the player’s head will disappear, again representing the significant impact of the people we surround ourselves with.
