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===== research report [x] =====

==== Project Title ====

groWorld

==== History of this phase from our perspective ====

//under construction!//

initial idea: PlantRPG

early sketch: growing a plant (July 2008)

http://tale-of-tales.com/foam/PlantRPGprototype04.swf

additional concepts: being a plant, vegetal mind, being inside a plant, inside the seed, guilds

http://lib.fo.am/tale_of_the_vegetal_meeting_notes

roots, dungeon

http://lib.fo.am/tale_of_the_plant_dungeon

casual games

http://lib.fo.am/tale_of_vegetal_time

hex

hex dressed up

dave continues inside the roots

no game
our priorities: user experience is more important than artist's message
let's make a game already
make choices: trying to make everything is a recipe for failure
our preferences: being in a plantlike mindset when playing (underground), showing off your flower as a human (above ground)
dismiss: plant guilds as anthropomorphic (too conscious, leads to too deliberate strategic gameplay: "Sim City for plants")
dismiss: first person view (plant is not a person, Dave's prototypes are confusing, idea of being a growing seed is too difficult to express)
add: a feeling of accomplishment for the player, a reason to play (showing off, making something pretty, care)

passive game idea

make a game for people?

adding missing elements: avatars, garden

==== Context ====

We, the undersigned, Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn, were invited by Foam to collaborate on the prototyping phase of a multiplayer game that is part of their groWorld project.

In our day-to-day artistic practice at Tale of Tales, we research the potential of games as a means to communicate, convey meaning, evoke emotions. We do this by creating games and releasing them to the audience. The themes we choose to work with are highly personal. But we often interpret existing stories such as fairy tales, myths, legends and religious texts. As artists, we are more interested in the diversity of meanings that players can derive from our work than in transmitting any particular message.

The groWorld project required us to work within a team set up by Foam. As such, any ideas and designs needed to be adapted to what the group was capable of and willing to do. This is an unusual way of working for us, as we generally choose our collaborators for very specific tasks within a specific project. But we understand that Foam is more interested in process than product. And as such, the project also seemed like a psychological experiment where the social interactions between the participants were as much part of the project as the actual artistic output.

At Tale of Tales, we want to awaken the beauty that lays dormant in the interactive medium. We believe the wide field of videogames carries the potential of becoming the greatest art form since oil-on-canvas, overshadowing any success of cinema in the previous century, as Western culture's cultural centre. We believe the interactive format is superbly suitable for addressing the complexity of our post-historic societies.

We believe that Foam shares a lot of these sensitivities. But they add to this a social/political agenda. They seem to be interested in directly affecting changes in society, while our own work takes the long way round by influencing the feelings of individuals.

Foam is strongly interested in open source software. We are indifferent. We consider computer technology to be extremely primitive and we will try to use any tool that seems more suitable to get the job done. We don't like capitalism either but we don't mind paying for software or having no access to its source. If it's designed well, we appreciate it.

Since the confrontation with an audience is so important for us, distribution of our work is a vital component of our practice. We offer our games as downloadable packages via the internet. But we also actively engage the commercial games industry by selling our games, on popular gaming platforms for instance. We do this in part because we want to create a relative independence from government funding, by earning our own money, and because we hope to establish in a "punk economy" where suppliers and consumers simply work together without the need for middle men like museums, galleries, publishers or supermarkets. We also sell our work to force the games press to take it seriously. This way we hope to influence the attitudes in the gaming audience and other game developers.

The commercial exploitation of the groWorld game has always been an option, but not a necessity. We can live with that. We think it is good to offer artisanally made software for sale to an audience next to the consumer goods, so they can really think about the difference. But we have also been known to just give things away for free. It feels nice.

The field of inquiry for this project, for us, is the research into the evocative potential of interactive media. How can a technological artefact help a person think, experience an emotion, generate ideas, connect to other players? Specifically emotions and ideas that are not generally focussed on in interactive entertainment. As such, the work shares some affinity with the games created by thatgamescompany, Ice-Pick Lodge to some of the artistic software created by artists such as Lia.

==== Problem/Aim ====

The idea was to create a prototype for a multiplayer game in which everyone plays a plant. This is at once a humorous plan that parodies traditional MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) as a serious attempt to evoke emotion and stimulate thinking. The groWorld game wants to make the player feel as if they were a plant, and to somehow connect to other players in that state.

Games can be used to allow people to experience another reality.
Next to the amusement caused by the whimsical nature of the absurd idea of playing a plant, we were hoping to create a meditation tool of sorts that allows people to discover and consider the ways in which plants live, grow and co-exist as inspirational for the ways in which humans might improve their own existence on this planet and co-existence with it and each other (and with plants).

The idea was to create a single multiplayer prototype that could be released to the public to further inspire the design.

==== Methods ====

The problem was mostly defined in physical meetings where we discussed the themes of the project, the design of the game and the technology we were going to use. In a second phase, texts, drawings and software were produced by individuals or small groups. During this phase, work results were shared and discussed among the larger group -mostly via a mailing list. One person's work often influenced another person's. There was a strong desire to come to a certain common idea. Towards the end of the project, the individuals and small groups focussed more on their own work, in order to produce things that could be presented to an audience.

The subject matter of groWorld is vast and complex. The people who make up the production team are strong-willed individuals with diverse skills and talents. Demonstrating our ideas about the project in actual texts, drawing and software seemed more efficient than trying to explain things and discuss them.

==== Solution/Results ====

The outcome consists of texts, drawings and several software applications, created by different members.
Our concrete contribution consists of three computer programs: a 2D root growing game, a 3D avatar demonstration and a 3D garden exploration.

==== Discussion ====

We did not succeed in making a single prototype that could be tested on an audience.
Instead we created numerous smaller prototypes that can inspire further design.

The main reason for not achieving the desired result, in our opinion, was the lack of a singular vision and goal. And also the lack of desire to actually produce something, that is inherent to Foam's focus on process rather than product.

There were too many voices and too much democracy to get to a single result. The project needs a dictator and it needs focus.
Foam may lack the experience or even willingness to produce an actual product.

In our experience, making games independently means reducing their design to the bare minimum. Foam's "expansive" philosophy does not seem compatible with this necessity. Which is a typical beginner's mistake that perhaps Foam needs to make as well (just as we have in Tale of Tales: the first game design of any development studio is always to big to execute).

A team of interesting individuals was assembled for this project. These people were then encouraged to figure out how to make something together.

A better approach, in our opinion, is to first establish a solid core idea and then choose a team members for specific tasks. Of course, the person who establishes the idea needs to be experienced in the relevant fields (games technology and interaction design).

The drawings and prototypes are very interesting and inspiring. The next step is to evaluate them with the purpose of using them to help decide what we don't want in the game. This may require removing some elements that we are all very fond of but that may be too complex to develop (or to hard to achieve a consensus about regarding execution). The end result of this process should be an extremely concise game design that is simply wonderful and beautiful in and of itself. This design needs to be executed. Then, based on that execution, perhaps the previously removed elements can be added. But probably not, since, in our experience, such a prototype tends to inspire new things.

For this plan to work, a single person (or tight small group) needs to get the authority of final say in any design decisions. It is best if this person is also the experience vision holder mentioned above. The other members of the team need to accept this person's leadership and agree to work towards that singular vision.

==== Prototypes and screenshots ====

http://Tale-of-Tales.com/temp/groWorld_ToT.zip

==== References ====

http://www.gamerz.net/pbmserv/hexbo.html

http://astriddahl.co.za

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